Who We Are

Providence Gardenworks In the News

Stewart Martin

I am a longtime chef, composter, and urban gardener. My passion for food—producing it, cooking it, and returning it to the soil—dates back almost two decades. I care deeply about community—from the street I live on, to the city I live in, to the planet we share.

I am a graduate of the University of Rhode Island Master Composting/Recycling and Master Gardener programs, The Maine Compost School and Rhode Island Tree Council/Certified Tree Steward. Additionally I act as the Site Manager for our family pick-ur-own Cedar Heights Apple Orchard in Rhinebeck, NY. I have eighteen years of hands-on experience as an urban composter and six years as an urban gardener. During the eighteen years we’ve been composting, we diverted 14 tons of food scraps from the waste stream and made 20 cubic yards of compost. Right in our own backyard!

Home gardening and composting offer a simple, healthy and empowering alternative to the serious problems of soil depletion, unhealthy food, and climate change we face today. Whether your aim is to transform your front or back yard into rows of eggplant, kale, and corn or grow tomatoes and peppers in pots on your balcony, I’d like to help you become an urban gardener and composter—and become part of the solution.

Qualifications

  • Graduate, University of Rhode Island Master Composting/ Recycling program
  • Graduate, The Maine Compost School
  • Graduate, Rhode Island Tree Council/ Certified Tree Steward
  • Graduate, University of Rhode Island Master Gardener Program
  • Site Manager for family pick-ur-own apple orchard, Rhinebeck, NY
    Cedar Heights Orchard
  • Eighteen years experience as an urban composter
  • Fourteen years experience as an urban gardener

“My whole life had been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God’s presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap. I love compost, and I believe that composting can save not the entire world, but a good portion of it.”
—Bette Midler, 1996