From Vacant to Vegetables

by Matthew P. Moll

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In 2005 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a pledge to sell city-owned vacant lots in blighted areas. In East New York several vacant lots are now filled with organic vegetables.

“It makes sense if you have these empty lots to turn them into gardens,” said Kim Wyche, a gardener at East New York Farms. “People from the community can come in and walk around and join the garden if they want.”

Wyche, who grew up on a farm in Alabama, has been a community gardener in East New York for the past two years where she grows a variety of peppers, greens and squash.

East New York Farms began in 1995 after the Pratt Center for Community Development, Cornell University and community groups assessed the neighborhood’s resources and tried to match it against the needs. There were many community gardens, but little access to fresh produce.

James Ware, one of East New York Farm’s gardeners, said  grocery stores and bodegas offer poorer  quality than his harvests.

“We don’t know how far the food in the supermarket has traveled,” Ware said. “It is better for you to start a garden and grow the food organically.”

What started as a single farmer’s market stand has turned into a collaborative of 60 communities and includes farms run by  East New York Farms as well as other local urban gardeners.

Hands and Hearts Gardens is one of the urban gardens run by East New York Farms. The once-vacant, half-acre tract is now plush with produce that is pruned, plowed and picked by members who pay a small fee and agree to sell some of their fruits and vegetables at the farmer’s market.

“There aren’t very many places to buy fresh local produce in East New York,” said Deborah Greig, the Urban Agriculture Coordinator at East New York Farms. “Urban gardens provide open space and food access that isn’t found here or in surrounding neighborhoods.”

According to a report released in December 2007 by the New York City Department of City Planning, about  45 percent of the population of Brooklyn Community District 5– which includes East New York – receive some form of income support (like home relief or SSI).

Last year the East New York Farms’ farmers market had about 100,000 visitors and 60 percent of the income generated by the market was attributed to food stamps.

“East New York is unique in that it borders other lower income neighborhoods,” Greig said. “It is not as if high income areas are nearby, so residents do not have to option of traveling a short distance for higher quality produce.”

Other historically lower-income neighborhoods, such as Bedford Stuyvesant and Red Hook, have started urban gardens as well.

Urban gardening however is not a new concept.

“In the 1970s there an increase in awareness of food safety and a desire to know where you food comes from so urban gardens started to pop up,” said John Ameroso, who in 1976 started the Urban Gardening program with Cornell University. “In the 90s farmers markets started to become more popular and early on about 80 percent of food was grown in the city.”

Ameroso said interest has cycled back to 25 years ago.  Food security is a concern and fuel prices are high.  This brings people back to the source of their food; something Wyche said is good for both children and adults.

“Children and adults they can say ‘I planted this here,’ ” Wyche said. “And they look and say ‘wow look its strawberries.’ ”