D.C. urban gardens flourish in the pandemic as people dig in to ‘fill the isolated life’
Mbazang is part of a swelling group of Washingtonians who grow produce in the city’s 68 community gardens
By Laurel Schwartz
Washington Post
Oct. 9, 2020
Excerpt:
“After the novelty of being in quarantine wore off and the pandemic wore on, I started to look for something to fill the isolated life,” McQueen said. “It felt good to be around people. I soon found out gardeners are very friendly folk.”
The gardening market has been experiencing a boom from new gardeners such as McQueen.
“It’s been a landslide compared with past years,” said Niraj Ray, 34, founder and CEO of Cultivate the City, a company that promotes urban farming in D.C. “In previous years, it usually took us to July 4 to break even. This year it was April.”
Tommy Wells, director of the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, said the city is constantly looking for new places to expand urban agriculture to meet demand, which has jumped markedly in the pandemic.
He said he is working to “identify more property that could be used as community gardens” and is also coordinating with the National Park Service to find small pocket parks owned by the federal government that locals could cultivate.
Deborah Williams has tended her plot at the Fort Greble Community Garden on Martin Luther King Jr. Ave in Southwest Washington for three years. She said growing her own produce, such as spinach, tomatoes and carrots, has given her a new respect for farmers and a greater understanding of what it means for food to be organic.
