Local 'Urban Girl' creates lush garden
Albany’s Kee Kee Soto shares tips on her Facebook page, YouTube channel
WAlbany hen Kee Kee and Jeremy Soto looked at an apartment off Delaware Avenue in early 2020, they found the house was on a double lot with a big yard. The question was, would the landlord allow them use the space for a vegetable garden?
"When we asked, he said to make it our home," Soto said.
This summer, after three years under cultivation, the garden has grown to multiple plots where tomatoes, peppers, corn, flowers, herbs and more are thriving. Soto shares her gardening and cooking expertise on her YouTube channel, Urban Girl Gardening & Lifestyle. She learned gardening from her mother-in-law, Betty Soto, whose access to open soil was limited as a Queens native, but always grew her own tomatoes, peppers and herbs.
Kee Kee Soto launched her YouTube channel (now with 2,069 followers) as a way of reclaiming the confidence she lost after a difficult pregnancy with her fifth child, a daughter who is now 3. She also moderates a Facebook group, Urban Girl Gardening, where 1,200 members trade triumphs and advice.
Soto, 33, works part-time in retail management but the garden is her passion. As a way of introduction, her first video shows a sampling of ripe vegetables in the hazy sunshine, Soto and her youngest two children eating from the garden and a pot of food simmering on the stove. In a voiceover, Soto says, "My goal is to inspire. My goal is to provide representation. My goal is to prove selfsustainability can begin at any point in your life."
Soto has learned by experience and experimenting. As the years go by, she buys less because she harvests her own seeds from existing plants. She cans vegetables to use in the winter. She learned to make her own fertilizer (she saves banana peels for their potassium) and composts throughout the year. The city provides wood chips for free.
Sometimes the garden breaks her heart. Earlier this year, onion yellow dwarf virus wiped out her
Someday, God is going to bless us with land and a farm school."
garlic crop. She cried, but tried to keep it in perspective. A failed crop in her small space is not the catastrophe it would be for a farmer who depends on crops for their livelihood.
Soto has a lenient approach to her garden. Volunteer zucchini and tomato plants are allowed to stay where they emerge, even if it's in the rice crop. As for garden pests, Soto tries to avoid chemical treatments in favor of management. For example, she plants nasturtium and borage (known as trap plants) to lure aphids away from other crops. She recognizes everything has a season. The pest that is bothering you today will fade away, replaced by another. And weeds, she said, are just plants growing where you don't want them. The family cat, Ginger, keeps mice, squirrels and chipmunks away.
In addition to the beds, the Soto has vertical planters she recommends for people who may only be working with a balcony, stoop or sunny window.
Soto's planters drip with broccoli, sunflowers, spinach, collard greens, endive, California poppies, beans, red shiso and orange thyme.
On the other side of the yard, the Sotos tend to apple and pear trees and grape vines that were there before the family moved in. In the spring, peonies bloom in the front of the house and roses grow in another spot. The garden is her family's favorite spot in late afternoon, Soto said. The youngest children sit on a bench and pop whatever is ripe — strawberries, beans, tomatoes, kale leaves — directly into their mouths.
Jeremy Soto said he hopes to eventually buy the property from the current owner, but the couple's plans stretch beyond their Delaware Avenue neighborhood.
Kee Soto, who is taking herbology classes online, said she would be happy living off the grid.
"Someday, God is going to bless us with land and a farm school," she said.
Kee Kee Soto pulls weeds from her garden outside her Delaware Avenue home in Albany.