How did you first get involved in gardening?

In the 1960s a lot of people were interested in becoming self-sufficient: learning how to grow your own vegetables, get your own water, have your own fruit trees, heat your house with wood, compost, etc. But I was an urbanite, I had children, and I didn’t want to leave Baltimore where I’ve lived all my life. So I tried to have a self-sufficient lifestyle and still live in an urban setting. I choose to be self-employed and to live simply, so that I wouldn’t have to generate a lot of income to buy things. Then in the early 70s my sister-in-law moved here and she knew something about vegetable gardening. So we got a tiller and tilled up the ground and we were really successful—in fact, the best onions I’ve ever had were in that first garden.

What are the advantages of growing your own food?

Well, self-sufficiency is really important. I often tell the story of the people in Yugoslavia, during the Siege of Sarajevo. Those people survived for years, mainly because they knew three things: how to grow vegetables, how to preserve vegetables, and how to heat with wood. So these are important skills, and we may need them again if the slightest thing disrupts our system of transportation and distribution of food. There is also something very satisfying about having a closet full of food that you have canned and put away, and knowing that during the winter you’re going to have plenty for everyone to eat.

What suggestions would you have for someone who is interested in starting a vegetable garden in the city? Could you briefly outline some of the basic steps in this process?

The most important part of starting a garden in the city is creating a good home for your vegetables to grow, and a lot of city soil is used soil, so it isn’t like going into the country and starting a garden in virgin soil. For that reason I highly recommend that you do a soil test to determine the pH level, because vegetables will not grow if the pH is not in the right range (between 6.5 and 7.0). You will also need to do a lot of cultivating, which means digging down at least two feet and amending the soil with organic matter. The other thing I would really recommend is starting small. A common problem people run into with gardening is that they start too large and it becomes more work than they would like to have. You can really grow an enormous amount of food in a 4-by-12-foot bed in a row house backyard. The other thing is the need for sunlight, you need at least 6–8 hours of sunlight per day to grow just about anything well.


What would you tell someone who wants to garden but doesn’t have access to land?

I would tell them to join a community garden. I like to promote these group gardens because they end up creating families where people can enjoy each other and appreciate everyone’s efforts. I don’t like individual gardens because things go to waste, whereas in a group garden, in which everyone is working together, you can grow and harvest a lot more. So join a Parks and Recreation City Farm or join a community garden, and you’ll see that it’s very gratifying.

Do you think there is an increasing urgency for us to rethink our local food systems?

Well, yes. With global warming, you need to be concerned with the amount of energy it takes to produce the food we’re eating that is grown in California and trucked across the country. And we’re worried about these 9/11 kind of situations where if something catastrophic happened, we wouldn’t be able to get our food. So these skills are important to us as a society, and it’s important that people learn they can be self-sufficient and don’t have to be dependent on other people. It’s also good that people don’t always have to work and earn income to buy what they need; they can get a lot of things they need by doing it for themselves.

What resources exist in Baltimore for people who want to start gardening?

Baltimore is really hot on community gardens these days, and there are a lot of people that want to help you either start a community garden or grow your own food in your yard. There are people like the Maryland Cooperative Extension, which has a wonderful hotline (301-590-9650), where you can call, and they will answer any question under the sun. There are the Master Gardeners who hold clinics at the farmers’ markets and teach classes.


There’s Parks and People that is doing a great job teaching people how to organize their neighborhoods and how to plant trees. And then there’s Civic Works, which has a crew of AmeriCorps workers and lots of machinery, and they’re willing to come out and help you with some of the difficult jobs that would take you years to do by hand. So lots of things are happening and lots of things are already in place. There are more than 100 community gardens in Baltimore City, so this is a major city for individuals and communities growing their own food.