Speaker 1: One of the things I loved most about New York
Speaker 1: is how people use the space. I once peeked into
Speaker 1: this tiny art studio on Avenue A that had been
Speaker 1: turned into a drive in theater. Someone just pulled a
Speaker 1: car into it, and for a price, you could sit
Speaker 1: inside that car and watch a movie on the wall.
Speaker 1: It was ridiculous. But that's not the only example. My
Speaker 1: favorite museum of the city is in this tiny freight
Speaker 1: elevator shaft. I've been to book signings and drinks in cemeteries,
Speaker 1: inside mausoleums. I've seen an apartment with a drawbridge in it,
Speaker 1: honest to God, like a drawbridge that the tenant built
Speaker 1: so he could lower it and crawl from this tiny
Speaker 1: platform on one side to his loft on the other side.
Speaker 1: But what I'm really trying to say is that despite
Speaker 1: the lack of space in the city, people come up
Speaker 1: with insanely ingenious ideas. So I've been curious, how do
Speaker 1: people really garden in the city, because this is not
Speaker 1: the suburbs. When you've only got a balcony, or, let's
Speaker 1: be honest, a fire escape that you call a balcony,
Speaker 1: how are you supposed to build the garden of your dreams.
Speaker 1: I think you have a pretty good sense of my
Speaker 1: gardening ambitions by now. I am not trying to live
Speaker 1: off the fat of the land, but I would like
Speaker 1: to use the space I have to I don't know,
Speaker 1: create some life and and then put that life into
Speaker 1: a salad. And I want to use this hobby to
Speaker 1: connect with the earth, because while the rest of the
Speaker 1: world is looking up, dazzled by our cities skyscrapers, there's
Speaker 1: this whole beautiful ecosystem here growing at our feet. Hey there,
Speaker 1: I'm monga fatigular co host of Part Time Genius, one
Speaker 1: of the co founders of Mental Flaws, and this is
Speaker 1: Humans Growing Stuff, a collaboration from my Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: your friends at Miracle Grow. My goal is to make
Speaker 1: this the most human show about plants you'll ever listen to,
Speaker 1: and along the way, we'll share inspiring stories, tips and
Speaker 1: tricks to nurture your plant addiction, and just enough science
Speaker 1: to make you sound like an expert. This episode is
Speaker 1: for the city dwellers, all of you out there with
Speaker 1: very little time on your hands and even less space
Speaker 1: in your homes. All you need is a little dedications,
Speaker 1: some creativity, and less square footage than you think. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is Me and the City Garden, Chapter three, Bright Lights,
Speaker 1: Big Snake Plant. In the last few weeks, we've acquired
Speaker 1: a lot of new roommates, and it's great. For the
Speaker 1: most part. I have all these new plant friends to
Speaker 1: keep me company in the living room, joining me when
Speaker 1: I edit or read or watch TV, and seeing all
Speaker 1: that green it genuinely makes me happy. But I'm also
Speaker 1: noticing it's getting a little cramped in here, and I
Speaker 1: am constantly shuffling my plants around. So it's turned me
Speaker 1: into this weird plant real estate agent. Like every day
Speaker 1: I'm showing different areas to the plants and taking them
Speaker 1: on walkthroughs and trying to sell them on a particular
Speaker 1: window because it will be such a good fit for
Speaker 1: them and their kids. Because yes, I am talking to
Speaker 1: my plants now and trying to find them the perfect
Speaker 1: home within my home. But as I run out of
Speaker 1: obvious locations in this apartment, I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what else is possible. How can I maximize my space
Speaker 1: and feed this new plant addiction. So I called up
Speaker 1: our friend Anna from the Instagram account and YouTube channel
Speaker 1: plant Anna Plant, and it's got over a hundred plants
Speaker 1: crammed into her beautiful apartment in Toronto, and I'm hoping
Speaker 1: she can help us pull back this big green curtain
Speaker 1: of possibilities. Hyanna. First things first, tell me how did
Speaker 1: you fall in love with plants? Growing up? I always
Speaker 1: had a backyard, and my parents always took amazing care
Speaker 1: of all of our gardens and all of the plants
Speaker 1: and everything. And then I had an opportunity to do
Speaker 1: part of my PhD in Australia, so I moved to
Speaker 1: Sydney for a little while, and living there, they don't
Speaker 1: have winters like we have in Canada, so that meant
Speaker 1: that I was around plants all the time. And once
Speaker 1: I finished I moved back to Canada, I realized that
Speaker 1: life seemed a little bit different when I was no
Speaker 1: longer surrounded constantly by plants. And I bought four little
Speaker 1: succulents in May of and that for little succulent planter
Speaker 1: all of a sudden turned into twenty and then thirty
Speaker 1: and then forty, and then next thing you know, we
Speaker 1: had over a hundred plants. I just I felt so
Speaker 1: much better. It was one of those things where being
Speaker 1: surrounded by greenery and bringing all the plants inside was
Speaker 1: just an amazing thing. I end up that's have been
Speaker 1: this like major distraction from the pandemic for for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. But I'm curious for you, what are
Speaker 1: the joys of sort of being in an indoor jungle?
