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Save the Campus Road Garden in Flatbush

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Update, 2009-10-09: The Daily News has picked up the story, a few days after it’s been in the Brooklyn Blogosphere.

Campus Road Garden, South Midwood, Flatbush, Brooklyn, August 2008
Campus Road Garden

The fate of the Baltic Street Garden in Park Slope was, unfortunately, sealed months ago. And now Flatbush’ 14-year old Campus Road Garden is threatened by Brooklyn College’s plans to build a parking lot in its place.


View Brooklyn Community Gardens in a larger map

The garden has a [long] history and a lot of love, sweat and passion went into creating the garden and sustaining it through the years.

The college has made beautiful new additions to the campus: building, walkways, etc.

However, the garden, which lies at the foot of the athletic field, is going to be bulldozed to make room for a small parking lot.

As you can imagine we are all saddened by this. Each member joined for their own reasons, but the bottom line is, we all come together as a community and we cherish the friendships we have made with fellow gardeners, the Brooklyn College community and, of course, the neighborhood.
– Letter from the author of Snowballs and Candy Corn

Here’s how you can help.

  1. Sign the online petition: Stop the Demolition of the Campus Road Garden. (You’ll be prompted to contribute through PayPal, but you can ignore that.)
  2. On Facebook, join the group Stop the Demolition of Campus Road Garden! to stay informed.

Campus Road Garden

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Related Content

South Midwood Garden Tour and Art Show, 2009-08-18
Other Gardens: South Midwood Garden Tour, 2006-07-30

Flickr photo set

Links

Stop the Demolition of the Campus Rd Garden, online petition

Snowballs and Candy Corn: Our Garden, a collection of blog posts from one of the Campus Road gardeners, a neighbor and friend

Saving the Campus Road Community Garden from Parking Lot Fate, 2009-10-19
Brooklyn College to pave over popular garden to expand track, Flatbush residents not pleased, Daily News, 2009-10-09
Campus Road Community Garden – Petition, Ditmas Park Blog, 2009-10-05

City Council Approves Demolition of Historic PS 133, Historic Districts Council Newsstand, 2009-07-01

Brooklyn Leaf Composting Project

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A Brooklyn-wide effort to organize locally and restore leaf composting to Brooklyn! There’s a brainstorming meeting TOMORROW, Saturday, October 3, at Ozzie’s Cafe in Park Slope. See below for full details.

Please join your fellow community gardeners and our friends from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for a brainstorming session that will focus on how we can expand and improve community leaf collection and recycling this fall.

As you know, the City will not be collecting leaves separately from regular trash, again, this fall. That means that it’s up to us to find ways to take this rich source of garden nutrients out of the wastestream and bring it into our gardens, where it will do the most good.

Building on a very successful leaf collection and recycling project that was implemented at 6/15 Green garden last year, we hope to coordinate a Brooklyn-wide project that will enable local community gardens to be collection points for bagged leaves from their neighbors for use in the community gardens….and possibly even distributed back to the community in the future.

This is truly a win/win for everyone. Gardens will benefit from the addition of wonderful leaves that they can use as mulch or make into “brown gold” compost and residents will be able to recycle their leaves knowing that they will not be wasted clogging up our landfills.

Please join us for our first planning meeting to get the ball rolling.

We’ll be brainstorming on the basic strategies of how we can work together, coordinate dates and collection methods, create a unified press release and outreach and the ways we can avoid duplication and confusion of efforts.

We really need your voice and your ideas right from the start!

Feel free to forward this information to any community gardens or other folks you think would like to be part of this project.

Date: Saturday, October 3, 2009
Time: 12:00 Noon
Location:
Ozzies’ Coffee
249 5th Ave.
Bet Carroll & Garfield
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 768-6868

Subways:
M. R to Union St

Buses:
B63 along Fifth Ave
B37 & B103 along Third Avenue
B71 along Union St.

We’re looking forward to a lively discussion.

