Daffodil Project 2009

Posted on 2009-10-15 by admin

Update 2009.10.18: Kensington date of 10/18 was rained out. Rain date is 10/25.

The Daffodil Project 2009 distribution at the Greenmarket in Grand Army Plaza, outside Prospect Park, Saturday, October 10, 2009

The Daffodil Project was originally created to commemorate September 11. … The Daffodil Project is made possible in part by the generosity of a Dutch bulb supplier, Hans van Waardenburg of B&K Flowerbulbs, who has pledged to donate 500,000 daffodil bulbs to the project each year as long as there are volunteers willing to plant them. More than 20,000 volunteers have responded to his challenge so far. And thanks to their efforts, more than 3 million yellow daffodils [bloomed] in over 2,000 individual sites across the five boroughs in the spring of 2009.
– The Daffodil Project, New Yorkers for Parks

Here are some locations in Brooklyn where you can get your bulb on with the Daffodil Project this season.

Kensington, Sunday, October 25

PICK UP A SHOVEL AND MAKE KENSINGTON GREENER (AND YELLOWER)!
WATCH CHURCH AVENUE BLOOM!

Sunday, October 25th, is Daffodil Day in Kensington. (18th was rained out)

Join your neighbors as we plant daffodil bulbs on Church Avenue and its side streets. In the spring, watch the flowers that we planted bloom!

From 9:00 a.m. to noon, volunteers will:

loosen soil in tree pits
plant daffodil bulbs
go to Connie’s Cafe for free coffee and a muffin!

Wear clothing and shoes that you don’t mind getting some dirt on. If you can, bring:

a hand cultivator
a trowel
a bulb borer
anything else that’s useful for digging and planting
extra gardening tools, if you have them, for your neighbors to use.

We’ll meet at 9:00 a.m. in front of Astoria Federal Savings, at the corner of Church and McDonald avenues.

Connie, the owner of Connie’s Cafe (corner of Church Avenue and E. 5th Street), has graciously agreed to donate coffee and muffins for the volunteers.

This neighborhood event is sponsored by KARMABrooklyn (Kensington Area Resident/Merchant Alliance) and WKAG (West Kensington Action Group).

Flatbush, Saturday and Sunday, November 7&8, and November 14&15

Again this fall, Sustainable Flatbush will sponsor Daffodil bulb plantings at locations throughout Flatbush. As we get closer to the dates, we’ll announce the locations and times and how you can get involved.

Links

Daffodil Day in Kensington, Kensington Area Resident/Merchant Alliance (KARMA)

Sustainable Flatbush

The Daffodil Project, New Yorkers for Parks

Blessing of the Animals, Chelsea Community Church

Posted on 2009-10-12 by admin

Update 2009-10-12: Added story about Smokey.

Blog Widow and Annie, the new kitten, at the Blessing of the Animals service at Chelsea Community Church earlier today.

An off-topic, i.e. non-gardening, post.

In some recognition of National Coming Out Day, some non-gardening factoids about me:

I’m an atheist.
My partner, known as Blog Widow, is an ordained minister, among many other talents.
People who’ve known me a long time think that’s hysterical.

It takes some enticement to get me into church. Filling the pews with dogs and other companion animals kinda does it for me.

This is also an opportunity to introduce Annie.

Annie is a six-month old kitten we adopted two weeks ago from Sean Casey Animal Rescue in Kensington. We’ve been wanting to adopt a second cat, thinking that Ripley, the old soul, would do better with some companionship when we’re out during the day. Ummm, yeah. That’ll work. Eventually.

Today was Annie’s “coming out,” as we took her to the Blessing of the Animals service at Blog Widow’s church, Chelsea Community Church. Mostly dogs were present; Annie was one of four cats, by my count, in attendance. She even made an appearance on stage when Blog Widow introduced her to the congregation for his general blessing over those assembled, human and otherwise.

Smokey

I shared this story here two-and-a-half years ago. This is an appropriate context to revisit it.

My atheism is life-long, forged in the fires of Catholic catechism during childhood, such as this exchange:

Me: When I go to Heaven, will my dog, Smokey, be there?
Nun: No.
Me: Why not?
Nun: Animals don’t have souls.

Smokey was a magnificent animal, a German Shepherd we obtained as a puppy. I named him during the ride home. Sitting in the back seat, trying to hold onto him: a writhing mass of long, shaggy fur all the colors of smoke. He became my companion, my protector, my model of perfect love. Setting aside, for the moment, the overweening confidence that I would go to Heaven, as a child I recognized that any place that would not grant Smokey admittance was beneath my interest and unworthy of my attentions.

Certainly, there were other, more pernicious, influences that drove me from religious indoctrination. Conversion to active disbelief became a logical extension; without the possibility of evidence, there is no reason to believe. It’s taken me a long time to accept that, nevertheless, I am a spiritual person. There’s no life after death, but there is life; that’s remarkable enough to celebrate it, and reason enough to grieve its inevitable end. Events such as the Blessing of the Animals remind me that, on this point at least, I share some common ground with others, regardless of the differences in our beliefs, or disbeliefs.

Slideshow

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Links

Chelsea Community Church
Sean Casey Animal Rescue

Save the Campus Road Garden in Flatbush

Posted on 2009-10-08 by admin

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

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.

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.)
On Facebook, join the group Stop the Demolition of Campus Road Garden! to stay informed.

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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

Posted on 2009-10-02 by admin

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.

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Links

Google Group

Fall Approaches, 2009

Posted on 2009-09-26 by admin

September Dogwood, Beverly Road, Flatbush, Brooklyn, 2009

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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Links

I Love NY Foliage Forecast

Sustainable Flatbush

Happy September Equinox 2009

Posted on 2009-09-22 by admin

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

Persephone with her pomegranate. Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Proserpine (Oil on canvas, 1874) – Tate Gallery, London

Equinox
Solstice

Persephone Rises, 2009-03-19

Links

Wikipedia:Equinox

Cortelyou Road Park, Park(ing) Day NYC

Posted on 2009-09-18 by admin

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

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

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

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

Ronny Wasserstrom and his amazing egg-juggling egg puppet, 12:54

Biophilia in action, 11:29

Cortelyou Road Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn, 11:09

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.

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Slideshow

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

Posted on 2009-09-17 by admin

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.

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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

Posted on 2009-09-16 by admin

Cortelyou Road Park, Flatbush, Brooklyn, 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.

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!

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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

Posted on 2009-09-15 by admin

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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Links

Environmental Fair, Sustainable Flatbush
Flatbush Frolic Web site

Flatbush Gardener

Urban Habitat Gardening with Native Plants

Author Archives: admin

Daffodil Project 2009

Kensington, Sunday, October 25

Flatbush, Saturday and Sunday, November 7&8, and November 14&15

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Blessing of the Animals, Chelsea Community Church

Smokey

Slideshow

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Save the Campus Road Garden in Flatbush

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Brooklyn Leaf Composting Project

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Fall Approaches, 2009

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Happy September Equinox 2009

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Cortelyou Road Park, Park(ing) Day NYC

Slideshow

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Bring me the head of the Juniper Valley Tree-Killer

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Cortelyou Road Park, this Friday, 9/18

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Flatbush Frolic 2009

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