Bumps on the Road to a Greener City

If no good deed is allowed to go unpunished, Kathryn Martinez should have seen two punishments coming.

To reduce their reliance on commercial food sources, she and her fiancé planted a vegetable garden in the backyard of their home in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. Hesitant to pick their lettuce too soon, they left it in the ground. When they finally pulled it up, the lettuce had gone bad.

They also built a compost heap to recycle their scraps, keeping their waste in a large plastic bin in the kitchen and emptying it every few days. But they let it go too long in a heat wave, and when Ms. Martinez opened the bin it was rife with maggots. Someone had to take it outside. “I drew the short straw,” she said.

On rooftops, in kitchens and in gardens in the city, New Yorkers are trying in ways large and small to go green. And while it is relatively easy to make certain adjustments — taking mass transit, switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, reusing grocery bags — more enterprising attempts can sometimes lead to messy or frustrating blowback.

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