New Ground is City Green’s neighborhood gardenprogramming, including community gardening, Green Your Block! and Back Yard Gardener Workshops, community events, horticultural therapy and urban farming. New Ground works to create healthy, vibrant urban neighborhoods and communities by helping residents create a green space in walking distance of their homes, turn bighted vacant spaces into blooming places and grow fresh organic produce.  Garden workshops are held throughout the season, educating participants in sustainable practices, and environmental issues are addressed. Through gardening and growing food, New Ground programming inspires urban revitalization both on the personal and community level.

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New Ground is …

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Community Gardening

Community gardening has a wide range of benefits for gardeners and neighborhoods alike.  According to the American Community Gardening Association, community gardening:

• Improves the quality of life for participants
• Provides a catalyst for neighborhood and community development
• Stimulates Social Interaction
• Encourages Self-Reliance
• Beautifies Neighborhoods
• Produces Nutritious Food
• Reduces Family Food Budgets
• Conserves Resources
• Creates opportunity for recreation, exercise, therapy, and education
• Reduces Crime
• Preserves Green Space
• Reduces city heat from streets and parking lots
• Provides opportunities for intergenerational and cross-cultural connections

City Green is working with communities, neighborhoods and the city of Paterson to facilitate the creation of new community gardens throughout the city for increased access to healthy, fresh organically grown food, neighborhood beautification and community building. 

If you have a lot in your neighborhood that you would like to turn into a community garden, contact City Green for guidance and assistance at 201-444-7514 or info@city-green.org.

 

Horticultural Therapy

City Green grows Therapeutic Gardens at Catholic Charities’ Straight and Narrow, a residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility, and the New Jersey Community Development’s Birch Street Apartments which house formerly homeless persons with mental illness. Therapeutic garden environments offer individuals the opportunity to connect to the natural world, with or without facilitation. The passive experience of a garden can improve health and well-being. According to the American Horticultural Therapy Association, Horticultural Therapy is the oldest of the healing therapies and uses the relationship between people and the natural environment to affect human wellness. Horticultural therapy programs are currently operating in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, special education schools, mental health programs, correctional facilities, and many social service agencies. The focus is to maximize social, cognitive, physical and/or psychological functioning and/or to enhance general health and wellness.

Generally speaking, what benefits does Horticultural Therapy offer?

Horticultural Therapy…

• Provides meaningful, purposeful activity
  
• Offers versatility in programming for all developmental
  areas
• Addresses innate psychological needs and connection with the natural world
• Offers restoration and respite from mental stress
• Encourages human growth that is fundamental and central to each individual served
• Impacts visitors, staff and family members as well as participants
  

(From the Horticultural Therapy Institute, www.htinstitute.org)

City Green promotes wellness and healing through gardening at many of our New Ground projects.

Green Your Block!

Green Your Block! is a neighborhood greening program sponsored by City Green.

City Green’s new Green Your Block! program is designed to catalyze and encourage neighborhood beautification and community greening in a cooperative manner.  At City Green, we believe in the power of community and collaboration, and in the power of beauty! By providing hands on workshops, resources and consultations, City Green works to actively engage community members in the valuable efforts of community beautification and inspire them to new heights in gardening and greening initiatives.

Get five neighbors on your block to join together to beautify and green your block! City Green will provide your group with a basic gardening workshop where you will learn the skills necessary to plant and care for your flowers and trees. All neighbors must attend the workshop and pay a $5.00 registration fee. At the end of the workshop your group will receive start up materials, such as flowers, seeds and bulbs. As a follow up, City Green will do a consultation on your block to advise the group, answer any questions or help with problems.

All classes are held in the City Green Learning Garden in Eastside Park.

Paterson Grows! Garden Recognition Program - Nominate your garden, or your neighbor's garden for the First Annual "Paterson Grows! Garden Recognition Program!" The purpose of this program is to recognize all of the wonderful gardeners making a difference in their community through greening and gardening efforts. Recognized gardeners will be awarded certificates at City Green's "Fall Bulb Give Away" taking place at our "Harvest Festival" at the Learning Garden on Saturday, October 24th. They will also receive free bulbs for fall planting, see a bulb planting demonstration, get a tour of the Learning Garden, get more information about City Green and the programs we offer home gardeners and learn about exciting volunteer opportunities.

Join us and get your garden the recognition it deserves!

City Green is available for consultation on your block, email us at info@city-green.org or call 201-444-7514.

 

Back Yard Gardener

Growing food in your back yard is a wonderful way to add fresh organic produce to your diet, get great exercise, relieve stress and spend time outdoors! City Green’s Back Yard Gardener program encourages residents to grow healthy food in their back yards, whether they have a full green lot, a tiny plot or only a stoop or fire escape for a few containers.

City Green’s Backyard Gardener Workshops are held to help local residents develop the skills needed to begin gardening in their own backyards or expand on their existing gardening skills. Learn vegetable and flower gardening, container gardening, how to make your plants thrive, organic gardening techniques, natural pest management and more!  At the finish of the course City Green provides gardeners with some starter plants and/or seeds to add to your home garden.  Beginners and experienced gardeners are welcome! At the end of the second class you will receive the start up materials.

All classes will be held in the City Green Learning Garden at Eastside Park.

 

Greenhouse

City Green has newly acquired access to the City of Paterson’s greenhouse, in partnership with the Eastside Neighborhood Association. Seedlings and plants grown in the greenhouse will help support our Green Your Block! and Back Yard Gardener programs. The greenhouse will also be an educational tool and provide paid internship opportunities for high school students

Urban Farming

City Green is launching an urban farm in 2010. Building and running an Urban Farm will allow City Green to drastically increase food production, run weekly Green Markets in two locations in Paterson, host five more high school interns, provide food donations to four Paterson based service organizations on a regular basis, and provide more volunteer and adult education opportunities to community members.