Happy Equinox.
The Return of Persephone (1891), by Frederic Leighton (1830–1896). Leighton depicts Hermes helping Persephone to return to her mother Demeter after Zeus forced Hades to return Persephone.
Finally, Spring!, 2010
Happy Spring , 2009
Persephone Rises, 2008
Happy Vernal Equinox, 2007
Wikipedia: Equinox
The second night of the speaker event series Brooklyn Dirt: Monthly Talks on Urban Garden and Farming is this Wednesday, March 16. The topic is Garden Design.
Prospect Farm and Sustainable Flatbush are proud to present Brooklyn Dirt: Monthly Talks on Urban Farming and Gardening.
Sycamore Bar and Flowershop
1118 Cortelyou Road
Brooklyn, NY, 11218
21 and over only
Directions: Q train to Cortelyou Road
Talk Two: Garden Design
With Speakers Tom Angotti with Jesse Alter (Hunter ) and Chris Kreussling (AKA Flatbush Gardener)
Talk One: Dirt and Soil
Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 7-9:30pm
With Speakers Jay Smith and Chris Kreussling (AKA Flatbush Gardener)
$5 suggested donation. Proceeds benefit Prospect Farm and the Urban Gardens and Farms Initiative of Sustainable Flatbush.
Tom Angotti and Jesse Alter led a group to Cuba in January that studied urban agriculture and organic farming. Tom teaches urban planning at Hunter College and helped start Prospect Farm in Brooklyn. Jesse is a graduate student at Hunter and works at the Center for Cuban Studies in New York.
Chris Kreussling (AKA Flatbush Gardener) is a garden coach with more than 30 years gardening experience in NYC. Chris is also the Director of the Urban Gardens and Farms initiative of Sustainable Flatbush and a community member of the Healthy Soils, Healthy Communities advisory board, a project of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, and earned a BBG Certificate in Horticulture, 2009.
Sustainable Flatbush brings neighbors together to mobilize, educate, and advocate for sustainable living in their Brooklyn neighborhood and beyond.
Prospect Farm is a community group in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn that is working together to grow food in a formerly vacant lot, with the mission toward creating a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm that can serve our community. Prospect Farm is the community leader for the Kensington/Windsor Terrace neighborhood group for the Brooklyn Food Coalition.
The ground-breaking at Prospect Farm, initially called Windsor Farm, on March 31, 2010.
The facade of the newly opened Sycamore Bar and Flowershop on September 13, 2008.
[goo.gl]
Brooklyn Dirt, 2/16, Sycamore Bar and Flower Shop
Windsor Farm Breaks Ground, 2010-03-31
Sycamore, September 15, 2008
Prospect Farm
Urban Gardens and Farms Initiative, Sustainable Flatbush
Sycamore Bar and Flowershop
I am honored and excited to be one of the inaugural speakers for a new event series: Brooklyn Dirt – Monthly Talks on Urban Garden and Farming. The topic of this first event is, appropriately, Dirt, aka Soil. If you have questions about soil, or dirt, let me know and Jay and I will try to cover the topic in our talk.
Prospect Farm and Sustainable Flatbush are proud to present Brooklyn Dirt: Monthly Talks on Urban Farming and Gardening.
Sycamore Bar and Flowershop
1118 Cortelyou Road
Brooklyn, NY, 11218
21 and over only
Directions: Q train to Cortelyou Road
Talk One: Dirt and Soil
Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 7-9:30pm
With Speakers Jay Smith and Chris Kreussling (AKA Flatbush Gardener)
$5 suggested donation. Proceeds benefit Prospect Farm and the Urban Gardens and Farms Initiative of Sustainable Flatbush.
Jay Smith is a lifelong environmentalist, member of several environmental organizations, member of the Park Slope Food Coop, completing a Certificate of Horticulture from BBG, deeply interested in Urban Agriculture and re-localization of food production in anticipation of food issues in the wake of the peak oil crisis.
Chris Kreussling (AKA Flatbush Gardener) is a garden coach with more than 30 years gardening experience in NYC. Chris is also the Directory of the Urban Gardens and Farms initiative of Sustainable Flatbush and a community member of the Healthy Soils, Healthy Communities advisory board, a project of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, and earned a BBG Certificate in Horticulture, 2009.
Sustainable Flatbush brings neighbors together to mobilize, educate, and advocate for sustainable living in their Brooklyn neighborhood and beyond.