[bit.ly]

Related Content

Links

Google Group

Fall Approaches, 2009

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September Dogwood, Beverly Road, Flatbush, Brooklyn, 2009September Dogwood

My clear signal for the onset of Spring is the blooming of Snowdrops, Galanthus species. The reddening leaves of Dogwoods, Cornus species, tell me that Fall has really begun in my neighborhood of Flatbush, Brooklyn. Soon to come are the yellows of the Locust trees, Gleditsia and Robinia species, and the psychedelic rainbows of White Ash, Fraxinus americana. The big show is put on by the Maples and Oaks.

Conditions are ideal for spectacular foliage this year. We’ve had ample rains over the summer following near-record Spring rains. The NY State Foliage Forecast predicts that peak foliage will reach New York City around the last week of October. This timing couldn’t be more perfect. On Saturday, October 24, fellow gardener Tracey Hohman and I will be guiding the first Fall Foliage Street Tree Walking Tour for Sustainable Flatbush. We’ll be walking the same route we’ve visited the past two Springs, so participants can see the same trees this Fall that they’ve seen in the Spring.

Sustainable Flatbush Street Tree Walking Tour, Arbor Day 2009. That’s me in the middle, next to the tree. Photo by Keka

Brilliant, near-peak foliage will make its first appearance in New York State this weekend in parts of the Adirondacks, while rapidly changing colors in the Catskills will bring most of the region to around the midpoint of change …
– I Love NY Fall Foliage Report, week of September 23-29

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Related Content

Fall Approaches. 2008-10-22

The Luminous Streets, 2007-11-25
Fall Approaches, 2007-10-01

More Fall Color in Beverley Square West, 2006-11-11
Fall Color in Beverley Square West, 2006-10-28

All Fall posts

Links

I Love NY Foliage Forecast

Sustainable Flatbush

Happy September Equinox 2009

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Bas-relief in Persepolis. On the day of an equinox, the power of an eternally fighting bull (personifying the Earth) and that of a lion (personifying the Sun) are equal. The September equinox marks the first day of Mehr or Libra in the Persian calendar. Photo: Anatoly Terentiev

The September equinox (autumnal in the northern hemisphere, vernal in the southern) occurs today, September 22, at 21:18 UTC. Daylight Savings Time puts me at UTC-4, so 17:18, or 5:18pm, local time.

Illumination of the Earth by the Sun on the day of an equinox
Illumination of the Earth by the Sun on the day of an equinox
Persephone with her pomegranate. Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Proserpine (Oil on canvas, 1874) – Tate Gallery, London

Related Posts

Equinox
Solstice

Persephone Rises, 2009-03-19

Links

Wikipedia:Equinox

Cortelyou Road Park, Park(ing) Day NYC

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Park(ing) Gnome, Cortelyou Road Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn, 16:42 (4:42 pm)
Park(ing) Gnome, Cortelyou Road Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn

Worms!, 16:26 (4:26 pm)
Worms!

Bulldog Puppy, 15:27 (3:27 pm)
Bulldog Puppy

Solar-powered Boom-box Experiment, 13:24 (1:24 pm)
Solar-Powered Boom-box Experiment

Ronny Wasserstrom and his amazing egg-juggling egg puppet, 12:54
Cortelyou Road Park, Park(ing) Day NYC, 2009

Biophilia in action, 11:29
Cortelyou Road Park, Park(ing) Day NYC, 2009

Cortelyou Road Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn, 11:09
Cortelyou Road Park, Park(ing) Day NYC, 2009

An international event, with 55 sites this year in NYC, Park(ing) Day highlights the public space that is devoted to streets and parking. For one day only, groups transform a parking space into a public park. These creative and active sites suggest alternative purposes for such space that can benefit more people in a wider range of uses than storing an empty personal transportation vehicle.

Cortelyou Road Park is a project of the Livable Streets initiative of Sustainable Flatbush. As the Director of the Urban Gardens & Farms initiative of Sustainable Flatbush, I loaned much of my garden furniture and container plants to help transform a parking space on busy Cortelyou Road into a garden room.

We’re having a great time, and the day is not quite half over as I write this first post of the day. I’ll be trying to update during the day. You can also follow me today on Twitter.

