Community Gardens

Most of them grew up on farms in the deep south planting acres of okra, cabbage and collard greens. They spent their youth doing back-breaking work in seething temperatures learning about the importance of self-sufficiency and a diet ripe with home-grown vegetables. Gardening has been a way of life for them and though they are 70, 80 and 90 years old the small plots of earth they cultivate is a release from looking or feeling their age.

“Kids today are lazy. I worked so hard when I was 16…nobody works like that today” laments an 80-year Jamaican woman at Garland Court in Albany’s South End community garden.

She and other elderly generations are picking their fortunes of sweet tomatoes, string beans and hot peppers in a weed-free garden that they’ve nurtured for nearly 20 years. And rather than hording the harvest they share everything with their neighbors, hence the name Community Gardens. This is only one of 46 locations in the Capital District that’s keeping me busy today videotaping footage for a new series on WMHT called “It’s an Age Thing.”

The show has been a rewarding and energetic endeavor, especially when I get a chance to meet the busy boys of the USS Slater, a special doctor who treats inner-city West Hill patients for free and a Veggie Van that delivers fresh produce to low-income neighborhoods. The Capital Region is blessed with maturing generations full of ideals and principles that could go a long way in shaping the attitudes of today. All of you have to do is look no further than the Community Gardens of the Capital Region to know that.