Cotton grows in Roosevelt Community Garden, Long Island, makes debut at history events

“That would be next on my wish list, if I could learn how to spin the cotton into yarn.”

By Arlene Gross
Special to Newsday
Updated October 10, 2019

Excerpt:

The fact that cotton makes most people think of the South has not stopped one Long Islander from growing it here.

Gloria Cassell, who has a plot at the Roosevelt Community Garden on Fulton Avenue, cultivated the cotton from a plant her dad brought home five years ago from Tamms, Illinois, where family members grow the plant as a hobby. “He brought it back and said, ‘If anyone can figure out what to do with this, I know you can.’”

An avid gardener since moving into her Roosevelt home in 2012, Cassell, 43, had already transformed her once-bare yard into a lush paradise with hydrangeas, roses, boxwoods, peonies, lilies and other perennials.

Despite her green thumb, Cassell said she soon realized that there was much to learn about growing cotton.

“I didn’t know at the time that cotton requires 180 days from seed to harvest,” she said.

Storing her cotton indoors during the first winter, Cassell then planted 10 seeds from the original plant in a container the next spring. From those seeds, two seedlings sprouted in her greenhouse the following December.

“To actually see it to fruition, it was like, ‘wow,’” she said.

Through research and trial and error, Cassell honed her cotton-cultivating skills. These days she keeps the plants indoors under heat lamps and lights from January to May.

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