About
Since March 2011
In 2011, the lot behind the post office on 46th Street was a dumping ground — old mattresses, a shopping cart that had been there so long it had a nickname (Gerald). Six neighbors cleared it in a weekend. By April they had twelve beds built from salvaged lumber and a handshake agreement with the landlord. Thirteen years later the lumber's been replaced twice, the landlord sold the lot to the city, and Gerald the shopping cart lives on only in the name of our annual spring cleanup.
We grow food. We grow flowers for the block. We grow a reason to be outside talking to somebody who isn't a screen. The garden sits between Greenpoint Avenue and Skillman Avenue, accessible from the alley next to King of Falafel. If you can smell the falafel, you're close.
46th St & Greenpoint Ave
Sunnyside, Queens 11104
What We Grow
2024 season — updated May
Vegetables
- Tomatoes — Cherokee Purple, Sungold14 plants
- Hot peppers — Serrano, Aji Amarillo22 plants
- Snap peas — Sugar Ann3 rows
- Zucchini — Black Beauty6 plants
- Kale — Lacinato, Red Russian2 beds
- Radishes — French Breakfast1 bed
- Cucumbers — Marketmore 768 plants
- Garlic — Music, overwintered40 cloves
Herbs & Greens
- Basil — Genovese, Thaishared bed
- Cilantro — slow-boltsuccession
- Perilla / Shiso — red & green2 rows
- Culantro — for the sofrito crew1 bed
- Mint — quarantined in a bucket1 bucket
- Arugula — wild Italianbroadcast
- Lettuce mix — spring & fall1 bed
Flowers & Perennials
- Sunflowers — Mammoth Russianfence line
- Zinnias — California Giants mix1 bed
- Marigolds — Día de los Muertosborders
- Lavender — Hidcote4 plants
- Echinacea — Magnus3 plants
- Fig tree — Brown Turkey1 tree
The fig predates the garden. Nobody planted it. It just grew through the fence in 2008 and now produces about forty pounds of fruit in September.
Plot Map
Thirty-two raised beds, each 4×8 feet. Twenty-eight are assigned to members. Two are communal herb beds (anyone can harvest). One is the children's plot — overseen by Mariel Santiago and approximately nine kids under age ten. One bed is currently open.
Work Days
We ask every member to show up for at least two communal work days per season. That's when we mulch the paths, fix the fence, turn the compost, and haul the delivery from the Brooklyn Grange soil drop. It's not optional — it's how the place works. Coffee is provided. Gloves are in the shed.
Spring Cleanup
Saturday, March 23, 2025 · 9 am – 1 pm
Clear winter debris, repair any bed damage, turn compost pile #2, spread fresh mulch on paths. Bring work boots. Gerald Memorial Cleanup, named for the shopping cart.
Soil Delivery Day
Saturday, April 12, 2025 · 8 am – 11 am
Four cubic yards of compost-amended soil from Brooklyn Grange, delivered to the alley. We wheelbarrow it in. Many hands. Donuts from Djerdan Burek on Steinway.
Mid-Summer Tidy
Saturday, July 19, 2025 · 8 am – 11 am
Weed the paths, reset the drip irrigation (it always needs resetting), prune the fig. If your tomatoes are flopping, we'll help you re-stake.
Fall Harvest & Potluck
Saturday, October 4, 2025 · 10 am – 3 pm
Clear summer crops, plant garlic for overwintering, put the beds to rest. Then we eat. Every year someone brings a pot of sancocho so good it ends arguments. Last year Doña Carmen's won.
Weekly Drop-In
Every Wednesday · 6 pm – dusk · April through October
Not mandatory. Just nice. The gate is open, the hose is on, and there's usually someone to talk to. Bring your own beer. We don't judge the brand.
Show up · Pitch in · Grow something
Who Runs It
We have a five-person board that meets quarterly at Leli's Bakery on Queens Boulevard. Meetings last about forty-five minutes. Decisions are made by consensus, which mostly means everyone nods and someone writes it down.
Garden Director
Priya Nair
Landscape architect by day, compulsive seed-starter by night. Priya has run the garden since 2017. She keeps the spreadsheet of who owes what, mediates disputes about overhanging squash vines, and personally overwinters the fig tree with burlap and prayer every November.