Speaker 1: It just it makes me happier. And with doing a
Speaker 1: PhD two, a lot of the work is done alone,
Speaker 1: particularly like with data analysis and writing and everything. And
Speaker 1: I always felt so much better sitting among all of
Speaker 1: my plants in the one particular area where we have
Speaker 1: a lot of them, and it just I found it
Speaker 1: calmed me. It made me feel more grounded. And also
Speaker 1: it would give me a little break if I wanted
Speaker 1: to care for my plants at all. Um So, yeah,
Speaker 1: so just being around them definitely made me a lot happier.
Speaker 1: Let's get into growing in a small apartment. What do
Speaker 1: you think is the the easiest way to start growing?
Speaker 1: We actually have to think where is my plant going,
Speaker 1: what are the conditions there, and what plants will thrive
Speaker 1: or at least do decently well in those type of conditions.
Speaker 1: People will at succulents and they'll say that they kill
Speaker 1: all the succulents all the time. But then when you
Speaker 1: find out where they are, they have them in a
Speaker 1: hallway that has no natural light, or they're in the
Speaker 1: middle of their dining room table that has very very
Speaker 1: little light. You really need to think about like the
Speaker 1: actual conditions of the spot where you want to put
Speaker 1: a plant, and then kind of work backward from that.
Speaker 1: I like to think about it that way. Um, for
Speaker 1: for let's say a bathroom where there's a lot of
Speaker 1: humidity but maybe less direct sunlight, do you have some
Speaker 1: suggestions for for your favorite things to put in there?
Speaker 1: If if you have humidity, then you would want some
Speaker 1: type of tropical plant. Sometimes people think that cacti and
Speaker 1: succulents will want humidity, but they don't because they're they
Speaker 1: actually originate in the desert where there's very little or
Speaker 1: no humidity at all. So for places where there is humidity,
Speaker 1: thinking not only just the bathroom, but also a kitchen too,
Speaker 1: because our kitchens actually have a lot of humidity in them.
Speaker 1: So something like a pathos is a really good plant
Speaker 1: to put in there because they can they can handle
Speaker 1: the humidity, they can handle lower light, and they don't
Speaker 1: need as much care like the not considered a high
Speaker 1: maintenance plant. So Apothos is one of those plants that
Speaker 1: tends to be underwhelming to some people. People don't necessarily
Speaker 1: love them, but they are a really great plant because
Speaker 1: they grow fast. You can trail them along the wall
Speaker 1: with particular hooks that you can get, they can hang down,
Speaker 1: they can go in the shower with you. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about these moss balls or Marimo moss balls. They're
Speaker 1: so cute. Yeah, and oh gosh, Okay, so that is
Speaker 1: a story and a half, which So I was in
Speaker 1: Calgary for work and I saw them, So the Marmo
Speaker 1: moss balls, which are actually not moss, they're actually lge
Speaker 1: and I saw them at a really cute plant store
Speaker 1: and I decided I was going to buy them. But
Speaker 1: they need to be in water, and they specifically need
Speaker 1: to be in tap water because they feed off of
Speaker 1: whatever is in tap water. So, as we all know,
Speaker 1: we're not allowed to fly with liquids. Right. So I'm
Speaker 1: in the Calgary airport with my partner and I had
Speaker 1: them in a little bag. I had them in water,
Speaker 1: and right before going through security, I had to dump
Speaker 1: all the water out and they're in this classic bag.
