A physical therapist by training, Washington began gardening when she moved to the Bronx in 1985. “I had a backyard, and instead of putting a lawn on it or cementing it, I decided I was going to grow some food,” she says. “I had no experience whatsoever. No one to turn to — my parents weren't farmers, my grandparents weren't farmers.” She wanted to grow three vegetables in particular: “Collard greens, of course, because they’re a staple in the African-American diet,” she says. “Eggplants, because eggplant seemed funky — you know, eggs on a plant? And tomatoes. I hated tomatoes. The tomatoes we had were pale and tasted like cardboard."

The first tomato I grew changed my world. It was red, and when I tasted it, it just blew my mind. I’d never tasted anything so incredible. And it gave me the bug.” She moved fully into farming two decades later, after attending a six-month program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems. “They teach you how to grow on a farm, to grow a community garden, and to grow in an orchard,” she says. “Working in community gardens, the plots are small — and I remember for the first time being able to work on a farm of nine acres, and that was scary. I said to myself, ‘Karen, either you’re going to get on a plane and go home — or if you’re going to go on this journey, you’re going to face your fears.’ So, I put my knapsack down and I went to both fields and I put both my hands into the soil, to find that connection. And right then and there, I knew that I made the right decision.” Right: Preparing the beds for spring plants in the Rise & Root Farm Greenhouse.

Above: Preparing the beds for spring plants in the Rise & Root Farm Greenhouse.

For Washington, farming is a spiritual practice. “It's not just about growing,” she says. “When I'm on the farm, I sit back and think about the people that were there thousands and thousands of years ago. And you give homage, as a farmer, and gratitude, to be on that land — not to own it, but to be stewards of the land, to take care of the land for the next generation. Sometimes I’ll just sit in a field, and just give the universe thanks and praise that I’m farming on this land, and that I’m taking care of this land, because the land has been given to me to take care of. And I just give thanks to the universe for allowing me to do what I do, and in doing it, to find joy.”