Providence Gardenworks In the News
Major Grant Awarded to Providence Gardenworks!
The City of Providence’s Sustainability Department and the United States Department of Agriculture recently awarded Providence Gardenworks a Backyard Composting Mentorship Grant, aimed at increasing food scrap diversion in the city and in the process producing a powerful soil enhancer for vegetables and plants—compost!
The first 40 Providence residents have been enrolled and their response has been wildly enthusiastic, and another 20 grant slots have become available. This historic effort for our city combines our efforts with many other eco-organizations in our city—and there’s no city in the country that’s attempting to do what we are doing!
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Providence Steps Up Efforts to Divert Food Waste and Boost Composting
October 10, 2024 PROVIDENCE — When it comes to diverting waste and increasing composting, the city is putting its money where its mouth is, and asking residents to help. Read more>>
De-Mystifying the Urban Composting Process with Stewart Martin
March 26, 2021 PROVIDENCE — I met Stewart Martin of Providence Gardenworks last summer when he came to prune my trees. He noticed my compost bin and inquired about my experience composting. I admitted that I had taken on composting as a pandemic project and was not very confident in my composting abilities, as evidenced by the flies swarming around my bin. Read more>>
The East Side Goes Greener
May 19, 2017 PROVIDENCE — For those who are able to garden on their own property but don’t have the know-how to do it, Stewart Martin is here to help. He started Providence GardenWorks to demonstrate just how easy it is to set up an urban garden in virtually any space. He installs gardens on his customers’ properties and trains them on how to care for them. Read more>>
City Dweller Builds Composting with Science and Art
April 5, 2017 PROVIDENCE — Gardening, photography and cooking may not initially seem like similar interests, but for city resident Stewart Martin, the topics captivate him for the same reason: they all exist at the intersection of science and art. Read more>>
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