Kerry Kelly lives in the belt's Hoover section of Pittsburgh, just the other side of the Liberty Tubes, across the alley behind her house where the old rat infested garbage dump used to be.

She and her neighbor, Essie Spruill, are having the time of their lives in their garden.

You'd never guess that Kerry is engaged in a very serious business of keeping her family well fed.

Due to the cost of living now, it just seemed to me it would be impossible to get along and eat with, plenty of fresh vegetables, which we all love.

And then my husband is, he's one the diet type, and he loves vegetables.

And hes diet focus more to vegetables.

And that's one of the reasons, too, that I'm trying to grow as much as possible.

I started as a hobby and to be helpful, but right now it's on the must list.

Its hard work, of course.

But, if you consider the purpose to you're doing it for well, then it's a pleasure.

Kind of takes a grudge out of work, but I it really is on the must list that, I grow, garden and grow vegetables because otherwise, on low budget just couldn't make it.

No, no, Boswell would love to go.

the more sand, the larger the potatoes.

It's only in the last couple of years that gardening became a budgetary necessity for Kerry.

Many years before that, she garden strictly for the pleasure.

Even though circumstances have changed now, the satisfactions are still the same.

To cover the clay spots.

Well, I say, it's something kinda grown.

Really, I think too, it gets in your blood.

You watch it closely as it's come up and you visited every day.

It's just something about you.

You got to go and take a look, and, you can just almost see it growing.

And immediately you start cultivating, start feeding, fertilizing, and and pretty soon, before you know it, you can gather.

It's more than the gathering it for the use of it.

It's just what you get out of, growing it.

You know, and seeing it grow.

And gathering, it is it's really overwhelming.

For Bill and Darlene Mitchell, their plot of county leased land out near the airport is not so much a source of food as it is a source of fun.

They've just bought a freezer for their apartment, so they're counting on a good harvest.

But the food is only incidental to the other benefits fresh air, exercise, and time spent together.

It's getting tight all over for everybody.

And then.

And I'm a student.

My wife's a nurse.

And, so it's it's tough for us to make it.

It's tough for everybody.

But, you know, as you're trying, we like the fun.

It's really mostly just fun.

Yeah.

It's funny, you asked me if we could because of the money.

I don't really think we did, because I'm sure.

But it's going to cost us more to drive here every day than, it would to buy all the vegetables.

Were city folks from Butler originally.

And now we live in Moon Township.

We still like it.

You know, maybe the city is the thing that makes you want to do it.

You want to get out and get away from the pollution, get away from the traffic.

And all we have here to look at is birds and airplanes.

We like the ground.

We like to get out in the fresh air, and we like to be together.

And this gives us a chance to do all of that.

Of all the gardens in the area, though, the most unusual and ambitious drive is taking place here on a rocky, garbage strewn hillside hidden from view in the middle of a hill district.

Nine kids, most not even yet teenagers, are terracing this slope into a productive garden.

Let's start on that plot house right there.

Okay, you know, let's use whatever we can that's that's already there and try to improve that.

But it's not the food.

They're really after, nor is it the fresh air.

For them, it's a whole different story, though, not an unfamiliar one.

Trying to fight boredom.

And it starts with a clubhouse.

Neighbor Toni Gunter explains.

They built a three story apartment, building out of all doors, and I think it took about 26 doors to build this.

They started one day, and they grew up to three stories and so much energy and so much, technical skills went into building this apartment its fascinating.

Every time I looked out my kitchen window, I would see that one more floor was added.

And I just watched it, and I knew that it wasn't gonna last.

And sure enough, one of the fathers decided that this was too much and that, they had to tear down.

And after they tore down, I thought maybe they could take all this energy and put it into building a garden.

And I asked Joe, would he be interested in building a terrace garden?

Yes.

And I said, well, would you deal with this hillside?

And he looked at it and studied it, and with, knowledge of eyes was about 190 years.

He said, Mrs.

Gunter, we can do it.

Says all we have to do is get the tools and the knowhow, and we can make a terrace garden.

First, You know, I know, but then I got the, deal.

Come down, you know, be around here, you know, and people be throwing rubbish and down.

They would threw it on my yard, you know, not just.

That'd be nice if we build another one.

And plus, it would be fun.

Keep keep us out of trouble.

But.

Mr.. Oh, it's right there.

What do you think?

Where would you want to build a garden?

Well, he asked me, did I want to build one and I said, well, it ain't too much around here to do.

So I said, yeah, I help you get some more of our friends to help too.

Okay.

Try not to let any of this dirt roll down the hill.

Its so close to me, okay.

Hear.

There you go.

Gunter came in to see me and said she had a bunch of kids in the neighborhood who really wanted to make a garden, and they brought in this plan.

And we looked up the lot and we drew out a certificate of waiver.

Oops.

And put it in Mrs.

Gunter's name.

And she asked me if I would come out to help these kids, because obviously they're all first time gardeners.

And I said that I would.

Now, these beans, we want to make about two inches apart and we want to bury them about an inch deep.

No more than that.

Or they'll have trouble getting up.

That's, Yeah.

You okay?

Right.

That's all.

Take a bean.

It's a challenge.

It's really a. Yeah.

You see, now these rocks up it, and you see how hard it is to get a bean.

But they get bean again.

You can see how busy they are.

Now, I, I don't think there's just a newness.

This is going to happen now that they got everything you know and to tomorrow it's going to be gone.

No, they're going to prove themselves to me, to the community as young people.

They can do it.

This is real and this is very important.

What do you want?

Right here.

Yeah.

that's good.