Prospect Farm is a community group in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn that is working together to grow food in a formerly vacant lot, with the mission toward creating a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm that can serve our community. Prospect Farm is the community leader for the Kensington/Windsor Terrace neighborhood group for the Brooklyn Food Coalition.
The ground-breaking at Prospect Farm, initially called Windsor Farm, on March 31, 2010.
The facade of the newly opened Sycamore Bar and Flowershop on September 13, 2008.
[goo.gl]
Windsor Farm Breaks Ground, 2010-03-31
Sycamore, September 15, 2008
Facebook: Brooklyn Dirt: Monthly Talks on Urban Farming + Gardening
Event flyer
Prospect Farm
Urban Gardens and Farms Initiative, Sustainable Flatbush
Sycamore Bar and Flowershop
Update 2011-02-02: Flatbush Fluffy didn’t see his shadow this morning. He did see his reflection in the sheet of ice that covers everything. Not sure what that means.
The snow in the backyard – undisturbed by shoveling, snowblowers, drifts, and pedestrian traffic, save for a few small, furry quadrupeds – is above my knees, about two feet. As I write this on the eve of the last day of January 2011, there is yet another Winter Storm Watch in effect, the billionth this Winter.
For the first day of February, the National Weather Service predicts snow, snow and sleet, freezing rain, sleet and snow, ice, freezing rain, snow and sleet, snow, then freezing rain, in that order. That’s just Tuesday. It continues into Wednesday, Groundhog Day, with much the same result. The sole consolation is that come Imbolc morn, Flatbush Fluffy, the resident Marmota monax, will not see his shadow. Dare we dream of Spring?
The groundhog, Marmota monax, also known as a woodchuck, groundhog, or whistlepig, is the largest species of marmot in the world.
Groundhog Day, celebrated on February 2, has its roots in an ancient Celtic celebration called Imbolog [Wikipedia: Imbolc]. The date is one of the four cross-quarter days of the year, the midpoints between the spring and fall equinoxes and the summer and winter solstice.
– NOBLE Web: Groundhog Day
The other cross-quarter days are Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain, associated with All Hallow’s eve, Halloween. The quarter days are the equinoxes and solstices, dates I also like to observe on this blog. The cross-quarter days fall between the quarter days. At the Spring equinox, day-length is at its mid-point, but the rate of change in day-length is near its peak. At Imbolc, day-length acceleration is near its peak; we are rushing toward Spring and Summer.
This is my fifth annual Groundhog Day post.This May will be the fifth anniversary of this blog. I am grateful for all the grace and privileges that have allowed me to continue doing this, and grateful for all my readers, friends, and community this endeavor has brought me over the years.
Regardless of the weather.
Wikipedia: Imbolc
Panorama, Frozen Lullwater at Prospect Park at Sunset
The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (Parks) recently released new sustainability guidelines for the design and maintenance of NYC’s green spaces, High Performance Landscape Guidelines: 21st Century Parks for NYC:
High Performance Landscape Guidelines is the first document of its kind in the nation: a comprehensive, municipal design primer for sustainable parks and open space. The product of a unique partnership between the Parks Department and the Design Trust, a nonprofit organization that helped create sustainable guidelines for NYC buildings, High Performance Landscape Guidelines covers every aspect of creating sustainable parks, from design to construction to maintenance, and feature many best practices for managing soil, water, and vegetation resources.
– Press Release, January 6, 2011
The Guidelines, running over 270 pages, cover site assessment; design, construction and maintenance; and soils, water and vegetation. the final section of the manual includes several case studies, including two of Brooklyn’s Parks: Calvert Vaux and Canarsie Parks.
Climate change is identified as a major factor, if not the single most important consideration, for the guidelines:
Climate change threatens the stability and longevity of New York City’s infrastructure, buildings, and parks; it also compromises the health and safety of the city’s population. Unless the growth of greenhouse gas emissions is curbed and reversed, experts predict that climate change will result in significant sea level rise, increased storm intensity and frequency, and increased temperatures.
Two factors will exacerbate the impacts of climate change in New York City: the urban heat island effect and the city’s overburdened stormwater infrastructure.
– Climate Change and 21st Century Parks, Part 1, Guidelines
[goog.gl]
Sustainable Gardening
Parks
Sustainability
High Performance Landscape Guidelines: 21st Century Parks for NYC, available as PDF (273 pages)
Parks Press Release: A New Year Launches A New Era In Great Park Design, 2011-01-06
The giant tree shredder in action at last year’s Mulchfest at Park Circle in Prospect Park.
