The creator of a community garden in Harlem says the city will not continue to let her grow. NY1's Susan Jhun filed the following NY1 for You report.

At 81 years old, Pearl Spivey has spent more than a decade on what she calls a true labor of love.

"I've been here ever since 2002," she says. "Seven days a week, I tend to this garden."

The garden is a Harlem community garden at P.S. 139 Senior Center on 140th Street and Lenox Avenue.

The Bronx resident says 13 years ago, she was invited to help create and foster the now-flourishing garden from what once was a dirt lot. Since then, Spivey says she's been giving back all the fruits of her labor to the senior center and surrounding community.

"I provide for the people in the neighborhood to give them vegetables that I raised by hand," Spivey says.

It's a gift that Spivey will no longer be able to give, since the New York City Housing Authority, the same agency that once awarded Spivey for her work in the garden, has now told her she has to stop.

Spivey wonders why after 13 years, she's no longer allowed to enter the garden she helped create.

It's a question NY1 for You posed to NYCHA. A spokeswoman released a statement that reads, "NYCHA recognizes Ms. Spivey and the vegetables and fruit she grows have been an asset and we've invited her to continue her good work in the available community garden space at Morris Houses, where she is a resident. Currently, the space she tends is a community garden intended to serve residents at P.S. 139 and nearby Fred Samuels Apartments."

Although the garden is intended to serve those residents, Spivey says she's the only one there most days.

"Every day, I'm out here by myself with the squirrels, the bees and the butterflies from 10 o'clock in the morning to 8 o'clock at night, and then I pack my little stuff up and I go home," she says.

For now, it seems that's exactly where Spivey will have to go. However, this garden will always be where she set her roots.