Plants Internship

Dear Professor Ellmore:

I graduated from Tufts University in 1995 and took your Plants and Humanity class.  My interest in plants has now become a profession. I am the co-owner of an urban farm in Hyde Park, a section of the city of Boston.

In 2019 we began construction of our 4600 square foot glass greenhouse and urban farm in the City of Boston. No sooner did we finish construction of the greenhouse than a developer proposed to the City of Boston’s Zoning Board of Appeals his project to knock down a small single family and replace it with three 37 foot tall single family houses right next to our farm. We are extremely frustrated as the Developer needed variances for this project and the City did not have to grant them to him, but they did. We filed on November 10th in Suffolk Superior court a lawsuit.

We acquired the land upon which the farm sits from the City at an extremely low price. We have received over $800,000 in grants from the USDA, Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, the State and the City of Boston. So on the one hand the City supports us and another it does not.

We hired a consultant to complete a shadow study. The study showed that the houses would cast between 3 and 8 hours of shadows on the farm a day depending on the season.

We are in need of an expert witness to prove that the shadows will affect our plant growth and affect the ability of the solar panels that are mounted on our roof to generate energy. The Expert would need to give a written report and spend about half a day in court.

Would you please possibly be interested in being that person? We would compensate you for your time. If not, do you please possibly know someone?

If a class or intern wants to work on quantifying how the loss of sunlight will affect our plant growth, we would be excited to work with them. We currently have three Northeastern University interns and last year Emma Brown, a Tufts student and now graduate, worked at our farm. My partner, Tim and I were both former Boston Public School teachers.

Here is our website and below are some photos of our farm.

www.wegrowmicrogreens.com

Thanks,

Lisa Evans

617 792 5424