Latest / The Difference We Make: Stories of People Changing Lives / From Concrete to Community: The Radical Act of Growing Food Together | The Difference We Make
Transcript
- There is a specific kind of silence that lives in an abandoned city lot, and it is heavier than you might think. It’s not empty; it’s waiting. I want you to picture a space you’ve walked past a hundred times without really seeing it. Maybe it’s near your commute, or tucked behind a row of brick houses where the paint is peeling. It’s just a patch of ground, really. Overgrown weeds, shattered glass, maybe a rusted chain-link fence that hasn’t latched properly since the nineties. To most people, it’s just eyesore. A symbol of neglect. But if you stop—if you actually stand there for a minute—you can feel the tension in the air. It’s the weight of potential that has nowhere to go. For years, I treated these spaces as failures. As reporters, we’re trained to look for the problem, the crime stats, the decay. We document what’s broken because that’s what demands attention. But lately, I’ve been thinking about what happens when we stop documenting the wound and start tending to it. There is a profound shift that occurs when a community decides to turn concrete back into soil. It’s not just gardening. It’s an act of reclamation. It’s saying, 'This space belongs to us again.' Let’s look at the hands behind this. Not the politicians who signed off on zoning changes decades ago, but the neighbors who show up with shovels at six in the morning. These aren’t professional landscapers. They are teachers, nurses, retirees, teenagers looking for something real to do with their Saturday afternoons. They bring their own tools, often worn out and borrowed from relatives. They don’t have permits or budgets. They have dirt under their fingernails and a stubborn refusal to let beauty die in this neighborhood. When you break ground in a place like that, you aren’t just aerating the earth. You are breaking open the social contract. In dense urban environments, we are surrounded by people yet profoundly isolated. We live side-by-side but rarely side-with. We see each other as obstacles in the hallway, faces on the subway, strangers to be avoided. But try to get ten strangers to dig a compost pile together. Watch what happens. You cannot work shoulder-to-shoulder in mud and maintain your emotional distance. The physical labor forces interaction. You have to ask someone to hold the hose. You have to share the harvest. You have to acknowledge that Mrs. Gable knows exactly how to prune tomatoes, and she’s going to teach you, whether you asked or not. That knowledge transfer is huge. It flips the script on who holds power in a room. In the corporate world, expertise is currency. Here, experience is currency, and it’s shared freely. I remember talking to a young man named Marcus who had never grown anything bigger than a houseplant before joining his local lot project. He told me he spent the first month just watching. He felt like an intruder in his own block. But then he started helping clear the debris. He said the moment the first green shoot broke through the blacktop, he felt a sense of ownership he’d never had elsewhere. Not property ownership—legal ownership—but life ownership. He was responsible for something living. And that responsibility connected him to everyone else who cared about those leaves. Now, I need to be honest with you. This isn’t a Pinterest board. It’s messy. It’s hard. There are days when the rain washes away weeks of weeding. There are bugs. There are disagreements about who gets the best rows for corn versus beans. There is bureaucracy, too. Dealing with water rights, soil testing for lead contamination, negotiating with city councils who would rather pave over paradise than plant a garden. That’s where the real work begins. Not in the planting, but in the persistence. In the gritty, unglamorous work of repair. Because restoring land takes time. Soil health doesn’t happen overnight. It requires years of adding organic matter, layering compost, letting the microbiome recover. It’s a slow, quiet rebellion against the speed culture we live in. You cannot rush nature. And you cannot rush trust. I’ve seen projects fail because they focused too much on the aesthetic—the pretty raised beds, the Instagram-worthy photo ops—and not enough on the infrastructure. Who waters the plants when it’s ninety degrees? Who fixes the fence when it breaks? Without systems, good intentions crumble. The successful plots are the ones that treat the community structure with the same care as the crops. They have schedules. They have conflict resolution protocols. They understand that growing food is easy compared to growing a community. One is biological; the other is deeply human. We need to talk about agency. Too often, urban farming is framed as charity. 'Here, take some vegetables so you don’t go hungry.' It’s well-meaning, but it’s patronizing. It positions the giver as the hero and the receiver as the victim. That dynamic kills dignity. And it kills long-term engagement. The most powerful urban farms I’ve encountered operate on a model of mutual aid and exchange. Yes, many give away food to neighbors in need. But they also sell at markets. They offer workshops on fermentation, on canning, on nutrition. They create jobs. They build skills. When a resident learns to propagate seedlings and sell them, they aren’t being saved; they are becoming entrepreneurs. They are participating in the local economy. Stay with me here. Think about the last time you bought produce at a grocery store. You probably didn’t know who grew it. You didn’t know what conditions it survived. You didn’t know the farmer’s name. But when you buy a basket of kale from the woman down the street who grew it two blocks away, the connection is tangible. You taste the difference. Not just in flavor—though that’s undeniable—but in meaning. You are supporting a cycle of life right in your zip code. You are voting with your fork for a system that values people over efficiency. That is a radical act in a world obsessed with global supply chains. There is also a psychological dimension to this that we often overlook. Nature therapy is well-documented. Spending time in green spaces lowers cortisol, reduces anxiety, improves mood. But there’s something deeper happening when you engage in creation. When you nurture something from nothing, you prove to yourself that you have impact. In a world where many of us feel powerless—where the news cycles scream helplessness—watching a seed become a meal is proof of efficacy. I spoke to a woman named Elena who had lost her husband unexpectedly. She came to the lot because she needed to escape her apartment, which felt too full of silence. She didn’t want to talk about grief. She just wanted to pull weeds. The repetitive motion helped. The sun helped. But the breakthrough came when she harvested her first zucchini. She brought it to the communal table, and everyone celebrated. Someone made a salad. Someone toasted with cheap wine. For an hour, she wasn’t a widow. She was a gardener. She was part of a tribe. The lot became a sanctuary not because it was peaceful, but because it was alive. And life, in all its chaotic, messy glory, pulls us forward. So, what does this mean for you? You might not have access to a vacant lot. You might rent an apartment with no balcony. You might live in a desert or a snowbelt. But the principle remains. Look for the cracks in your own life where growth is possible. Look for the neglected spaces in your community. Maybe it’s starting a seed library in your building. Maybe it’s volunteering at a local food bank that focuses on fresh produce. Maybe it’s simply buying from a farmer who cares about their soil. Or maybe it’s just noticing the person next to you in line and striking up a conversation. Connection is the root system of society. Without it, everything withers. I challenge you to find one way to engage with your physical environment today. Touch grass. Literally. Plant something, even if it’s a single herb on a windowsill. Notice the change in your perspective when you realize you are part of a larger web. We are not separate from nature, and we are not separate from each other. We are intertwined. Every action ripples out. Every seed planted is a promise kept to the future. Let’s look at the hands behind this. Let’s look at ours. Are they ready to get dirty? Thank you for spending this time with me. I’m Ashling Scallon. Keep digging. I’ll see you next time.