mcorreia
mcorreia
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Sep 14, 2007 (18 years) |
- | 6 | 12 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Sep 14, 2007 (18 years)
- Last activity
- -
- Topics created
- 6
- Replies created
- 12
Bio
I consider myself a thoroughly urban girl. I grew up in New York City, playing hopscotch and jump rope on the street. I loved smelling basil and mint that my mother and my aunt used to grow in pots on the fire escapes of their buildings. I loved watching things grow from the pots, especially pansies and flowers that my mom used to plant in the spring.
My family eventually moved out to the suburbs, where there was grass and trees and huge orange tiger lilies. But it wasn’t the same as watching things grow from contained little spaces, where I watched progress day to day close-up as though under a microscope. There was magic in those tiny places, which I could never find in a big backyard.
I’m back in the city again, and I’m as drawn to patches of greenery in little places as I was to basil pots when I was a child. I love community gardens and am blown away by the larger ones, the ones that grow enough food to be considered farms. In East New York, under the elevated 2 subway line, there’s a half-acre garden that grows everything from turnips and mustard greens to eggplant, peppers, squash, cucumbers and scallions.
It’s one of some 30 food-producing city farms that in 2004 produced more than 30,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables. That, to me, is amazing.
Even though I’m an urban girl through and through, there’s a part of me that loves to see a little bit of the country in the city. I like to know that we can, if we want, grow things for our sustenance and to have a little bit of connection back to the land. It’s primordial I guess.
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