Speaker 1: I was bringing home more plants than just that, so
Speaker 1: my carry on was full of suck. I've got a
Speaker 1: box in my lap and I've got these. The security
Speaker 1: person when they're running everything through that little X ray
Speaker 1: machine is, excuse me, there's something in there that I
Speaker 1: need to take a look at. So she opens my bag,
Speaker 1: she pulls them out. She said, what the heck are these?
Speaker 1: So I explained to her she did not care about
Speaker 1: plants at all, which is completely But then once we
Speaker 1: got through security, we then had to refill the the
Speaker 1: bag with water and then I just sit with my
Speaker 1: marmal moss balls in a bag of water with the
Speaker 1: succulents on my lap from Calgary to Toronto. When you
Speaker 1: go to new cities and new regions, are are are
Speaker 1: you looking for plants to add to your collections? Chances are,
Speaker 1: if I've been traveling within Canada, there is a plant
Speaker 1: or five in there. How are you making time to
Speaker 1: water all these plants appropriately? And and and fit in
Speaker 1: the the plant care into your life? And and also
Speaker 1: do you speak to your plants? It's not that plants
Speaker 1: react to your voice. What the research actually shows is
Speaker 1: that people who talk to their plants tend to be
Speaker 1: more involved in their care. So it's not actually the
Speaker 1: talking that impacts the plants. It's the fact that because
Speaker 1: you're talking to your plants, it shows that you're interacting
Speaker 1: with the more. So you're going to notice things such
Speaker 1: as if they have test more, or if there's dead leaves,
Speaker 1: or if they need to repot it or water. It's
Speaker 1: a really really interesting phenomenon. What do you think some
Speaker 1: of the biggest misconceptions are about trying to grow things
Speaker 1: in a small apartment. Yeah, there's a misconception that people say, oh,
Speaker 1: I have a small space, I'm not going to bother
Speaker 1: because I don't want to crowd for people who are
Speaker 1: obsessed with plants, there's actually no such thing as not
Speaker 1: enough space for plants with really small spaces to Another
Speaker 1: thing that people tend to not think about is working vertically.
Speaker 1: Building vertically is an amazing way to add a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of plants. We also have plants hanging from the ceiling,
Speaker 1: so that's another way to where you have a really
Speaker 1: small space and you can add extra foliage there, or
Speaker 1: you get plots that are supposed to go against the wall,
Speaker 1: or you can get strip lights so you can get
Speaker 1: indoor growing lights and you can put that under your shelf,
Speaker 1: and then you can put your plants there as well too.
Speaker 1: So just because you may be thinking that you're restricted
Speaker 1: based on the fact that you don't have light or
Speaker 1: something like that, you can definitely get good quality grow
Speaker 1: lights and that can really expand your ability to put
Speaker 1: things in different places. But I think trying diving in
Speaker 1: doing it, I think, I think, to me, that's incredibly important.
Speaker 1: And if I buy an extra one, my partner generally
Speaker 1: doesn't notice or except if it's just because we have
Speaker 1: so many points. But I, yeah, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: it's hard to explain it. I know, No, I I
Speaker 1: completely agree with what where is? I mean, I've only
Speaker 1: started gardening recently, and just walking into the living room
Speaker 1: and seeing these plants makes me happy. But then also
Speaker 1: the little routine and a little care of of watering
Speaker 1: them is really meditative. It is. It is and also
Speaker 1: things too. And I know your daughter likes the basil
Speaker 1: plants or basis as she calls them, which is so good.
