Comments on: Urban Gardening & Composting Bring a Green Groundswell to Jersey City

By: Isilme

Isilme — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:17:19 +0000

I live in Bergen Lafayette in a row house. My back yard is about 70X16 feet. I have hedges, hybiscus, hydrangea, a variety of perenials & annuals, a yew tree a Catalpa tree and a real old “tree of Heaven” which I share with my neighbor and has our fence embedded in it : ) But because I have unearthed some really odd things from this very fertile ground – including lots of glass – I grow my tomato plants and strawberries in containers raised off the ground. Shredded vegie peels go off to the garden. No pesticides are allowed. I get rid of the weeds by pulling them up by the roots and my lady bugs eat the aphids and there are loads of worms. The birds love it all too.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:34:32 +0000

We just moved to JC and don’t have a yard. At our old place in Brooklyn, a local community garden collected non-meat food scraps for their composting project. Is there a project like that in JC? I’d love to be able to contribute my food scraps.

By: JWisner

JWisner — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:09:13 +0000

I understand the soil concerns especially in JC with such a large, former industrial base. Soil testing is a must, but one must not forget container gardening and vermiculture. Regarding container gardening, there are “bush” varieties of tomatoes and cucumbers that taste so much better than any hothouse, mass produced ones you can commercially buy. Vermiculture or the keeping worms to compost organic materials into garden rich soil, is a way urban dwellers can enrich soil but at the same time depose of food scraps. A worm bin can be as small as a Cool Whip ® container. Perfect for the city.

By: Christin Spigai

Christin Spigai — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:48:12 +0000

We have a small backyard in Bergen-Lafayette but planted tons of perrenials two years ago. This is the third summer with the same flowers and they’re growing like crazy. Our soil was great (although watch out for broken glass if you buy a fixer upper like we did). We also have a compost bin that we found online. No smell at all!

By: Sarah Fishtein

Sarah Fishtein — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:38:41 +0000

You can get your soil tested by sending a sample to the local Rutgers Cooperative Extension office. See here http://njaes.rutgers.edu/soiltestinglab/howto.asp for details.

By: becky

becky — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:15:00 +0000

It’s definitely a valid concern. I think many community garden members and other city gardeners do indeed do soil testing, I’d be curious to see results too.

By: jon

jon — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:51:27 +0000

Urban gardening is great, but having studied environmental economics and knowing the industrial history of this area, I am not so comfortable eating anything grown in the ground here. Unless a community garden can show me soil sample tests for lead, cadmium, pcbs, other heavy metals, let alone newer threats such as endocrin disrupting organic compounds mostly found in houlshold chemicals I’ll stick to commercial products, farmers markets and food coops.