Harlem Farm Expands Compost Site, Gets $1K Grant

HARLEM, NY — A Harlem community farm is expanding its composting and food-scrap drop-offs, fresh after getting a $1,000 grant from a Manhattan panel.

Harlem Grown is running two 24/7 compost sites this summer: one at the 134th Street Farm and another at their 127th Street Learning Annex (both are between Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Malcolm X boulevards). (Read the full guidelines here.)

The nonprofit got a $1,000 grant earlier this month from the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board as part of an effort to alleviate the lack of composting sites in the Bronx and Manhattan.

The three grant recipients, which also included the Davidson Avenue Community Garden in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan's Riverside-Inwood Neighborhood Garden, presented plans and showed off their gardens at a board meeting.

At Harlem Grown's 134th Street farm, an older composting system has been replaced with an "innovative upright cylinder" that allows staff and neighbors to observe the composting process up close, a representative aid.

At the 127th Street annex, Harlem Grown has built nine stalls with upright compost cylinders, also serving as an educational tool for volunteers and neighbors.

Harlem Grown's two sites are viewable on the city's official map of food scrap drop-off locations, which shows a handful of other sites around Harlem.