We both recently read No Impact Man by Colin Beavan, and yesterday watched the documentary film of the same story. Something that wasn’t in the book but was in the film and struck me as really odd was how Colin, (the author of the book, and, along with his family, subject of the documentary), came to share a plot in the community garden with a man named Mayer.
Colin went to sign up for a plot in the community garden and discovered that the waiting list is years long, (I believe that it’s similar here in Montréal). However, he was told to talk to Mayer, the only person growing food in the community garden about working together. You read that right, of the whole garden, Mayer was the only person using his plot to grow food. The rest were growing flowers. What gives? I thought the whole point of community gardens was to grow food. I understand having some flowers, either to come and enjoy or to cut and put in your apartment, but when the whole garden except for one small plot is given over to flowers something seems a bit off. I’m not sure if it’s our priorities, (looks over health), or something else. I have heard that there was a scare a few years ago here about contaminated soil in community gardens, and perhaps that is a concern in the community gardens of New York as well, Mayer seems to be doing fine.
On the bright side, at least the gardens being used for flowers do have something growing in them, and, if the flowers are being used for cuttings, they’re probably much more sustainable than flowers grown in greenhouses and flown a long distance to market.