Looking North on the Connecticut River. Why are cities located on rivers? What do we use rivers for? What are ways we affect the water around us? How can we limit our impact on the river? Some [cities] are located on the river for water supply or sometimes the houses are located near the because they probably wanted to live there to see the sights. Some people use the river to swim or to go canoeing. Sometimes they have the river to drink or to just to look at. Some reasons the water is effected is by humans when we litter the trash might go into the water and it gets polluted. The water that we pollute [might be] what we drink. We can limit are impact on the river by not to littering and stop letting the waste go into the river.- By : Precious Hairston AKA NAOMI

Kevin Estella talks about the history of the Park River. The park river also is called the hog river because back then there used to be pigs living in the river. It effects the river by the water was getting polluted by the pigs manure. It was getting directed the city because at river used to cause floods so they had to do something with it so they build a tunnel and the water runs through there. I think that it was a good idea to put the river underground because it helps it not flood. I think it can be used if it wasn't underground by catching fish and using to start a fish restaurant. BY: Rodney FernandezA.K.A.Hazel Their used to be a river called a Hog river. The river was named that because back then in the 1800's there one said pigs use to live there. It affected the river because back then it use to flood a lot and they did not have the technology back then to fix it. The park river was directed through a tunnel in the city because of the war and floods including pollution. I think it would be good to for the city if [the river were useable] today. -Javier

Graffiti in the Park River tunnel. 

Hartford Courant article and updates to come..

You can learn more about GROW Hartford by tuning in to Crossroads Magazine on Monday, August 9 at 10:30 am on WB television Channel 20. This article was published in today's Hartford Courant: Students Learn About Food By Growing It: Agriculture Lessons In An Urban Setting August 8, 2004 By ANDRE BOWSER, Courant Staff Writer In the shadows of an I-84 underpass in Hartford, a handful of teenagers have found a spot in the sun as part of a program that teaches them to grow things in unlikely places. Grow Hartford, which is in its first year, grew out of a similar program on Holcomb Farm in Granby that teaches Hartford teenagers about agriculture in a rural setting. But with dirty hands and ivory smiles, these city teenagers plant neat rows of vegetables while highway traffic whizzes by high above. Daisy Huertas, 18, a student at Hartford Adult Education, said working the land is serious business, serious enough to sell the vegetables at Saturday farmers' markets on the acre of farmland at 75 Laurel St."We have a saying around here," she said. "You don't walk on your bed at home with your shoes, so don't walk on the beds of vegetables here." Grow Hartford runs its farmer's market on Saturdays, offering various organically grown vegetables from 9 a.m. to noon. But the work of planting, harvesting and washing vegetables, which gives about 10 Hartford teenagers more than their share of things to do, is done during the week.Stepping lively last week through rows of vegetables ripe for picking was Jerica Sandiford, a 16-year-old Bulkeley High School student interested in becoming an agricultural scientist or veterinarian, "because you've got to have a backup.""The squash is ready for sale," Sandiford said, pointing to a green, mangled vine with wilted tulip-like flowers on the bright yellow cash crop."When the flower dies on a squash plant it's ready to be picked," he saidThe eggplants were also ready; so were the beans, patty squash, snap peas, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes and onions."Onions are three for $1," Sandiford said. "Big ones."At the first farmer's market, last month, most of the fresh produce sold quickly. "The onions sold out," said Huertas, who admitted she was more interested in the business side of the program, where participants learn to manage a farm and sell the produce. "Sometimes it just gets so muggy and hot - and the bugs!"But Huertas understands the program is not just a summer job that pays $7.35 an hour, but a symbol in a community where very little produce is grown and sold on site. The Underwood Apartments, a convalescent home and assisted living complex, is the closest neighbor to the Grow Hartford site. Residents of the building, most of them elderly, drop by and say hello during the week - and on Saturdays they stop by and buy vegetables."They like to see us out here gardening," Sandiford said. "Some of the people from the apartment building are unable to garden."Sandiford, who also has taken classes at Harris Agriscience & Technology Center in Bloomfield for the past two years, said the program focuses on five basic elements of planting and harvesting: soil management, water management, pest management, labor management and plant diversity. Across from a row of rainbow chard ready to be harvested, a mound of dirt and mulch is held together by chicken wire, and camouflaged by sunflowers."We're growing potatoes in the mounds next to the cut flowers, and there are beans over there. We planted the flowers all around for beauty," Sandiford said as she explained that the mounds were better than digging the potatoes out of the ground. "It's an easier method to grow them and harvest them."The program runs from April to October - the planting and harvesting season in the Northeast. It is supported by the Hartford Food System, and operates on city land that is run by the Knox Parks Foundation, both not-for-profit organizations in support of agriculture and land. Jack Hale, the executive director of the Knox Parks Foundation, said the city land had been unused before Grow Hartford asked about it a couple months ago."It was a great way to turn it into something productive and at the same time teach kids about gardening," he said. The lessons on farming, which the teens are required to record in journals each work day, are available for viewing at the following online blog website:www.growhartford.blogspot.com. Jonathan Perez, 18, who attends Prince Technical High School, said his older brother worked at the Granby farm for two years."He told me about the program and said that I should do it too," said Perez, who is spared the 80-minute, round-trip commute his brother had to face each way. Program Director Laura Brown said the Holcomb site is still very much alive."Grow Hartford really came out of Holcomb Farm; some of our participants are interested in getting away from the city," she said. "We wanted to connect the program to youth and the neighborhoods where the kids come from and the only way to do that is to farm in the city."

Bed raising

Wednesday August 4, 2004 Today Donna, Theresa, Precious, Jazzmine and Allen were raising beds. Which means we had to shovel the pathways and put the dirt from there onto the beds. -Jazzmine a.k.a. Pookie

A new volunteer at GROW

Hi, My name is Allen. I am a new member of the Grow Hartford program. The first two days were a little bit hard for me but I like it so far. In the past two days we planted, weeded and also raised beds. This was new to me because I haven’t explored this field before. -Allen Rosa

Mt Trip to the MDC (Wastewater treatment plant)

When this picture was taken grow hartford was at the mdc (municipal wastewater treatment plant.) When the waste water leaves your home it goes to the the mdc and then goes through a process. -Theresa.V.