Tobias Fox watches a grey cat slink behind a raised garden bed. In a blink, the furry feline nearly pounces on a squirrel digging through garlic cloves.

“It’s like the nature channel,” Fox says with a laugh. “The cats keep us rodent-free.”

Situated next to an abandoned home and in the shadow of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Fox’s urban farm has transformed a once-vacant lot into a space where cucumbers latch to chain-link fences, mint grows wild and all kinds of veggies spring from elevated plant beds.

In 2012, when Fox first started farming in Newark, the land was a drug den, overgrown with weeds and a dead dog. Over time, he transformed the 6,000 square-foot plot into the “People’s Garden," growing squash, eggplant, Swiss chard, zucchini and a variety of herbs.

It wasn’t easy. He installed a cistern to capture rainwater off the property next door. Then the house caught fire. And he learned the hard way he couldn’t create a compost bin without attracting the city’s rodents and groundhogs from Branch Brook Park.

Now, Fox composts inside the plant beds instead.

“We had to start adapting to the environment that we’re in,” Fox, founder of the Newark Community Food System, said. “You work with what you have and you create creative ways to produce food.”

Across the city and county, urban farming is catching on, transforming alleyways, backyards and vacant lots in a city with more than 2,000 such properties. Networks of farmers are increasingly organized and finding new ways to distribute their products to a community often lacking access to fresh produce. That includes farmer’s markets that accept food stamps; delivering food on bikes and citywide garden tours. Others deliver farm to table goods free to their neighbors.

The West Kinney Community Garden on West Kinney Street in Newark, NJ run by Barbara Weiland. 11/21/2019Steve Hockstein | For NJ Advance Media

“That myth that food has to be expensive and good food has to be very expensive, we are debunking that,” said Emilio Panasci, co-founder of the Urban Agriculture Cooperative. "We’re much more of a network of community growers than we were before and we’re much more capable of making a serious impact.”

But challenges remain. Local growers say access to water and electricity is difficult and most farmers lease their land from Newark’s adopt-a-lot program. The program lets people rent vacant, city-owned lots for $1. They have to renew the lease every year, though, which doesn’t incentivize long-term investment.

“Very few of us have land that we feel we can really call home,” Panasci, 37, said.

Newark’s sustainability office is finding ways to support urban farming and healthy food access. Officials estimate there are about 100 farmers in Newark. This year, Newark rolled out a Love Your Block grant program, awarding $10,000 this year to residents wanting to beautify their neighborhoods.

Charmaine La Fortune, who has lived in Newark since 2005 and runs the Giving 1/10th garden in the South Ward, says everybody needs to contribute to make their community better.

“Small change has big impact,” she said, adding that crime in her neighborhood has decreased since she opened her garden in 2015. “No matter which neighborhood you live in, everybody wants to see a change and positive outcome.”

The Hawthorne Avenue Farm run by the Greater Newark Conservancy on Hawthorne Avenue in Newark, NJ. 11/21/2019Steve Hockstein | For NJ Advance

Growing a food economy

Fox drives along Fairmont Avenue where boarded-up homes and empty lots dot the area. When he first thought about opening his second garden in the Central Ward, he was nervous about drug activity in the area.

As he walked around a corner lot overgrown with weeds, a group of young children next door began lining up for their daily walk.

“I’m like, wait a minute, they’re walking around this block and there’s nothing for them to really be proud of,” Fox remembers thinking. “At that point, I said, ‘I gotta do this, I’m doing a garden.' That’s what made me stay.”

Fox’s second garden, a “Garden of Hope” opened in 2015. Next year it will get a major facelift thanks to state funding. Renderings of the new garden show new fencing, a greenhouse, a small office space, a pebble walkway and new trees.

A rendering of Tobias Fox's Garden of Hope that will get a significant makeover next year that includes new fencing, trees and planters as part of a state program.

Fox says he hopes the project can reframe urban farming as entrepreneurial and good for the local economy. Already, other larger farming projects have started to push in that direction.

In 2016, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center opened its hydroponic Beth Greenhouse and continues to sell produce at affordable rates at an indoor farmer’s market. AeroFarms also opened a 69,000 square foot vertical farm -- the largest in the world -- inside a converted steel factory in Newark. The Greater Newark Conservancy runs a massive farm on Hawthorne Avenue, renting planter beds to interested residents.

“When you think about urban agriculture, they don’t think about it as community development or economic development," Fox said. He envisions a future with a “green-collar" job industry, where residents with a variety of skills in art, architecture or agriculture work in sustainability.

Dena Corbin, who gardened with her students before she retired as a special education teacher from Newark public schools, said it’s important to get children involved in planting and gardening. It helps connect them with their environment.

“When they see what their hands have grown, it’s like a light bulb has gone off,” she said. “When they can grow it and eat it and take it home and share it with their family, that’s even bigger.”

Corbin said she’s trying to continue her plant-based curriculum through her organization Natural Ground 1 to connect kids to the environment.

“It’s getting that connection back that kids are missing, and they don’t have to miss out just because they are in an urban setting,” she said.

Local growers said getting the community to buy in has been a slow process but they’re increasingly finding new ways to engage.

Panasci said this year, the farmer’s market he runs in East Orange accepted food stamps and other food vouchers.

“We’ve been able to leverage more funding, get more publicity about what’s happening and we’ve been able to mentor other people and get them into the movement,” he said. “We’re much more capable of making a serious impact because we’re generally united.”

Andrew Taurosa from the Urban League's Mature Workers Program toils away in the garden at the Newark Community Food System's urban farm on Garside Street in Newark, NJ. 11/21/2019Steve Hockstein | For NJ Advance

This article is part of “Unknown New Jersey,” an ongoing series that highlights interesting and little-known stories about our past, present, and future -- all the unusual things that make our great state what it is. Got a story to pitch? Email it to local@njadvancemedia.com.

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Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.

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