What a great year of gardening at St. Ann’s in the South Bronx during the years of 2020 and 2021, as members of St. Ann’s and of St. James, Madison Avenue in Manhattan have striven together to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth!

Starting in October 2020, we worked with volunteers from St. James’ on bi-weekly community days to remove bag after bag of the weeds that had completely overgrown the garden. We planted many dozens of spring-flowering bulbs including tulips, crocuses, and daffodils, and we added perennials—hellebore, juniper, and lambs’ ear—to the meditation garden.

In early spring 2021, together we cleared more weeds, dug out weed-tree saplings and placed landscape fabric over the pathways to make planting possible. We had the soil tested through the Brooklyn College Urban Soils lab and amended it with donated compost from the Department of Sanitation.  Later in the month we generated a crop list with suggestions from the congregation. We planted purple climbing beans, cucumbers, several tomato varieties, yellow crook neck squash, pigeon peas, corn, blacktail mountain watermelon, basil, thyme, oregano, jalapeños, bell pepper, and sunflowers. Children from the after-school program took the responsibility to water the seeds every day.

In July and August, the gardener Eva Joy and the Rev. Eva Suarez held weekly gardening groups with three sections of the St. Ann’s Freedom School program where they discussed soil health and plant needs and learned how to care for and harvest crops. This article’s author continued watering and weeding with addition sections of the Freedom School. We also held weekly community hours where families and adult members of the congregation worked together in the garden. Our children are grateful for the opportunity to use this space once again after years of disuse.

Ashley wants to share the following:

My name is Ashley, and I helped the garden grow. When we were helping in the garden, we got to eat fresh vegetables like tomatoes and cucumber and watermelon. The garden made me feel calm. Eva told me some facts about the plants, and we were surprised—so was Ms. Wendy. The garden was so special to me I even took a watermelon and jalapenos and tomatoes home. My favorite part of the whole entire journey was that we worked together on mixing the dirt with the compost and when we were done, we threw seeds on the dirt, and it was fun because everyone had a chance to throw the seeds.

Alex wants to share the following:

My name is Alex, I helped the children’s garden because I wanted to support the garden in the church. I want to have a place to plant seeds, I like to water and see the plants growing.  The garden made me feel happy because I like to work. We also covered the floor with wood pieces and dirt. We tried the Jalapenos, and my favorite vegetable is the cucumber. I enjoyed time with my mom and Eva was very good to us.