GREEN THUMB

REPORT

Published in

From Big Science to Citizen Science and beyond

3 min readSep 28, 2016

Part of NYC parks.
Located in all five boroughs in the city.
Majority were derelict vacant lots
Green spaces ranging from: relaxation / community meeting space / farms / mix of the types.
Volunteer-gardener based.
Green Thumb provides for community gardeners: overseeing land, 40yr license to work land, materials, support, workshops, hands-on training, property management, technical assistance, city wide events
Improve air quality, bio–diversity, and the well–being of residents.
Open for 10hrs, during the growing seasons
Gardens in the village are trying to organize themselves and make the area into the “community Garden district” in order to bring more visibility to all the community gardens.
During the summer a lot of members aren’t around
About 15hrs of work per month for members
Every garden is run autonomously
Growing season is extended now because of global warming
Root vegetables can absorb heavy metals & toxins, so you need higher beds for these.
There is garden tourism
Green Thumb Grow Together event: social program, social justice, ood, multi-generational event

Raised floor beds to avoid touching toxic soil (you would have to dig 1 foot to get to it)
Lots of food production, some ppl come & get their meals ready here (Bengali women)
Started doing “hoop gardening”
Want to measure how much food in the summer they grow, and want to also be able to provide quantifiable data for other things like: CO2 absorption, storm water runoff, PBCs & heavy-metal absorption,
Christopher: camposcommunitygarden@gmail.com