KQED's Forum How ‘Tiny Gardens Everywhere’ Can Sustain Us
Feb 17, 2026
Kate Brown, MIT environmental historian and author of Tiny Gardens Everywhere, explores the global history of small urban gardens and their role in city resilience. She discusses school food forests, household plots versus urban farms, enclosure and labor shifts, Soviet allotments, reclaiming public land for curbside growing, and gardens as community-builders and cultural bridges.
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Enclosure As Labor Control
- Enclosure in England converted communal subsistence systems into wage dependence by denying common rights.
- Landowners preferred low-labor mechanized farming that increased control over labor, not necessarily yield per acre.
Allotments Were Sized To Preserve Wages
- Allotment gardens were sized deliberately so workers still needed paid jobs while getting minimal subsistence.
- This shows allotments were a social control tool as much as a welfare measure.
East of the River Self-Provisioning
- In early 20th-century Washington, D.C., Black families bought multiple small lots, built tiny houses, and gardened extensively.
- Those gardens, trees and livestock helped families survive without infrastructure like sewers or running water.