It’s tree recycling season in New York City. Residents can have their trees recycled into mulch for the City’s parks and gardens. Note that, although recycling pickup is still suspended after the post-Christmas blizzard, you can leave trees curbside for recycling pickup.
Residents can also pick up free mulch at designated chipping locations.
This year’s Mulchfest locations for Brooklyn are almost the same as last year’s. Those marked with an asterisk (*) are on-site chipping locations.
| Location | Address | |
|---|---|---|
| The Amazing Garden* | Columbia Street at Carroll Street | Chipping |
| Cobble Hill Park* | Verandah Place & Clinton Street | Chipping |
| Coffey Park | Dwight Street & Verona Street | Drop-off only |
| Fort Greene Park* | Washington Pk. & Willoughby Avenue | Chipping |
| Green-Wood Cemetery | 25th Street & 4th Avenue | Drop-off only |
| Hattie Carthan Garden* | Across from Von King Park: Lafayette Avenue & Clifton Place | Chipping |
| Lincoln Terrace Park | Buffalo Avenue between East New York Avenue & Eastern Parkway | Drop-off only |
| Maria Hernandez Park | Knickerbocker Avenue & Suydam Street | Drop-off only |
| Marine Park* | Avenue U & East 33rd Street | Chipping |
| McCarren Park* | Driggs Avenue & Lorimer Street | Chipping |
| McGolrick Park | Monitor Street & Driggs Avenue | Drop-off only |
| Owl’s Head Park* | Colonial Road & 68th Street | Chipping |
| Prospect Heights Community Garden | 252-256 St. Marks Avenue | Drop-off only |
| Prospect Park* | Third Street at Prospect Park West | Chipping |
| Prospect Park Circle* | Parkside Avenue & Prospect Park Southwest | Chipping |
| Sunset Park | 44th Street & 6th Avenue | Drop-off only |
View Brooklyn MulchFest 2011 in a larger map
[goo.gl]
Mulchfest, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation
MillionTreesNYC
Partnerships for Parks
Prospect Park Alliance
I’m looking forward to this. Installation will take place from Thursday, August 5 through Sunday, August 31. The work is planned to be on display for nearly a year, through June 2011.
Brooklyn, July 10, 2010—Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) announces the commission of its first site-specific sculpture to celebrated artist Patrick Dougherty, whose massive constructions made of woven saplings and twigs conjure up the creations of Lewis Carroll and Andy Goldsworthy for their outsized physicality and whimsical charm.
Dougherty began developing concepts for the work during a July 2009 visit to BBG, when he selected the Plant Family Collection—the physical and horticultural heart of the Garden—as the site of the future work. The final design will be revealed when construction gets under way in the first week of August 2010.
Dougherty sees himself in the tradition of artists for whom the process is as important as the end result, and his particular artistic process engages the expertise of staff throughout Brooklyn Botanic Garden. To locate a source for the saplings required for the sculpture, for example, BBG’s director of Science, Dr. Gerry Moore, called upon his field knowledge garnered during the Garden’s 20-year study of flora in the metropolitan area. He settled on Ocean Breeze Park on Staten Island, about 13 miles from Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which has an abundance of nonnative willow (Salix atrocinerea), a species typically targeted for removal. BBG Horticulture staff will oversee removal of the invasive plant material over a period of days, providing the double service of facilitating Dougherty’s project and improving the balance of native species in the park.
During the rest of August, the sculpture will be brought to glorious life under Dougherty’s direction, aided by a corps of assistants from the Garden’s staff and volunteers. Some helpers will be scaling scaffolding to manage the vertical support poles; others will be instructed in the artist’s signature weaving process, which lends Dougherty’s sculpture its structural strength and visual dynamism.
Dougherty’s career melds his technical carpentry skills with his lifelong love of the outdoors. He began creating sculpture in 1980, fashioning single pieces in his backyard. Since then, he has created nearly 200 pieces for institutions and galleries. For more information about Patrick Dougherty at BBG, visit bbg.org/dougherty. For more information about Brooklyn Botanic Garden, visit bbg.org.
Contact: Kate Blumm, Brooklyn Botanic Garden
718-623-7241 | kblumm@bbg.org
Patrick Dougherty at Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Patrick Dougherty