12/6/2023 0 Comments Square up log inOver the years, Fenway Farms has experienced some “growing pains,” Abell adds, mainly around quantity. “We kind of leave it on its own and don’t manipulate it too much … we just let it shine for what it is.” “A lot of the product that we use from the farm, we keep it simple,” Abell says. Here, executive sous chef Danielle Morgan prepares a fresh salad using ingredients harvested from the farm. The produce grown at Fenway Farms stays as local as it gets - used in the kitchens at the baseball stadium to serve fans. There are three main growing seasons (spring, with radishes, baby lettuces, and strawberries summer, with heirloom squash, zucchinis, tomatoes, and peppers and fall – his favorite season, because it hopefully means the Red Sox are in the playoffs, he adds), and offerings on the menu for the ballpark restaurants, luxury boxes and concession stands adapt as the year goes on. When it comes to freshness, you can’t beat it, because it doesn’t even have to load onto a truck, says Abell, the senior executive chef at Fenway Park, where he’s worked for 17 years. Just down the walkway running parallel to the farm, Chef Ron Abell and his staff across multiple restaurants and concessions at Fenway use the fruits, vegetables and herbs in dishes served at the ballpark. Meanwhile, a highly efficient irrigation system, Grallert says, runs through each row of planters into every individual milk crate, ensuring “a precise amount of water for the kind of plants we’re growing.”Īll that produce doesn’t have to travel far. The farm is all organic, without harsh chemicals instead, white mesh cloths are draped over some fruit and vegetable beds to keep pests at bay. Read more: Why we should build cities that are kind to nature To maximize the yield with the available space, the team avoids planting larger crops such as sweet corn, pumpkins, or watermelon, he adds. “We can produce anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 pounds of fresh produce a year, depending on what we’re growing,” Grallert says. Once the peppers are harvested, for example, another fall crop will be planted in their place. In late August, near the end of the summer season, the farm was flush with eggplant, cherry tomatoes, carrots, onions, multiple varieties of peppers, beets, greens such as kale and arugula, and herbs like basil. Bob Crowley/CNNĪs a seasonal garden, farmers start prepping at Fenway in March and can go as long as December, depending on the weather. “Having a rooftop farm at Fenway Park is an amazing way to be a part of reinvigorating a local food production system.”Ĭhris Grallert, president of Green City Growers, has been a farmer and Red Sox fan all his life. And all the communities around Boston had local markets and local gardens,” Grallert says. In 1920, this area ranked fifth in the nation for values of crops or fruits and vegetables. With 2,400 total square feet of growing space, the beds can cultivate anything from A to Z – “asparagus to zucchini,” says Chris Grallert, president of Green City Growers, and a local farmer who grew up going to Red Sox games as a kid. On any given day, farmers from Green City Growers plant harvest and maintain the roughly 5,000-square-foot rooftop garden area called Fenway Farms, tucked up on the third floor behind the third baseline. Spanning a section of what was once an empty black rubber roof, a farm is making Fenway green in a completely different way. The ballpark and its famed wall are painted in a unique shade of green that was even offered to the public by US paint company Benjamin Moore.īut perhaps surprising to most is another green aspect of the iconic baseball venue. It’s hard not to associate the two, considering the “Green Monster,” the stadium’s massive outfield wall that has towered over the field since it opened in 1912. Though home to the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park is known for being green.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |