Maya Iyengar has a special interest in The Lenox, the 300-unit Union City building where she lives with her elderly mother. She’s not only the current vice president of the Board of Directors, she grew up there. Today, her mother enjoys the color of the community garden, the seeds of which germinated after residents expressed a desire to have an outdoor area where they could enjoy activities together.
In 2011, Joao Carlos Assumpcao, a condominium owner in the 16-story building, suggested the idea of a community garden to the board. It won approval and the garden grew with Assumpcao’s research and the assistance of Mayor Brian Stack, who donated soil.
Today, there are 38 plots measuring 60 by 25 inches each. All of them are being personally utilized. However, five boxes have been reserved as planting areas for the general building population. The opportunity to garden is so desirable that there’s currently a waiting list for available boxes.
Fresh vegetables in their backyard
The popularity of the garden is evident by owners and residents who join together to produce a range of vegetables including tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, and kale, along with a variety of flowers.
Participants not only share their harvest, but they share gardening tips as well. Every month, they are invited to come meet their fellow farmers and exchange stories. Sherman Sullivan and Assumpcao oversee the community garden and its guidelines participants must abide by. They have discovered and implemented innovative sustainable garden systems, including utilizing straw hay as organic mulch to improve soil quality and to best control the differing fertilizers used in individual plots.
“It’s pleasing to the eye and pleasing to the heart.” – Maya Iyengar
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Iyengar works with landscapers to select plants that are functional and work with the weather conditions. It’s important to her that there is greenery and fragrance while maintaining a pretty and pristine environment.
“Everyone can come home to a wonderful place,” she says. “Everyone can get involved in the garden. It’s a way of nurturing.”
Iyengar would like to see that nurturing extended. She wants children to appreciate nature by nurturing the land that yields some of the foods they eat. Some of the children who live in the building tend the garden, but she, Sullivan, and Assumpcao would also like to see the outreach extend to local schools, using The Lenox’s community garden as a teaching tool.
For instance, bees – complete with beekeeper – have recently been added to The Lenox garden. They not only pollinate there, but spread to the surrounding area, helping with the ecosystem.
Other complexes are gardening too
Community gardens are thriving in other Hudson County cities as well. One example is The art deco Beacon in Jersey City, a former hospital converted to residential units. With 82 plots and a gardening shed, the organic garden is part of an open green space that also includes a landscaped community park with Manhattan skyline views, a private 2-acre park with a playground, and two dog runs.
According the American Community Garden Association (ACGA), the production of flavorful, nutritious food is not the only outcome of community gardening – it improves the quality of life through community development and beautification of neighborhoods.
Additionally, benefits include food safety, reducing family food budgets, conserving resources, and reducing the carbon footprint by eating locally grown food. Perhaps the less thought about, but equally important, opportunities are those of recreation, exercise, therapy, education, and, of course, social interaction.
The appeal of a community urban garden can be summed up nicely in Iyengar’s view: “It’s pleasing to the eye and pleasing to the heart.”
To learn more about community gardening, visit The American Community Gardening Association at https://communitygarden.org/
To learn more about The Lenox, visit its website at http://www.thelenoxcondosnj.com/.