[bit.ly]

Slideshow


Related Content

Park(ing) Day posts

Links

Cortelyou Road Park
Park(ing) Day this Friday, September 18th!, Sustainable Flatbush
Cortelyou Road gets a new park–for the 3rd year in a row!, Park(ing) Day NYC

Park(ing) Day NYC: A Garden Grows in Flatbush, Brit in Brooklyn, 2009-09-18

Park(ing) Day (International)

Bring me the head of the Juniper Valley Tree-Killer

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Over the weekend, 12 newly planted trees were destroyed at Juniper Valley Park in Queens. This incident marks the fourth case of tree damage this year at the park and a $2,500 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in this arborcide. It is believed that the trees were cut with an electric saw, either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. They were just planted in the park this past spring. Ten were cherry trees and two were oaks.
– Parks Asks the Community’s Assistance in Nabbing Juniper Valley Park Tree Killer, Press Release, 2009-09-16


View Larger Map

Juniper Valley Park has been victim of tree arborcide and vandalism four times this year, with more than 20 trees victimized. In April, low branches were torn off a number of trees overnight. In June, two trees were found damaged in the park and in July, seven trees were damaged, leaving four uprooted, two completely destroyed and one with trunk damage.

If you have any information on this crime, please call the NYPD Crime stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.

[bit.ly]

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Urban Trees and Social Marketing, 2008-04-21
Factoid: Street Trees and Property Values, 2007-12-02
Barbara Corcoran Hates the Earth, 2007-11-18
New York Magazine: How Much Is a Street Tree Really Worth?, 2007-04-09
News: $1,100 to plant a tree in NYC, 2007-03-28

All Urban Forestry posts

Links

Parks Asks the Community’s Assistance in Nabbing Juniper Valley Park Tree Killer, NYC Parks, Press Release, 2009-09-16
Vandals Attack Trees Again in Juniper Park, Juniper Park Civic Association, 2009-09-13

Cortelyou Road Park, this Friday, 9/18

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Cortelyou Road Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn, Park(ing)Day NYC 2008
Cortelyou Road Park, Park(ing)Day NYC 2008

On Friday, September 18th, from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, a park will be born: Sustainable Flatbush will transform a single 8’x15’ parking spot into a green space, complete with grass, plants, and seating. “Cortelyou Road Park,” in front of the Cortelyou Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, at the corner of Cortelyou and Argyle Roads, in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, is one of 50+ sites around New York City participating in Park(ing) Day, an international event.

I’m participating again this year. We’ll be recreating a garden room in the parking spot, like we did last year, as you can see in the photo above.

The park will include art activities and exhibitions for both children and adults. Two sustainable craft businesses based in the NYC-area, Garbage of Eden Design and RePlayGround, will teach free creative workshops on fashioning fun stuff out of garbage. We invite you to bring your favorite cereal box or designed scrap paper to personalize your crafts. Jewelry made from plastic bags and yogurt containers as well as kits to make projects from scrap will be on display.

Cortelyou Road Park, Park(ing) Day NYC 2008

Come marvel at worms turning food scraps into compost, and charge your cell phone with solar power all while listening to music and relaxing with good neighbors and new friends on a patch of grass!

Be sure to fill up at our BYO Mug Coffee Station, courtesy of Vox Pop Café. Enjoy a snack from the Flatbush Food Coop, or sample a dessert from Visions Restaurant & Bar. Enter the raffle for a chance to win a Coop Food Gift Basket or Visions Gift Certificate.

Plus, beginning at 11:00 AM, Ronny Wasserstrom will be entertaining the kids with his special trick puppets, including the juggling egg puppet!

“Using 120 square feet of concrete for temporary storage of an automobile benefits only its owner. If we can take that area and transform it into something magical that is enjoyed by hundreds of people, maybe that’s a better use of the space,” says says Anne Pope, Founder/Director of Sustainable Flatbush. “I hope it gets people thinking about how public space can be allocated for the maximum
benefit.”

So stop by and bring your own coffee mug and you will never look at a parking spot the same way again!

JUMP!

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Related Content

Park(ing) Day posts

Links

Cortelyou Road Park
Park(ing) Day this Friday, September 18th!, Sustainable Flatbush
Cortelyou Road gets a new park–for the 3rd year in a row!, Park(ing) Day NYC

Flatbush Frolic 2009

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Sunday, I tabled for Sustainable Flatbush at the Flatbush Frolic. For the second year, Sustainable Flatbush presented an Environmental Fair at the Frolic, partnering with organizations that represent their four main initiatives: Energy Solutions, Livable Streets, Zero Waste, and Urban Gardens & Farms.

