Before this year, I never thought I would grow my own food on a plot of land. When I was a teenager, my grandmother grew, and taught me to grow, vegetables in our backyard garden. She also canned tomatoes, peaches, apples and other fruits/vegetables, which kept us fed during the winter. She also gave away a lot of the produce to our neighbors.

As I got older, and lived in more urban, apartment style settings, I never gave it much thought. It seemed like growing food was a lifetime ago and wasn’t feasible for my lifestyle anyway. That was until I went to an event and heard about urban farms across Washington, D.C. I had heard of urban farms before and didn’t know that they were becoming popular. I certainly didn’t know of any in the 1990s.

So when I heard that East Capitol Urban Farm was accepting applications, I signed up right away. Gradually, I felt reminiscent of that time when me and my grandmother grew food. I know that, as the Urban Farm grows, its impact on the community will be tremendous, as it is situated in a food desert in the city. Just observing the wide variety of plants the gardeners grow, and the creativity in designing their individual plots gets me going. I’ve also learned to compost over several months this year. The whole experience is life changing, and I can’t see myself parting from it.