Growing Home participants are provided free demolition services from the Louisiana Land Trust if they so desire or they can renovate the home on their own. The purchasers earn credits for projects like building a fence, planting trees, planting native species, installing rain barrels or rain gardens, using permeable surfaces rather than regular poured concrete, creating raised planting beds, growing kitchen gardens, constructing composting bins, or building small structures like gazebos and sheds. The Penns fixed up the house next door (shown here), added a fence, and planted a front garden of marigolds, hibiscus, and dusty millers (after excavating through layers of dirt and concrete) and hope to soon rent it out for additional income. Photo 2 of 8 in Growing Home New Orleans by Miyoko Ohtake

Growing Home New Orleans

2 of 8

Growing Home participants are provided free demolition services from the Louisiana Land Trust if they so desire or they can renovate the home on their own. The purchasers earn credits for projects like building a fence, planting trees, planting native species, installing rain barrels or rain gardens, using permeable surfaces rather than regular poured concrete, creating raised planting beds, growing kitchen gardens, constructing composting bins, or building small structures like gazebos and sheds. The Penns fixed up the house next door (shown here), added a fence, and planted a front garden of marigolds, hibiscus, and dusty millers (after excavating through layers of dirt and concrete) and hope to soon rent it out for additional income.