Speaker 1: How awesome is it to make pizza or passa sauce,
Speaker 1: or you're making a sturfire or something, and then you
Speaker 1: put the basil that you've been growing yourself. It's something
Speaker 1: that's so small, but it's it's awesome and it's something
Speaker 1: that you're doing. Yeah, and a plant and a plant
Speaker 1: is the Instagram account. Thank you for taking time away
Speaker 1: from your your kiddo and family. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. This is being
Speaker 1: great to talk about. And now here's Mangoes inner monologue. Today,
Speaker 1: I saw a rat carrying a slice of pizza. He
Speaker 1: dragged it over to a patch of dirt in the
Speaker 1: park and he began digging, And I thought, if he
Speaker 1: can do it, so can i. Humans growing stuff will
Speaker 1: be right back after a short break after talking with Anna,
Speaker 1: Like right after talking with Anna, I told Lizzie we
Speaker 1: should get a pathos. Pathos have come up a few
Speaker 1: times on the show now, but I couldn't quite figure
Speaker 1: out how they'd fit into our apartment. Then suddenly I
Speaker 1: spotted this little space above our upright piano and it
Speaker 1: felt right for colonizing. I don't know how excited she
Speaker 1: is for my new plant hobby, but she's been pretty supportive.
Speaker 1: But even with all these new tips of trying to
Speaker 1: think about our space more vertically and using more shelving
Speaker 1: to store these plants. I'm starting to realize this kingdom
Speaker 1: is feeling a little small for my ambitions. We're running
Speaker 1: out of floor space. We have more mother in law
Speaker 1: tongues than actual mother in laws. And even though I
Speaker 1: want to live that hashtag plant life, I think there's
Speaker 1: a cap on what we can actually grow in this apartment.
Speaker 1: So I reached out to two big shots from the
Speaker 1: New York Botanical Garden, Ursula Chance and Kadisha Williams, to
Speaker 1: learn more. Ursula is the director of Bronx green Up
Speaker 1: and Kadisha is green Ups community horticulturist and urban agriculturist.
Speaker 1: So before we get too deep into this, I want
Speaker 1: to know a little bit about the green Up project. Sure.
Speaker 1: So Bronx green Up was started in and it was
Speaker 1: started really by people who were in the Bronx staying
Speaker 1: to Bronx, people like Kadisha's grandfather, who were saw these
Speaker 1: spaces that they wanted to do something positive, to make
Speaker 1: beautiful grow food for the community. And so those kind
Speaker 1: of organic efforts were starting and people turned to the
Speaker 1: Botanical Garden to help with these efforts. In the Botanical
Speaker 1: Garden created the Bronx Greenup Program to to really do
Speaker 1: that one thing that is really exciting. I think for me,
Speaker 1: there's this almost organic conversation between cultures. So people come
Speaker 1: into the garden and even back you know, at the
Speaker 1: beginning of this, when a lot of these lots didn't
Speaker 1: have anything in them, people were coming together the growth stuff.
Speaker 1: Even though there may be language barriers, even though they
Speaker 1: come from completely different cultures, they'd be excited about the
Speaker 1: same plant. While we all come from different places, we
Speaker 1: have different faces, we still need to eat. And that
Speaker 1: was a really good way that we tire our cultures
Speaker 1: together in the ways that we build community. Yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 1: I I was thinking about that too, just how we
Speaker 1: are so often like siloed in our own apartments and
Speaker 1: our own like work and whatever. But but that the
Speaker 1: garden really gives the space to almost forces interaction between
Speaker 1: not just communities, but also generations. I means something that
Speaker 1: just popped into my head. Happened a while ago when
Speaker 1: we were helping with the New Roots Community Farm, and
Speaker 1: I remember one time we were there and there was
Speaker 1: like a bottle that was just laying in front of
Speaker 1: the gate, and so I was like, oh, let me
Speaker 1: just pick this up. I saw there was a piece
Speaker 1: of paper inside, and I was like, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: So I just I don't know why I actually pulled
Speaker 1: out the piece of paper, which you know, you don't
Speaker 1: usually go around examining garbage, but I was like, let
Speaker 1: me just do that. And then there was a note
Speaker 1: into it and it was like, Oh, are you started
Speaker 1: a community garden. I want to be involved. I love
Speaker 1: that A literal message in the bottle, just waiting for you.
Speaker 1: And it was like I was such a moment like oh, like,
Speaker 1: I just feel like these spaces are so precious and
Speaker 1: important and people are really craving that place to come
Speaker 1: together and get their hands in the dirt and grow
Speaker 1: and connect with nature. And I think just seeing that
Speaker 1: like that just speaks to it, like that people are
Speaker 1: really craving that opportunity. What role do community gardens play
Speaker 1: in the fabric of a city? For for the two
Speaker 1: of you, so much. Community gardens are are safe havens.
