beginablarp's Profile

I'm 36 and started gardening at the age of 20. My parents kept a tidy little yard, roses, grapevines that interested in, as a kid. I dropped out of college and joined an Americorps program that built and maintained community gardens around NY, inspired by the notion that I could help change the physical space around me. I am from Brooklyn, near the beach, and credit the wide open space my friends and I took advantage of, growing up, for keeping me sane. I firmly believed that people would treat each other with more kindness if they just had more beautiful, uncrowded places to just be. I find it interesting that people view gardening as an expensive endeavor. When I started, I was struck by the abundance of cheap stuff I could use to transform my space. Seed packets, junky old pots, soil from the hardware store...
I worked landscaping jobs in the summer and brought home the discarded plants of the wealthy Upper Eastsiders I worked for, and shopped at the farmers market for annuals and herbs. I guess I must have spent some money on all that, but these were the days before you had to have a fancy smart phone and a big phone bill (we split the house phone bill 4 ways-cheap!) and when Brooklyn was actually affordable. Fast forward past 6 years of rural living because we outgrew the city yard, and opportunity knocked- My husband and I both do horticulture related work in NYC. We have gone way past hobby into "way of life".