Bushwick Gothic: Farm volunteer Anastasia Cole and Roberta’s co-owner Brandon Hoy pose in my back yard. — Photos by Anastasia Cole

In This Economy, people are seeking a conservative ethos lost in the consecutive bubble-booms of the 2000s, one that valued frugality and self-reliance over the consumerist profligacy that seem to have characterized the past 20 years or more. This has manifested in different ways, on a spectrum that ranges from learning to grow tomatoes on one’s fire escape to Y2K-like bunker planning. In between (but less toward the disaster-kook side) is backyard gardening, which is suddenly all the rage in Brooklyn and throughout the country.

It was during SITE Fest last year, on a brisk March afternoon, when on our way home from something on McKibbin, Luis and I bumped into Chris Parachini from Roberta’s, the local Italian-inflected restaurant the Times plugs once a week or so. He had just come out of the library, where a talk on food sustainability and urban gardening had been held.

“How was it?” I asked. ” It looked kind of nutty from the description.”

“Yeah, it was weird but interesting anyhow. We’re going to be building a garden on the roof at Roberta’s and eventually we’re thinking of starting an actual farm including pigs and chickens in East New York or somewhere we can find enough acreage,” said Chris. “But for now we’re looking for some empty lots in the neighborhood to get some veggies in the ground for this year.”

Luis jokingly interjected, “You could farm our back yard.” The yard that we inherited as a trash dump mixed with the ruins of a previous house, of which we had only succeeded in taming around half.

Chris perked up. “Really?”

Luis, stuttering: “Well…y-yeah.” We exchange glances.

Chris: “I’ll call you this week.”

Accustomed to what passes for “plans” in this often flaky neighborhood, I didn’t at all expect Chris’s call the coming week, and I certainly didn’t expect that two weeks later, I’d be helping a crew of foodies and urban gardening enthusiasts level a good portion of my 25×60 back yard.

Lettuce! Click for more.

Within a month, a maze of planter boxes had been built over a thick tarp taking up almost the entire back half of the yard. Then came two deliveries of dirt — huge dumptrucksfull were deposited on the sidewalk, and 15-20 of us formed a bucket brigade to haul the dirt by the cubic foot into the planters. I cleaned the hallway to the back yard for hours afterward, wiping black handprints and muddy shoe prints off the surfaces. Then the planting began.

Brandon Hoy, a co-owner at Roberta’s and the resident farming expert, began planting lettuces directly from seed, which sprouted quickly in the black soil. The corrugated metal wall on the property line that separates me from the wrought iron fabricator on Troutman Street served to store and radiate extra warmth onto the young plants.

Within weeks, Brandon wonders if I have been harvesting anything from the various greens.

“It’s ready to be eaten already?” I asked. How could a city boy know when mesclun is ready to pick?

I began making salads on occasion — there was enough lettuce for hundreds, and my foraging didn’t make a dent.

Anastasia Cole has been a hands-on volunteer from conception. A West Village native, she grew up eating meals made from fresh, local ingredients and was horrified at college in rural Upstate New York when she was forced to eat supermarket-sourced buffets.

“I couldn’t understand why we were eating produce that had been shipped in from South America when we were surrounded by farms, many of which were struggling to stay in the black!”

After graduating, she began working for a prominent restaurateur and winemaker, studied prosciutto making in Italy, and learned about farming. Her experience made her “more resolute” to do her part in “changing the irresponsible and joyless way this country produces, packages, ships and consumes its food.” Anastasia has stopped by many times to tinker in the yard here — she even once brought her parents by to show them her work.

“I thought I was born to navigate subway lines and dart through rush hour crowds, but I find myself right at home wrist deep in soil with the sun on my back… my experience working in the garden has been revelatory,” she said.

Though the produce — which up until now has included myriad lettuces, heirloom cucumbers, beets, collard and other greens I had never heard of and now can’t recall — is intended for the restaurant, I get a “cut,” much like the gentleman farmers of yore, those rentiers who exacted payments from their tenants though they participated not in the labor. Every time a crop is harvested, a container is left in the entrance hall full of lettuce or beans. One time I went downstairs to get my mail and a single cucumber had been left for me.

