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Composting grief

A garden story

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After losing my dad to lung cancer, I felt the need to play in the dirt.

I had been a foodie city chick and my terrace planters were as close to farming as I got. But Schervier Nursing Care Center had just won a grant to start a community garden for horticulture therapy and I needed something to help me heal.

So six years ago, I started volunteering and have been investing my time as an original member of the local community organic garden ever since.

Today, the project runs on a grant to assist local senior citizens and patients at the hospital. I keep whatever I grow on my plot — there are 25 10-foot by 10-foot plots — with specific ones that grow food for donations to Part of the Solution, or P.O.T.S., which feeds the needy and runs a variety of assistance programs. I also help manage the other 25 plots, including a tea garden, a memorial garden and common areas. I rototill the wintered earth, help other members weed and assist with planning arts and crafts projects.

A combination of gardening and Bikram yoga has helped me lose the 60 pounds of emotional weight I put on after losing my dad and has led me to help beautify scores of gardens, turning them from dull to vibrant, throughout the Riverdale area.

While I was working at Schervier, an old friend called and told me about another project. After interning at Wave Hill, he had started a garden landscape business. He had heard about my newfound love and asked for my help. Soon, I was excavating an overgrown rock garden and experimenting with different composting methods.

Then I learned about the NYC Compost Project with Bronx Green-Up, the community outreach program of The New York Botanical Garden. The program hand-picks 15 people a year to become certified Master Composters. But I had not set foot in a classroom since 1990!

I was accepted into the Master Composter Certification program because of my community outreach (and with the help of a lovely letter of recommendation from Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz).

My final project was to build a bin where I would produce compost for our garden beds. With the help of some of my fellow gardeners and Bronx Green-Up, I completed this task in six weeks.

Schervier, compost, community garden, Michelle Zimmer
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