Below, I describe four ways of imagining the community garden. The descrip- tions of these visions are ideal types drawn from ethnographic observation. In prac- tice, people sometimes subscribed to elements of different visions, as well as holding other, more idiosyncratic visions. The four visions are private property, green space, farm, and community space. Each vision elaborates not just what the garden should look like, but also lays out a normative framework for behavior and delineates boundaries within the garden and between the garden and outside. After illustrating each way of imaging the garden, I describe a series of conflictual events that occurred during my fieldwork and highlight the way conflict between visions of the garden connected to larger structures of inequality.

Private Property

The most prevalent way of seeing the community garden was as a patchwork  of private property. Many gardeners related to plots assigned to them in the gar-  den as owners. They felt strongly that they should be able to do whatever they wanted with their plots, as long as it did not blatantly interfere with their neigh-  bors or garden rules. For instance, Estelle, an older white gardener recently placed in the public housing after a spell of homelessness, explicitly  referred  to her plot  as her property. Estelle grew few plants; her plot was dominated by found objects that many others considered not related to gardening. Under pressure from mem- bers of the steering committee who criticized her plot as an eyesore, Estelle half- jokingly proclaimed her plot an independent territory and defended her right to decide what was on it.

While gardeners are periodically reminded that it is the city that owns the land, and it could be taken away, the private property view of the garden is widespread among all types of gardeners, from residents of public housing to immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and southern Europe, to mostly affluent white newcomers from outside of New York. Those who hold the private property vision tend to emphasize boundaries between plots, some fortifying these with fences, gates, and locks. These measures come under criticism by gardeners holding other visions of the garden. In one dispute over fences, which was conducted on the garden listserv, Tania, a white native-born woman from outside of New York, defended the locked fence surrounding her plot. She referred to the frustration experienced by her family when produce they grew in the previous season was stolen.

Gardeners who see the garden through a private property lens were also concerned about access to the garden as a whole, expressing anxiety about

security, theft, and disorder. Along with another gardener, Estelle drafted an ulti- mately failed proposal to institute photo identification cards for all gardeners. As   we will see below, boundaries between plots and with  the  outside  community were offensive to those who saw the garden as more than a collection of private plots.

Green Space

A different way of imagining the community garden was garden as a green space. Those who held the green space vision emphasized that the garden had to    be visually pleasant and orderly. They fought against clutter, structures, fences, locks, and weeds. Green space meant a particular aesthetic vision: literally green, lush, but also neat and ordered. Plots like that of Estelle or Tania, above, or plots overgrown with weeds were decried as eyesores. In the  shared  community  plot, the green vision of the garden came into conflict with other visions over a bed of asparagus. Two of the gardeners, Lily (white) and Desiree (African American),  who worked on that plot, loved the beautiful frond-like plants, but argued force- fully against building structures to support them. Both moved to New York  as adults to pursue work in theater. Speaking through a vocabulary of visual aesthet- ics, they felt that built supports for asparagus would look ugly. Tai, a Chinese immigrant gardener, wanted to use recycled poles and string to create a support structure for the plants. The dispute was resolved by me when I purchased green wire supports that were almost invisible, appeasing Lily and Desiree’s aesthetic preferences while providing less-than-ideal but passable supports for  the  asparagus.