Operations Director at Higher Ground Farm Lindsay Allen will be giving a talk on urban gardening at the Somerville Central Library on Thursday, January 24. — Photo courtesy of Higher Ground Farm

By Jared Kimler

The Somerville Central Library will be hosting urban farmer Lindsay Allen for a talk on urban gardening on Thursday, January 24 at 6:00 p.m. Allen is Operations Director at Higher Ground Farm and manages Boston Medical Center’s (BMC) rooftop farm. This is the kickoff event for the library’s Food for Thought initiative.

This fall, the Somerville Public Library was awarded a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act to implement Food for Thought. This initiative provides public access to gardening and cooking events hosted at the library. Allen’s January 24 talk is the first event for this program.

Allen, a Somerville resident, farmed for nine years on a traditional farm before starting at BMC’s rooftop farm two years ago. In the 2018 season, the farm yielded around 5,700 lbs. of produce. These vegetables are distributed at the in-hospital farmer’s market, food pantry, teaching kitchen and cafeteria for patient meals. She will share her experience and offer gardening tips at the talk. “The winter time is a good time to get people inspired to grow and think about food,” Allen said in an interview with The Somerville Times.

Lilly Sundell-Thomas is the librarian at the Somerville Public Library who is largely responsible for the Food for Thought initiative. She spoke to Allen’s innovation as an urban farmer and style of growing. “The BMC rooftop garden is primarily container based and that’s something we’d love Somerville people to learn more about,” Sundell-Thomas said.

“We learned that the community gardens had a really long waitlist,” Sundell-Thomas said. “We knew there was a lot of interest in community gardening and urban gardening and we wanted to create a space for people to get a taste of that.”

The next event in the series will be a garden day in April or May. The Somerville based urban garden service Green City Growers will install teaching gardens at the Somerville Central Library. After that there will be a series of gardening and cooking classes for adults and children. To learn more about these programs, visit the Somerville Public Library’s website.