Severio Strati's 300-by-30-foot garden boasts grids of peppers, garlic and eggplant, with 130 tomato plants. There's a grape arbor, peach trees and a few figs that survived winter. "I cover good. That's why I didn't lose them," he says.

For 60 years, the Hazelwood resident — who spent most of his working life in J&L Steel's warehouse division — has gardened beneath a power line, alongside what's now the huge empty site of the former LTV Coke Works. Strati, 84, grew up in Reggia-Calabria during World War II — when "if you don't grow something, you don't eat" — and came to the U.S. in 1954.

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Source: http://www.pghcitypaper.com