Speaker 1: There's spaces for community organizing, save spaces for young people,
Speaker 1: spaces where you can perform, and spaces where you can learn,
Speaker 1: like spaces for education, also just a space to sit down.
Speaker 1: Like it's all of those things combine it's a hub. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, just more to echo what Cadisia said, I
Speaker 1: mean I do. I do think community gardens are kind
Speaker 1: of the heart of a neighborhood and community and all
Speaker 1: that they can offer and provide. And I see that
Speaker 1: so often and just there's so much and just taking
Speaker 1: a space on a hot day to sit in the
Speaker 1: shade and cool down. There's just so many things and
Speaker 1: resources that community gardens can offer. There should be more
Speaker 1: community gardens all over the world. We have to root ourselves,
Speaker 1: put our feet in the dirt. I love that, you
Speaker 1: know what. One of the articles I read in The
Speaker 1: Times that that really made me smile was that, uh,
Speaker 1: there's this gentleman who grew so much in his plot
Speaker 1: that he was sending extra produced to his family in
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, and and it just made me curious, like,
Speaker 1: how much food are people actually growing in these little plots.
Speaker 1: It depends on a variety of things. It depends on
Speaker 1: the season. Sometimes you could do everything right and you
Speaker 1: don't produce a lot. Sometimes it's totally by accident. You know,
Speaker 1: not everyone tracks their produced the same, but it's definitely
Speaker 1: hundreds of pounds something like at the start of this
Speaker 1: pandemic in New York City. Community gardens I think are
Speaker 1: so oftentime leaders in their community. What they're like, what
Speaker 1: can we do? We can grow food, We grow That's
Speaker 1: what what's we do. And so they could produce a
Speaker 1: lot of food that can contribute to food pantries, to
Speaker 1: soup kitchens, to night just senior housing. I love that.
Speaker 1: So you both do such a good job with education.
Speaker 1: But but I'm curious, how do you welcome people in
Speaker 1: who might be a little intimidated. Oh I love to
Speaker 1: tell people that you're going to kill a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff and that's okay. Yeah, I love that too. I mean,
Speaker 1: I agree. I feel like, you know, the more I
Speaker 1: do this more, there's always something to learn. There's always
Speaker 1: something new to discover and observe. And so just reminding
Speaker 1: people just start small. Is there any community garden etiquette
Speaker 1: that we should all know about. Every garden is completely different.
Speaker 1: There are, of course similarities, communities that look the same,
Speaker 1: that eat the same, But the garden community, the garden etiquette,
Speaker 1: as you say, is completely different. It depends on the garden.
Speaker 1: One thing I would say is asked, asked before you
Speaker 1: take something. Most people are really most gardeners are like, oh,
Speaker 1: of course, sure, Oh you want to try this. Sure.
Speaker 1: I mean you can imagine like spending a whole season
Speaker 1: growing something and then watching someone pick your cucumbers with tomatoes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that that's sort of politeness. Hope it's not.
Speaker 1: Though it's not. I think it's less about politeness and
Speaker 1: more just excitement. Even I do it. Sometimes I go
Speaker 1: in and I reached them like, oh wait, that's not
Speaker 1: my fairy tomatoes. Let me ask, let me just get
Speaker 1: positioning real quick. I'm like enamored by it. I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is so beautiful. Look at all this stuff growing,
Speaker 1: and oh my god, they'd be so successful, and I
Speaker 1: can't I need to ask for pission before I put
Speaker 1: my hands on people's stuff. I was stunned that they
Speaker 1: are all these like bees and chickens and the photos
Speaker 1: and it's not just flowers and plants at these gardens, right,
Speaker 1: of course not again, like as culturist mix and we tried.
Speaker 1: You know, as we go further and further and push
Speaker 1: the envelope with urban farming, we want to bring more
Speaker 1: and more aspects of rural farming to the city. I
Speaker 1: think chickens are so fun. My community garden is I
Speaker 1: don't want to say it free for all. It for
Speaker 1: a long time, people have definitely been chucking animals over
Speaker 1: the gate. I think. I think in their minds they're like,
Speaker 1: this is a beautiful green space and they take care
Speaker 1: of chickens and bees, so like they will save this duck.
