紐約水泥森林中的田園生活

Zaro Bates operates and lives on a 5,000-square-foot farm on Staten Island, which may make her the city’s only commercial farmer-in-residence. But instead of a shingled farmhouse surrounded by acres of fields, Ms. Bates lives in a second-floor studio in a midrise apartment complex built on the site of a former naval base overlooking New York Bay.

扎羅·貝茨(Zaro Bates)在斯塔滕島經營着一個面積5000平方英尺（約合465平方米）的農場，並在那裏居住，這使她成爲也許是這個城市裏唯一的商業農場經營者。但貝茨不是生活在被數英畝農田環繞的木瓦農舍，而是在一箇中高層住宅小區的一間二樓工作室內，這個俯瞰紐約灣的地方原本是一座海軍基地。

The farm itself sits in a courtyard between two buildings at Urby, a development with 571 rental apartments that opened in Stapleton last year. Ms. Bates draws a modest salary and gets free housing, which sounds like a good deal until you discover how much work she has to put in.

農場則是爾比(Urby)的兩棟建築之間的庭院，這是斯泰普爾頓去年開盤的地產項目，共有571座出租公寓。貝茨領着一份中等的薪水，有免費住房，這聽起來挺划算，但如果你知道她爲此付出多少勞動，就不那麼想了。

The 26-year-old oversees a weekly farmstand on the complex premises from May through November and donates to food banks. In her repertory? Some 50 types of produce — greens, summer vegetables, flowers, herbs and roots. She does this with help from her business partner and husband, Asher Landes, 29.

從5月一直到11月，26歲的貝茨在這個小區裏每週舉辦一次農貿市集，同時也給食物慈善機構捐贈食物。她的產出？大約有50種農產品——綠葉蔬菜、夏季蔬菜、花、草本香料和根莖蔬菜。她在自己的丈夫兼生意夥伴、29歲的阿舍·蘭德斯(Asher Landes)的幫助下完成這些工作。

Let the doubters doubt.

信不信由你。

“A lot of people instinctively call it a garden, but we really try to manage it for a commercial market,” Ms. Bates said. “It’s funny that people have different kinds of notions of what a farm is. Some people think it needs to have animals, that it needs to have acreage. We intensively crop this space so that we can produce for market, and that’s why we call it a farm.”

“很多人習慣性地把它稱作花園，但我們的確是在爲滿足一個商業市場的需求來管理它，”貝茨說。“人們對一個農場應該是什麼樣有不同看法，這挺有意思。有些人覺得應該有動物，應該有數英畝的土地。我們在這片空間裏密集地種植，以便能滿足市場所需，這是我們稱它爲農場的原因。”

Farming, of course, is a New York tradition. In the late 1800s, loam and livestock were predominant north of Central Park and in what is now the East 50s. In “Win-Win Ecology,” Michael L. Rosenzweig argues that ecological science has rooted itself in the common ground of development and conservation: the use of rich natural resources in places where we work and live.

當然，種植是紐約的一項傳統。在19世紀末，中央公園北部和現在被稱爲“東50s”的地方主要是農田和家畜。在《雙贏生態》(Win-Win Ecology)一書中，邁克爾·L·羅森茨魏格(Michael L. Rosenzweig)指出，生態科學植根於共同的開發與保護：把我們工作和生活的地方的豐富自然資源利用起來。

Farms like Ms. Bates’s, in addition to more traditional farmland, have been around for quite some time. Thomas Whitlow, an associate professor of horticulture who specializes in urban plants at Cornell University, Ms. Bates’s alma mater, said that in the 1940s some 40 percent of fresh market produce in New York was grown in victory gardens.

除了較傳統的農田之外，像貝茨經營的這種農場早就已經有了。在貝茨的母校康奈爾大學(Cornell University)專門研究都市植物的園藝學副教授湯馬斯·惠特洛(Thomas Whitlow)表示，在1940年代，紐約生鮮市場上有大約40%的農產品來自“勝利園”（戰爭期間在私人宅院和公園裏開闢的蔬菜種植地。——譯註）。

“Certainly, urban populations in general are very adaptable as conditions change,” Dr. Whitlow said. “They can change within the space of a year. Just a hundred years ago we were almost a hunter-gatherer society and did indeed have farming in major metropolitan areas.”

