Over the past couple of years I have interviewed community gardeners and community gardening activists and discussed with them the early days of the modern community gardening movement in New York City. The time period stretches from the late 1970's to the early 2000's. I turned these interviews into a total of 8 audio podcasts thus far. The people that were interviewed were either colleagues from my time working at Council on the Environment and then GrowNYC or community gardeners who I worked with on projects at their gardens. There are a number of other people who I wish to interview ..read more

 This weekend I took a bike ride. That is not an unusual event but in this case it was a bike tour of community gardens. It was called a Queens waterfront garden tour because of the proximity of the gardens to the waterfront. This day, July 16, 2022 also happened to be City of Water Day in NYC and many events were scheduled throughout the city to highlight the 578 miles of waterfront and the rivers, lakes and ocean that can be found within and bordering the city. Three of the 4 gardens we visited were less than 1000 feet from the closest body of water, although actual access to the water ..read more

 "We have a Sichuan Pepper Tree. Have you ever tasted one? It makes your mouth go numb." Lileng, my tour guide to  the Empty Common Community Garden picked off a tiny pepper and handed it to me. Once you bite down on the seed it releases a citrusy flavor and gradually a slight, pleasant numbness to your lips and mouth.   The Sichuan Pepper Tree This was my second visit to this garden located in Cambridge, England. On my first visit 4 years ago there weren't any gardeners around so this time I was happy to find several gardeners present. They were working on building a hut ..read more

I visited the Olivet Heavenly Harvest Garden in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic on a bright sunny day in June 2020.  Punctuating  the lively socially distanced conversations taking place was the chop chop sound of ice choppers and spades being used to reduce the size of the compostable material to help speed up the composting process. The raised beds were lush with all types of vegetables, most of which was destined for distribution to  local food pantries. This was a necessary change made by the gardeners to safely garden in the time of the pandemic. In 2020, 1650 pou ..read more

In the course of a Thanksgiving Day conversation with my cousin, the subject of Rudy Giuliani came up. These days he is very much in the news as a key figure in the Donald Trump impeachment inquiry. People who are familiar with the happenings in the late 1990's in the community gardening world know Mr. Giuliani in a much different context, so I recounted this story to my cousin. At Giuliani's second inauguration on January 1, 1997, protesters unfurled a banner protesting the loss of a community garden. He made light of it in his remarks as the protesters were hauled away but afterward so ..read more

Recently I attended the 3rd Annual Urban Soils Symposium. Scientists are looking at urban soils as a distinct field of study that has nomenclature and characteristics different from soil science in general. I have written blog posts about soils in urban gardens outlining the awareness urban gardeners must have about the soil in their gardens. The presenters at the symposium and the questions and comments from attendees were often targeted to the urban soil issues of heavy metal contamination and what could be done. The blog post linked above gives detail about precautions to be taken. A ..read more

Community Gardeners have kept honeybees in their gardens for many years. As gardens mature and gardeners focus on sustainability and how community gardens impact the environment more community gardeners are becoming beekeepers or inviting beekeepers to set up hives in the gardens. Beekeeping in NYC and other cities has increased tremendously a cities have created urban agriculture policies that include beekeeping. Some cities like NYC have rescinded laws that made keeping honeybees illegal. In NYC, honeybees were classified as 'venomous pests". I've been beekeeping on and off for about 25 y ..read more

Last Fall I met Sara, a young woman from Madrid, Spain, who was visiting New York and asked me to show her a few of the Lower East side gardens. We met, walked around the neighborhood and visited gardens that were open and chatted about community gardening in New York and in Madrid. Sara is a leader of a community garden in Madrid, Esta es una Plaza .  We talked about another organization in Madrid, La Casa Encendida that was sponsoring The Humus Film Festival of short videos about community gardens along with the Humus Revolution, a 3 day fun event about community gardens ..read more

Community Gardens exist is some form in many places around the world. They may look different in Cuba than in Mexico than in Sweden. Part of the beauty of community gardens are the cultural influences that manifest in the way they look or are organized. I recently had the opportunity to see a community garden in Cambridge, England. I was not able to connect with any of the gardeners as I visited on a Sunday morning when no one was around. The garden was open which right there might be an unrecognizable feature to a New York City community gardener. I was only visiting Cambridge for a short ..read more

Note: I recently received an award from The City Gardens Club for my work as an educator. I'm posting these remarks I made at the award ceremony here because they show the collaborative nature of community gardeners and the individuals and organizations that support community gardens. I've added links where appropriate. City Gardens Club Remarks,  November 13, 2017 Thank you Susan. I’m proud to be receiving this award as you did several years ago.  Thank you City Gardens Club for this MelvilleAward. I don't think I would have been able to accomplish what I ..read more