Urban Farming

by John Cannizzo

Bailey Holt House has a small atrium. Outside the door the roof space has a view of the Hudson. Liza wants to make a garden there.

Once, organizations like Bailey Holt House had money for recreation. Competing priorities in the nonprofit community have left scarcely enough for necessities.

A Home Depot grant and a $500 board member donation lets us plant roses, herbs, vegetables, evergreens and a pear tree. Liza is an intern. Soon she will be hired. Many here are limited in their ability to leave. Bailey House is not just their home; it is their world. She needs a grant to make a better garden program.

St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center is near. Many from Bailey Holt House go there. St Vincent has an HIV program. There is a big run down garden there. They were bankrupt but survived.

There is a message from St. Vincent: “Does HSNY do garden work?”

Soon we are working there. We prune the dead wood while rats run over our feet. By the end of the year the garden looks good – hardly any rats. That summer Liza comes to work for HSNY on the urban farm at The Bridge. We approach United Way about an urban farm for Bailey Holt House.

“Urban farm” sounds almost ridiculous – an oxymoron. Farms stretch on like USDA newsreels – combines waving through thick swaths of wheat. That is relatively recent. Up until the 19th century most families were living within 25 miles of the city on small farms growing the produce for urban market.

In September the grant is approved, the site for the Horticultural Therapy Urban Farm -- St. Vincent. Our ancestors survived on 12,000 square feet – St. Vincent has half that. It is small.

With luck we can produce food for 30 meals per day during the two harvests by farming intensively. If not, then like the subsistence farmers do when the harvest fails -- we go hungry together. There is really no good reason why our ancestors preferred to each work their tiny holding except that they liked to live that way.

Horticultural Society of New York:

*All photos courtesy of John Cannizzo

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This is the roof of Bailey Holt House. Some residents recall a small rooftop garden here in past that fell into disuse and neglect after renovations to the building. Liza Watkins is an extremely capable individual. She brought together scanty resources but more importantly mobilized the Bailey Holt’s residents around the construction of the containers and the planting and maintenance of the garden.

The plant list was generated by the residents: vegetables, colorful perennials, a fruit tree and evergreens. The rooftop is a place for residents and staff to relax and enjoy the beautiful view as well as to enhance the well being of the people that live at Bailey Holt House. An internship was created to care for the garden. That first year there were lots of vegetables.

The building is old the roof is wooden it is not possible to have the kind of concentration of containers that would make it a really productive rooftop farm. Liza Watkins is in fore ground in a red shirt. We wondered that day if anyone would even participate at all but lots of residents came. They began to act out like children spraying each other with the hoses most inappropriately on that hot morning and afternoon.

It really looks very pretty up there.

Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Center has a very large garden space in the heart of Greenwich Village. It had been neglected for at least 7 years during the bankruptcy. The theme of the planting became plants of the bible. We planted daffodils (the original “Rose of Sharon”), olive tree, apple trees, herbs, roses, cedars, and fir. On the street we obtained permission from NYCDPR to plant Amelanchier in lieu of the fruit trees that we really wanted to plant. At least the Amelanchier’s fruit will provide habitat for birds in winter.

The urban farm will be designed with both spot beds and row plantings in order to utilize every bit of space that is not already planted with ornamental plants. The first year we experimented with vegetables and grew kabocha pumpkin and tomato. The fear was that the rodents would be attracted to the vegetables. But by then they had been eliminated for the most part. Rats don’t like a spot that is being used by people. They prefer to have an abandoned spot for their homes. This year we will make raised beds for handicapped access as well as in-the-ground planting. We will use intensive planting methods. There will be plenty of hands to help. By making sure that the soil is nutrient rich and that plants are well weeded and watered, we can plant closely and monitor our garden daily.

The Horticultural Therapy Urban Farm will be an experimental farm. Part of the experiment will be to explore the relationship between health and well being and close personal contact with plants and the earth. As part of the United Way Grant we will produce a manual that can be distributed to similar groups. We will also design an instrument to measure changes of attitude in participants as they develop as individual gardeners and as a group entrusted with the stewardship of this tiny parcel of land.