Community gardens have become an effective and popular way to increase the variety of nutritional
foods in food deserts, especially inner-city food deserts. Community gardens in the city of Philadelphia
have been experiencing problems with disease and pests, especially for the tomato plants. The tomato
plants would mature until harvest time, and then experience problems when the tomato plants were
stressed by the hottest part of summer. The heat of the summer is magnified by the urban heat island
effect. One solution is to grow tomato varieties with short growing periods. In order for this to be
effective, an accurate prediction of the last frost in the spring and the first frost in the fall is required.
This project looks at using historical data and the Weather research and Forecasting (WRF) Model to
predict the seasonal frosts.
