East New York Farmers Market
East New York Farmers Market
New Lots Ave. (betw. Barbey & Jerome Sts.) 718-385-6700
I'm walking with Georgine Yourgey, a blond-haired, honey-skinned 28-year-old, through a thriving quarter-acre garden in East New York. As we step among perky greenery, I notice amidst the crops a pretty spiral shell with yellow and black stripes. I ask Yourgey, urban agriculture coordinator for East New York Farms!, what's in the shell.
"A snail," she answers, picking it up. "These are real pests in a garden." Yourgey takes two steps onto the sidewalk, drops the shell and crushes it under her sneaker. "That's the organic way to deal with snails."
This organic garden is the lynchpin of the East New York Farmer's Market, which kicked off its sixth year of operation on June 26. Every Saturday through November, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., roughly 15 local and state vendors assemble in a vacant lot on New Lots Ave. to sell their goods. Yourgey runs this garden with the help of middle-school-aged interns she recruits from the neighborhood for East New York Farms!, a non-profit organization that oversees the farmer's market, among other community initiatives.
On this day, three interns-Jason Thomas and Warren Ottey, both 13, and Junita Middleton, 14-are assembling a mini-market table in the entrance of the neighboring United Community Centers, the organization's home base. The kids are supervised as they position crates of sugar snap peas, sour cherries, alert-looking chives, mint, sage, leafy bunches of swiss chard, mustard greens and flowering broccoli rabe on a table covered in gingham cloth. Yourgey is hoping to attract the attention of parents who will soon pick up their children from the center's nursery school.
"Instead of just handing out fliers, we want to show what they could get by coming," says Yourgey.
Middleton carefully writes prices on index cards with a permanent marker: $1.75 for a pint of peas. $1 for a bunch of herbs. $1 for a fistful of chard. Accustomed to paying a ridiculous premium at Manhattan gourmet markets for produce that looks only half as good, my jaw drops involuntarily. Especially as I know what else is to come this summer: four varieties of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, blackberries, strawberries, more herbs, cucumbers, squash, zucchini and okra.
Yourgey drills the kids. "What's the difference between chives and scallions?" No answer. "Chives taste sweeter. Okay, what's the difference between mustard greens and swiss chard?"
"Mustard greens taste more green??" replies a doubtful Middleton.
"No," says Yourgey. "Mustard greens are spicy. It's important to let people know that they have some spice to them."
In addition to tending to and harvesting the plants, the interns get a fairly comprehensive botanical education. Not only do they learn how produce is supposed to taste, but Yourgey teaches about soil and compost, the advantages and disadvantages of global versus local food systems, how insects fit into the ecosystem and other essentials of community farming.
The logical connection between organic farming and one of Brooklyn's least savory neighborhoods may not be immediately apparent, but eliminating this supposed contrast in many ways is the point of the market's existence. It may come as a surprise that East New York has more registered community gardens than any other neighborhood in the city, due most likely to its surplus of vacant lots.
On the most basic level, East New York Farms! and its auxiliary programs exist to serve the community. A few years into its existence, the market started to accept Farmer's Market Nutrition Program coupons, federally issued coupon booklets that can be only spent at the farmer's markets, which at this point make up 80 percent of revenue. The neighborhood's high rate of nutrition-related diseases such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes also motivates the organization's outreach programs. And many of the market's vendors come from within East New York.
"Ideally, we're helping small family farmers and people who need vegetables," says Yourgey. "We don't run this like a business."
Their methods of growing are equally conscientious. No pesticides, herbicides or inorganic fertilizers are used, and water conservation occurs in the form of mulching, drip irrigation and a rainwater collection system that recycles rain from neighboring rooftops for watering.
Despite these precious farming techniques, Yourgey says there is still the reputation of the neighborhood to contend with. "There's the whole mentality of people not wanting to spend money in what is supposed to be a cheap or bad neighborhood," she says, and the market responds by keeping the prices low enough to avoid the problem altogether. "We're also fighting the percentage of people that think that because we're in a bad neighborhood, everything that's sold here must be bad."
The market currently serves about 12,000 customers every season, a number that keeps climbing each year.
Yourgey says this has been a good growing season, and anticipates that this trend will continue. "The farmer's market is something good that happens here. It really changes people's perceptions." o