At Eastie Farm, our means of growing may look different than farms on hundreds of acres of land. Since we are an urban farm, we think creatively and sustainably to produce hundreds of pounds of food each year in the heart of East Boston.
Container Farms
Our most recent development in farming is our two container farms at the 6 Chelsea Terrace site. These farms were designed out of reused shipping containers; one container houses a hydroponic farm while the other is used to grow mushrooms! To further maximize our growing space, the mushroom farm is stacked on top of the hydroponic farm at a very exciting “Freight Stacking party” in early 2025. They feature a beautiful mural sharing Eastie Farm’s story, painted by artist Felipe Ortiz in partnership with HarborArts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the East Boston Foundation.
Our hydroponic farm was purchased from the company Freight Farms (now Growcer) in early 2024 and became fully operational in January of 2025. The hydroponic farm grows a variety of vegetables, including radishes, parsley, and lettuce. Despite only being 320 square feet, it produces as much food as 2.5 acres of farmland!
Our mushroom farm is a newer addition! It was retrofitted by our friends at Fungi Ally out of a shipping container used when we were originally constructing our geothermal greenhouse. The farm became operational for mushroom growing in the summer of 2025, with support from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. We are currently growing shiitake, chestnut, lion’s mane, and oyster mushrooms. In just one cycle (lasting around 1-2 weeks), our farm has the capacity to produce 300 pounds of mushrooms!
Raised Beds
Our Living Lands team supports raised beds at all three of our Eastie Farm main sites. Due to the high levels of lead and other pollutants in East Boston’s soil, we carefully constructed our raised beds to be safe, healthy places for food to grow using curated soil mixtures. Growing anything and everything from bok choy to snappeas, our raised beds serve as a symbol of resilience: growing nutritious produce can be done anywhere! The foods grown in our raised beds are often enjoyed at volunteer work parties, given out for free to harvesting helpers, snacked on by community members passing by, or distributed as a part of our CSA program.
Greenhouse Growing
Our geothermal-powered greenhouse allows us to nurture plants year-round – even in the freezing Boston winters! Our greenhouse supports our annual seedling sale, hosting hundreds of baby plants that eventually are sold in the spring to help other community members grow in their own homes and gardens.
