Flower farmer adds beauty to once vacant lot in east Baltimore
WMAR ABC2 News
Andrea Boston
August 29, 2016
For Walker Marsh, the sunflowers bursting from the half-acre plot at 1400 N. Gay Street are budding symbols of freedom and economic growth.
Marsh, a 28-year-old farmer, turned the once vacant lot into Tha Flower Factory, a flower farm located in the middle of a busy intersection in the Broadway East neighborhood. His vision was brought to life thanks to a $63,800 grant from the city.
On any given day, Marsh can be found weeding, watering and tending to his rows of flower blossoms, yet farming wasn’t always his passion.
After graduating from Milford Mill High School and short stint at Virginia State University, Marsh bounced around jobs before landing a gig at the Real Food Farm as a Civic Works AmeriCorps member. He reluctantly accepted the agriculture assignment however, believing that, “like other black youth, I thought [farming] was some slave type work,” but came to discover a satisfaction in working with the earth.
“My first experiences being around the plants and weeding, putting my hands in the dirt, there was just something grounding about it,” he said. “It was a calmness I’d never felt before and I was like man, I want to keep doing this because it just made me feel good.”
The farm opened for business selling cut flowers on Aug. 13 after more than a year of planning and preparing the ground for seeding. Marsh won funding to start the farm through the 2014 Growing Green Design Competition, which awards initiatives that transform vacant lots in the city. His flower farm is backed by entities including Civic Works, the Baltimore City Office of Sustainability and the Chesapeake Bay Trust, and has been praised for its ingenuity by city officials and neighbors alike.
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