“當然，城市人口整體上十分適應環境變化，”惠特洛說。“在不到一年的時間裏，他們就可以實現改變。僅僅100年前，我們幾乎還稱得上一個狩獵採集社會，而且的確在大都會地區進行農業種植。”

Ms. Bates had hardly seen farmland as a child. Her parents, who moved to Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, in the early 1990s, rarely took the family upstate. They had the backyard of their home, but no green thumbs between them. The yard was a play space.

貝茨小時候基本沒看見過農田。她的父母在1990年代初移居布魯克林的卡羅爾花園，很少帶家人到紐約州北部去。家有個後院，但沒人懂農業種植。那個院子就是個玩耍的地方。

After graduating from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell, where she studied developmental sociology, Ms. Bates volunteered as a groundskeeper at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Mass.

貝茨在康奈爾大學農業和生命科學學院(College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell)學發展社會學。畢業後，她自告奮勇地到馬薩諸塞州斯托克布里奇市的克里帕魯瑜伽及健康中心(Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health)當了一名園地管理員。

“That was the first time that I drove a tractor, did wood chipping, shoveled heaps of snow in the Berkshires winter, then planted in the springtime and just worked outside with a team of people through the seasons,” she said. “That was my first experience with that type of work and really falling in love with that.”

“那是我第一次用拖拉機、碎木機，第一次在斯托克布里奇的冬天鏟成堆的雪，然後在春季種植，跟一羣人一年四季在戶外忙活，”她說。“那是我第一次做這類工作，並真正愛上了它。”

Afterward she intended to travel, maybe visit South America. Her plans were postponed by an apprenticeship at Brooklyn Grange, a rooftop and urban farming consultancy group, where Ms. Bates farmed under the tutelage of the chief operating officer, Gwen Schantz.

她原本打算之後出去旅行，或許到南美看看。因爲接到屋頂和都市農業諮詢機構布魯克林農莊(Brooklyn Grange)的學徒工作，那項計劃推遲了。在農莊裏，貝茨在首席運營官格溫·尚茨(Gwen Schantz)的指導下進行種植。

“We love designing and installing green spaces for clients, but it’s equally exciting to see others taking this work up, especially young, savvy farmers like Zaro,” Ms. Schantz said.

“我們喜歡爲客戶設計和佈置綠色空間，但看到其他人開始從事這項工作也同樣讓人興奮，尤其是像扎羅這樣年輕能幹的農場主，”尚茨說。

“What we did was similar to other farmers’ markets in the city,” Ms. Bates said. “But because it was enclosed in a space that invites hanging out for a while, we really invited people to make it more of a Saturday afternoon activity. That was not just for Urby residents, but also anyone from the general public.”

“我們所做的和市裏其他農貿市場是差不多的，”貝茨說。“但因爲它是設在一個讓人想在裏面閒逛的封閉空間裏，我們就真的邀請人們過來，讓它變得更像一個週六下午的活動。它不僅僅針對爾比的住戶，也向公衆開放。”

Ms. Bates and Mr. Landes try to plant according to requests from local residents. The proceeds go to the couple’s company, supplementing the annual salary they each receive from Urby. (Urby and Ms. Bates declined to disclose the amount.) They also host workshops and a book club.

貝茨和蘭德斯盡力按照當地居民的要求種植。農場的收益歸這對夫婦的公司，此外還有他們從爾比獲得的年薪。（爾比和貝茨拒絕透露薪資的數額。）他們還會舉辦工作坊和讀書俱樂部活動。

“The priority is to residents,” Ms. Bates said, “but also to build community.”

“最重要的不僅是滿足居民的需求，”貝茨說，“還有營造一個社區。”