When the gardening got to be a burden for the restaurant’s employees, Roberta’s hired Gwen Schantz — of the Garden of Eve CSA and forthcoming Bushwick Food Co-op, and who has her own back yard garden — as Garden Coordinator and part-time pizza chef. Now it’s her I see out my kitchen window planting onions and picking kale. Some of the things they planted didn’t do very well — the watermelon took up half the center area but ultimately yielded not one fruit. The eggplant and lone tomato plant are also doing poorly, Gwen suspects for a lack of pollinators. But I’m excited to report the fennel is growing like mad.

“I think next year we’ll plant some cutting flowers and strawberries and things that like to sprawl, to take advantage of the space we have out there,” Gwen speculated.

I’m wondering if this gardening thing is more hobby than necessity, and Gwen smiles. “Sure, people like to do it just to get their hands in the dirt and be in the fresh air. It’s a therapeutic thing — I know a lot of people who live in the city are dying to get their hands on a garden and get in touch with nature. It’s so rewarding to plant a seed and get a carrot in return.”

The recession may have spurred this return to the soil, but a “recovery” doesn’t mean we should give it up. “There may be a day where we can’t afford not to garden,” Gwen said.

One minor bump in this otherwise smooth experience was a couple of weeks ago, when we had a water usage scare — well, for Chris — but it turned out the city had just been estimating my water bills on the low end for nearly a year, and after an actual reading, showed my usage as having tripled in the bar graph on the bill. Not a happy surprise for me, but it turns out the farm doesn’t actually use very much extra water.

Chris says that in this first year, the garden is not yet profitable, but that it’s mostly due to the inexperience of some volunteers and his own newness to the farming game. He’s certain that once they figure out what works best in the spot, the investment will begin paying dividends.

Roberta’s own on-site garden — as any visitor cannot miss, atop the Heritage Foods radio station née shipping container in the courtyard — has been providing the restaurant with herbs, tomatoes, and other things that do well closer to the sun. Local-food guru Alice Waters acted as a sort of angel investor for the venture, fronting the money for the farm to the capital-squeezed group.

With these experiences under their belt, the Roberta’s team is working out a plan to start a one-acre rooftop farm somewhere in North Brooklyn — Bushwick would be preferable but the conditions are the most important criterion. Gwen says they are considering sites such as a charter school on Broadway in Bushwick and a warehouse in Williamsburg, and that they aim to create a commercially viable rooftop farm that will sell produce to restaurants and individuals — streamlined, no-frills, and the highest output for the lowest input. In this way, a method can be developed that others can replicate throughout the city.

To raise money for the venture, Roberta’s is hosting the likes of Batali empire investor Joe Bastianich and Del Posto chef Mark Ladner, city Councilwoman Diana Reyna, and Waters herself, for a feast with local foodies and farmers. Tickets are $150 per person — when I raised my eyebrow, Chris admitted “it’s a lot of money,” but it is open to all, the proceeds go to build the farm, and the food will be great. He is tentatively planning more “Bushwick-friendly” events with much more humble contributions for those of us with thinner wallets.

The most striking part of this for me — and especially those who know me — is that I am now part of a movement I still kind of scoff at. Normally these sorts of “intentional” things seem artificial and overwrought. I supremely loathe the idea of CSAs and food co-ops — a store does all this for me, thanks, I don’t need to buy shares or worse, waste hours of my life mopping grocery store floors just for the privilege of purchasing organic green beans from New Jersey. I did that in high school. But on the other hand, it seems perfectly natural that if home farming is reintroduced into our culture in this time not long after it disappeared, we should re-embrace this practice. Yes, yes, it’s great for the environment and is rewarding and healthy, but it’s also damn cheap. Apartment dwellers can at least grow tomatoes and peppers on their windowsills.

The only drawback for me now is that when I go to Roberta’s and look at the menu, I feel restricted in my choices. On a recent night I poured over the menu, rejecting the “garden greens” in the salads section.

“I just can’t pay $12 for something grown in my own yard,” I moped.

Roberta’s Farm Benefit Party
October 13, 2009, 7pm
Purchase Tickets online