Bed C2 · Member since 2013
Treasurer
Tomás Reyes
Retired MTA electrician, Woodside resident since 1986. Tomás collects the $45 annual dues, manages the water bill account, and built the current toolshed from materials he "found" during a bathroom demolition on 43rd Street. We didn't ask.
Bed A3 · Member since 2011 (founding)
Children's Plot
Mariel Santiago
Third-grade teacher at PS 150, Mariel runs the kids' bed every Saturday morning during the season. They grow cherry tomatoes, sunflowers, and whatever the kids vote on — last year it was purple carrots. The year before, watermelon. The watermelon did not work out.
Bed C8 (children's) · Member since 2019
Compost Lead
Jin-Soo Park
Jin-Soo manages our three-bin compost system with an intensity usually reserved for professional sports. He monitors the temperature. He has a thermometer. He will tell you the internal temperature of pile #2 whether you ask or not. The compost is, genuinely, excellent.
Bed B1 · Member since 2015
Outreach & Events
Fatima Al-Rashid
Fatima coordinates with GreenThumb NYC, prints the flyers that go up at Emerald Laundromat and the halal cart on Queens Blvd, and organized last year's seed swap that drew forty-seven people — a record for an event with no food.
Bed D3 · Member since 2020
How to
Join
Come to a Wednesday drop-in. Walk in, look around, talk to whoever's there. Nobody will make you sign anything. If you've never grown anything before, that's fine — most of us hadn't.
Fill out the one-page form. Name, address, phone number, and one sentence about what you want to grow. We keep it on paper because Priya doesn't trust Google Forms. Her words.
Pay the annual dues: $45. Cash or Venmo to Tomás. This covers water, soil amendments, mulch, and the new padlock we buy every year because someone always loses a key. The $45 has been the same since 2014. We're not raising it.
Get assigned a bed. If one's open, you start immediately. If not, you go on the waitlist. Average wait is about one season. We've never had anyone wait more than a year.
Show up to at least two work days per season. That's the deal. It's a community garden, not a private garden with a shared fence. We take care of the place together.
Quick Facts
"We have one rule longer than a sentence: don't spray anything on your plants that you wouldn't want on your neighbor's plants, because the beds are four feet apart and the wind doesn't read plot lines."
— Priya Nair, garden director
The Rules
Revised January 2024 — fits on one page, as promised
- i. Water your bed. If you're away for more than a week, arrange for someone to water it. The group text exists for this reason.
- ii. No chemical pesticides or herbicides. Neem oil and BT are fine. If you're not sure, ask Jin-Soo — he has opinions.
- iii. Keep your bed tidy. Weeds happen, but if your bed looks abandoned for a full month during growing season, we'll check in.
- iv. Lock the gate behind you. Every time. The combination is shared in the group text and changes in January.
- v. Return tools to the shed. Especially the good loppers. You know who you are.
- vi. Harvest only from your own bed, the communal herb beds, and the fig tree (which belongs to everyone and, frankly, to the birds).
- vii. Two communal work days per season, minimum. This is how the place stays standing.
- viii. No structures taller than five feet without board approval. This is because of the incident in 2018. We don't talk about the incident in 2018.
- ix. Dogs are welcome but must be leashed. Cats are welcome but have never once respected a rule.
- x. Be decent to each other. This is a garden, not a co-op board meeting.
Find Us
Address: Behind the USPS office at 46-02 Greenpoint Avenue, Sunnyside, Queens, NY 11104. Enter through the alley between the post office and King of Falafel & Shawarma.
Transit: 7 train to 46th Street–Bliss. Walk south on 46th toward Queens Boulevard, turn left on Greenpoint. Two-minute walk. You'll see the sunflowers over the fence.
Email: sunnysidecommonsqns@gmail.com
Priya checks it weekly. If it's urgent, just come on Wednesday.
Phone: None. This is a garden, not a business.
Grow
Something
Sunnyside Commons Community Garden
A GreenThumb NYC member garden
Queens, New York · Est. 2011