Gardens can be powerful instruments of social change. In New York City community gardens have helped create strong community bonds, lowered crime rates, and raised property values. This is an episode about how the community garden movement evolved and how these gardens continue to affect the lives of individuals each year in New York. The focus is on the East Village since this is where the movement began, and it contains the largest concentration of community gardens in the five boroughs of New York City.

The story of these community gardens is remarkable and inspiring. Most are on abandoned lots and often on city-owned land. They are designed and maintained by neighborhood volunteers, with the support of citizen groups such as the Green Guerillas, Plant-A-Lot, and Green Thumb. They also receive assistance from non-profit groups such as the Trust for Public Land, The New York Restoration Project, the Dillon Fund, and the Greenacre Foundation.

GardenStory host Rebecca Frischkorn recounts briefly the history of the community garden movement, focusing on the many challenges and difficulties volunteers in the East Village have met and continue to confront. Individual gardeners share their experiences of how these gardens have transformed their lives and the lives of their neighbors and friends. The program also depicts the various activities in the gardens by people of all ages, conveying a sense of the dynamic and enduring community spirit these gardens create.