Trains Grow Salad

#11. Trains Grow Salad

Nance Klehm, Foraging Montréal, 2009 photo: CCA

Urban vegetation

Train tracks can be wild corridors where plants grow because they are in the heart of the industrialized city: trains move long distances and generate strong local winds, carrying along pollen and seeds; animals also use train tracks for movement. The alleys of train movement can be highly biodiverse and full of rare and useful plant life if they are not sprayed with herbicides or mowed frequently. Nance Klehm is an artist and forager based in Chicago, where she frequents train tracks in the Kinzie industrial corridor, among many other urban sites, to forage for food and medicinal plants.


Nance Klehm

Location: Chicago, USA, since 1993

Tools: None