Now in its 33rd year, the Flatbush Frolic is one of a handful of street fairs that stands out from the hundreds NYC hosts annually. The Frolic is locally organized, and features local businesses and organizations.

Because I spent most of the day tabling, I didn’t get to see much of the Frolic, but here’s some of what I did see.



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Related Content

Flickr photo set

Links

Environmental Fair, Sustainable Flatbush
Flatbush Frolic Web site

Brine Garden, Pawling, NY

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A path in the Brine Garden in Pawling in Dutchess County, NY, north of New York City.
Path, Brine Garden

Last Sunday, Blog Widow and I drove up to Pawling, NY and spent the day with a friend of ours. I also got to meet Julia and Duncan Brine. In their landscape design firm, they specialize in native plants, so I was excited to meet them and visit their gardens.

The gardens ramble over six acres. In contrast to the familiar limitations of urban gardening, it may as well have been 600 acres. The property slopes, steeply at times, from the unpaved entrance drive down to Route 22. Water flows through the property. The day of my visit, precipitation seamlessly cycled through mist, drizzle, sprinkles. There was nearly a film of water over the gardens. I’m not exaggerating. My friend’s sneakers became soaked just from walking through the long, wet grass. And it was wet enough for this fellow to crawl over the ground to his burrow of mud at the base of a log.

Crayfish, Brine Garden

With the almost constant rains we’ve had this summer, everything was lush, full, and green. The rampant growth encroached from all sides, overtaking and disguising any intended boundaries of the cleared areas. This contributed to the fluid expression of “path” at play in the Brine Garden. Narrows suggest passage; wider bays encourage a slower pace.

Sunny Border, Brine Garden

Border, Brine Garden

Solidago, Goldenrod, Brine Garden

Grassy Path, Brine Garden

Related Content

Brine Garden, Pawling, NY, Flickr photo set

Links

Brine Garden

Study Guide for BBG Plant ID Class

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Clerodendrum bungei Steud., Rose Glory Bower
Clerodendrum bungei

This Wednesday I take the final for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Herbaceous Landscape Plant Identification class. [Spelling counts! So please let me know of any typos.] Thursday, I start Urban Garden Maintenance, the last of the eight classes I need for my Certificate in Urban Horticulture from BBG. I started the program in Winter 2008. This is the home stretch; I can’t believe I’m almost done with it.

Unlike the “woodies” class, I already knew most of the plants introduced in the class over the past five weeks. Either I’ve grown them myself sometime over my 30 years of gardening in NYC, or I’ve researched and studied them. However, there have been several, such as the interesting Clerodendrum above, which I’ve never even heard of, or never knew the names of.

This post is the index to my photographic study guide. Plant names are listed by week, in alphabetical order by botanical name within each week. Botanical names are given, corrected for typos, as they were introduced in the class; that’s what we’ll be tested on for the final this Wednesday evening. Plant names are linked to my Flickr Set, where I have one. You can also browse my Flickr Collection for this class, where all the plants are listed by botanical name.

Week 1, 2009.07.22

Callirhoe involucrata, Purple Poppy-Mallow
Callirhoe involucrata, Poppy Mallow

Observed:

Omitted (these will not be included on the final):

  • Aquilegia canadensis, Columbine. This grows as a Spring ephemeral in our region; none were available to observe at this late date.
  • Geranium macrorrhizum, Bigroot Geranium. Omitted primarily for time constraints; also, it was out of bloom by this time of the year. Too bad, since it’s a handsome plant, and there are lots of them around the grounds of BBG.

Week 2, 2009-07-29

We got 11 plants this week to make up for being two short the previous week.

Week 3, 2009-08-05

Week 4, 2009-08-12

This was the only themed week of the class, consisting solely of grasses, ferns and fern allies.

Pennisetum alopecuroides, Fountain Grass
Pennisetum alopecuroides, Fountain Grass

Week 5, 2009-08-19

The last class before the in-class final.

Angelica gigas, Purple Angelica
Angelica gigas