Kate Brown, a professor of environmental history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an award-winning author, has examined the wake of large-scale disasters and the massive challenges they create. On a smaller scale, Dr. Brown is also an avid gardener. Her most recent book, “Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City,” probes gardens as small patches of resilience, resistance, and regeneration. By studying histories of select European and North American urban gardens, she explores how these spaces helped to build communities centered on cooperation and mutual support. They also hold a promise, she says, for cities as places of sustainable food production. The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Q: What drew you, as an environmental historian, to this subject of urban gardening? I wrote two big nuclear histories – and then about the environmental and health effects of Chernobyl, which were profound.…