Speaker 1: And children love it, like they see chickens and they're
Speaker 1: just like wow, like I can't believe they're chickens here?
Speaker 1: Can we touched them? And that's that's been really cool
Speaker 1: to to show them how to take care of the chickens,
Speaker 1: how to feed them. It's been good for us to
Speaker 1: we can use the chicken manure to help for lize
Speaker 1: our beds. It's been interesting to learn how to incorporate
Speaker 1: that stuff into the operation. Very cool for for an
Speaker 1: outsider like me. What what is the first step to
Speaker 1: getting involved in a community garden? Do you have to apply?
Speaker 1: Do you have to do you have to know someone? Like?
Speaker 1: What what is the process? It's different for every garden.
Speaker 1: It's different for the communities. Of course, community gardens are
Speaker 1: open to the public, so if the gate is open,
Speaker 1: you're welcome to come in and enjoy that space. It's
Speaker 1: a community space, so it belongs to the community. If
Speaker 1: you want to be a garden member, there is usually
Speaker 1: an application process. Um, if it's you right, and you're new,
Speaker 1: and you're walking down the street and you see a
Speaker 1: garden and it's open, I would walk in and talk
Speaker 1: to someone and see what their their way is for
Speaker 1: becoming a guarden member or getting involved. If all those fails,
Speaker 1: if you're in the Bronx, you can call Bronx been
Speaker 1: up with the new Botanical Garden, and we try to
Speaker 1: connect you to the right persons. And then if it's
Speaker 1: outside of the Bronx, you could always talk to Green
Speaker 1: Thumb of the New York City Parks Department. And So,
Speaker 1: what is the biggest reason you tell city dwellers to
Speaker 1: like get into gardening and get into these community spaces
Speaker 1: because it's awesome. There's not one reason. Everyone has their
Speaker 1: own reason for getting involved, which I think that that
Speaker 1: makes the experience so much more beautiful. Well, I think
Speaker 1: just showing that the different community gardens and farms, if
Speaker 1: there's one near you, there's there's different ways you can
Speaker 1: get involved, either become a member or help ountain volunteer.
Speaker 1: And I think also just seeing these commit gardens and
Speaker 1: are farms just as part of our larger New York
Speaker 1: City green space with our parks as well. I've been
Speaker 1: on the busiest streets in New York City and I'll
Speaker 1: look up, you know, in late September, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, they'll be a monarch that will be flying by,
Speaker 1: you know, doing its southern migration. And so once you
Speaker 1: kind of open your eyes to it, you'll see more
Speaker 1: and more that it's around us in the city. In
Speaker 1: terms of people who are interested in learning about it.
Speaker 1: We're doing it, but don't know where to start. We
Speaker 1: always recommend taking a class, and we get a lot
Speaker 1: of people in our class who've never done it before
Speaker 1: who always say, like, I have no space, I'm not
Speaker 1: in a garden, and they end up by the end
Speaker 1: of the class growing tomatoes out of their window. So
Speaker 1: there's always a way, you know. That's why we see
Speaker 1: trees growing out of the side of walls and in
Speaker 1: train stations, because they that's the nature of a seat,
Speaker 1: that's what it's it's supposed to do, is grow, not
Speaker 1: to be corny, but like a seed. We encouraged them
Speaker 1: to grow. I don't think that's corny at all. I
Speaker 1: love it. Yeah, that's so true. Like I think people
Speaker 1: are just always finding different green space, like out of
Speaker 1: their window, by their building there's some area that they'll
Speaker 1: start fencing off or in their tree bed that it's
Speaker 1: great to think about different ways that you can start
Speaker 1: start growing and getting your hands in the dirt. Thank
Speaker 1: you both so much for being here, Thank you for
Speaker 1: having us. This is awesome a pleasure. And now for
Speaker 1: another trip to poetry Corner and oh to community gardening etiquette.
