Farmer in the big city -- Atlanta

Metro Atlanta

Farmer in the big city -- Atlanta

Brian "Red" Harrison owns the city' of Atlanta's only property that, on tax rolls, is considered a farm.

Brian "Red" Harrison owns the city of Atlanta's only property that, on tax rolls, is considered a farm.

Harrison hated the thought of selling five acres he'd so carefully pieced together behind his Ormewood Park home. But the taxes were killing him.

Then, eight years ago, Harrison had a seemingly crazy idea, one that would slash his taxes and allow him to keep the cherished green space.

He would become a farmer. In Atlanta. Harrison farms some himself, leases other pieces to organic growers and opens up the rest to neighbors. It's like an unofficial park, where folks can picnic, walk their dog or learn how to grow vegetables.

Harrison plowed new ground in winning a legal dispute with Fulton County and securing a tax break meant to protect farms in the path of development.

Now Harrison and concerned neighbors find themselves embroiled in a new version of an old saga. They're trying to save the farm -- with a skyscraper view.

Mary Lovell helps her three-year-old granddaughter, Emma, Lovell pick pole beans along their plot of the farm's land.

Ken and Mary Lovell moved to Atlanta from Alabama three years ago and began scouring the area around their Grant Park home for a place to grow black-eyed peas, corn and heirloom rattlesnake green beans. At first they found nothing. "Then God sent Red," Mary Lovell says.

Ten-month-old Julia Lovell goes along for the ride as her mother, Ai Lovell, and her aunt, Karin Lovell (left), pick beans.

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Brian "Red" Harrison owns the city of Atlanta's only property that, on tax rolls, is considered a farm.

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