Speaker 1: Come one, come all, come spring, come fall. There's community
Speaker 1: in these leaves. Dig into some dirt and pull up
Speaker 1: your sleeves. But whatever you do, asked before you eat
Speaker 1: my peas, please thank you. I got so excited talking
Speaker 1: to Ursula and Kadijja that I started looking up the
Speaker 1: history of community gardens. I had no idea that in
Speaker 1: the US the first community gardens sprott up in Detroit
Speaker 1: in the eight nineties. Apparently the city gave land a
Speaker 1: local residents along with seeds to combat local hunger and
Speaker 1: and the project actually thrived. But even before that, in
Speaker 1: the seventeen thirties, there were these craftsmen and workers in
Speaker 1: England who started using community gardens in Sheffield because and
Speaker 1: I promised this is what the article said. There was
Speaker 1: a new fad of eating vegetables that trickled down from
Speaker 1: quote Cosmopolitan London, and I just love that. For me,
Speaker 1: I think what I'm craving most about this is community.
Speaker 1: In the last two years, our family has moved from
Speaker 1: Brooklyn to Atlanta to back to Brooklyn, and it was
Speaker 1: so much harder on my kids than I had expected.
Speaker 1: Just when they found friends and figured out this new
Speaker 1: system of schooling, we ripped them away. And so I
Speaker 1: think about community a lot, how we could be giving
Speaker 1: them a community and doing something fun but also good,
Speaker 1: like growing food for pantries and soup kitchens. When I
Speaker 1: heard Kadija tell me about our garden, the tak about
Speaker 1: community garden that her grandfather and her father built from
Speaker 1: this rough area in the Bronx and turned into this thriving,
Speaker 1: beautiful space where apparently rabbits and ducks can live, it
Speaker 1: made me long to be part of something like that.
Speaker 1: I want that New York City, a place where people
Speaker 1: speak different languages and come from different cultures and joyously
Speaker 1: tend to their plots and chit chat together. Different generations
Speaker 1: interacting and telling stories, and just building a place where
Speaker 1: strangers can walk in and kick up their feet and
Speaker 1: eat a sandwich in this little oasis, you know, just
Speaker 1: find a place to breathe. It's a strange little journey
Speaker 1: that I've taken these last three weeks. Somehow I've moved
Speaker 1: from just wanting to have less funerals for our basil
Speaker 1: plants so well wanting to be a part of something bigger.
Speaker 1: So this week, instead of just standing on the ledge,
Speaker 1: I decided to cannon ball into the deep end. I
Speaker 1: researched a few places close to me, looked at classes,
Speaker 1: made a few phone calls, and today I'm going to
Speaker 1: take my family on a little field trip. The sweetest
Speaker 1: thing I read in that article about those community gardens
Speaker 1: from the seventeen hundreds was that this economist looked at
Speaker 1: the figures and determined that Sheffield gardeners were healthy and
Speaker 1: more hardy than the people who lived in places without
Speaker 1: gardens at that time. And yes, maybe it was because
Speaker 1: of all the extra vegetables in their diet, and maybe
Speaker 1: it was because of the exercise being in the field
Speaker 1: and all that, But as the author points out, maybe
Speaker 1: it was just the joy of gardening itself, a pleasure
Speaker 1: that was as profound in the seventeen hundreds as it
Speaker 1: is today, and I'm guessing being part of a little
Speaker 1: community that must have helped too. That's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: Don't forget whether you're a beginner like me, a pro
Speaker 1: trying something new, or someone in between enjoying your community garden,
Speaker 1: there are incredible resources waiting for you on the Miracle
Speaker 1: Grow website. Next time on our show, we'll dig into
Speaker 1: gardening with your family. If you like what you heard,
Speaker 1: don't forget to rate and review the show on Apple Podcast.
Speaker 1: It really helps us out, and we want to hear
Speaker 1: from you. What are your in firing plant stories and
Speaker 1: relatable struggles and growing questions. Tag us in your post
Speaker 1: or tweet using the hashtag Humans Growing Stuff and you
Speaker 1: may just hear your story featured on an upcoming episode.
Speaker 1: Humans Growing Stuff is a collaboration from I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and your friends at Miracle Grow. Our show was written
Speaker 1: and produced by Molly Sosha and me Mangy Chatigler in
Speaker 1: partnership with Ryan Ovadia, Daniel Ainsworth, Hayley Ericson, and Garrett
Speaker 1: Shannon of Banter. Until Next Time, thanks so much for listening,