11/14 ONLY – CANCELLED due to rain (remains of Hurricane Ida). Join us Sunday, 11/15, for a beautiful day of Daffodil bulb planting!
Join Sustainable Flatbush and your fellow urban gardeners to beautify neighborhood tree beds by planting daffodil bulbs!
The Daffodil Project was originally created to commemorate September 11th; a Dutch bulb grower donates 500,000 bulbs each year to NYC community groups who plant them in neighborhoods all over the five boroughs. This year, New Yorkers for Parks distributed more than 125,000 Daffodil bulbs for planting throughout the City. Sustainable Flatbush received 500 bulbs for planting in tree beds and other public areas in our neighborhood.
This will be Sustainable Flatbush’s second year of co-sponsoring the Daffodil Project locally. If you enjoy gardening, feel like digging in some dirt, or if you just want to delight in the company of your neighbors, join us this weekend!
WHAT: Flatbush Daffodil Project WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, November 14th and 15th, from 10:00am until 12:00pm WHERE: Meet in front of Vox Pop Cafe at 9:45, 1022 Cortelyou Road (corner of Stratford Road)
(Please note: rain cancels this event! Call us at 718-208-0575 if in doubt)
Update 2009-11-21: In just 4 hours over 2 days, the Flatbush CommUNITY Garden diverted 1,740 lbs of leaves from landfill to compost which will enrich the Garden and more of Brooklyn’s urban farms and gardens. As Director of the Urban Gardens and Farms Initiative of Sustainable Flatbush, I want to thank everyone who participated, whether by planning, volunteering, or dropping off leaves.
Cherry Leaves, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, November 2008
Until 2007, NYC collected and composted residential leaves. For the second year, 20,000 tons of leaves will be treated like household garbage, added to the City’s already-overburdened waste stream. Sign the petition to restore leaf composting to NYC.
Over the next three weekends, from 11am to 1pm, Brooklyn residents can bring leaves, free of trash, twigs and branches, in clear plastic or paper bags to one of the locations marked with a blue pin on this map. Not every garden is participating on all dates, so check the garden nearest you to see when you can drop-off in your neighborhood.
Information will be available at many of the participating gardens about how to make compost in your own garden or apartment and about efforts to encourage the City to reinstate its municipal leaf collection and composting program.
The Flatbush CommUNITY Garden is participating on two dates: this Sunday, November 8, and Saturday, November 21. The drop-off will be at 1550 Albemarle Road, near Buckingham Road (East 16th Street). The Garden is a project of Sustainable Flatbush, part of the Urban Gardens & Farms initiative.
In 2008, a pilot project at 6/15 Green garden in Park Slope, Brooklyn, collected over a 1 1/2 tons of leaves, indicating a deep desire in the community to keep their residential leaves out of the overburdened wastestream and recycle them into rich “brown gold”. NYCLeaves expects to break that record by building a network of gardens that will offer to take in leaves in neighborhoods throughout the City. Bringing bagged leaves to a LeafDrop site will lighten the City’s load of trash, save the City the money it would spend collecting and getting rid of the leaves, and redirect this precious natural resource to its best use – as compost that will enrich the soil of vibrant, active community gardens or the City’s stressed and hungry street trees.
For more information about NYCLeaves: Project LeafDrop, its activities, how to register your garden for Project LeafDrop, a list of participating gardens and specific drop-off dates and times, contact them at their website:www.nycleaves.org or by email: compost@nycleaves.org
Originally published as a Guest Rant on Garden Rant on November 4, 2009. The original is no longer available on their Web site.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been making the news rounds for a few years now. It’s old, if still current, news. Dire outcomes from the loss of honeybees have been proffered. For example, PBS recently introduced an online “ask the expert” feature with this:
Since the winter of 2006, millions of bees have vanished, leaving behind empty hives and a damaged ecosystem.
Really? The ECOSYSTEM?! Did they not notice that honeybees aren’t part of the ecosystem?
Honeybees are livestock. They are animals which we manage for our uses. We provide them with housing and maintenance. We even move them from field to field, just as we let cows into different pastures for grazing.
Perhaps, if CCD can neither be prevented nor cured, disaster would come to pass. However, the underlying cause would not be the loss of the honeybees but our dependence on them as a consequence of unsustainable agricultural practices.
The old ways of farming include hedgerows, uncultivated areas between fields. The biodiversity of these patches provide substantial habitat for native pollinators, as well as other beneficial insects. When even these rough “unproductive” patches of land are cleared, we set the stage for the patterns that have come to dominate agriculture: more herbicides, more pesticides, more machinery. All of these also damage the soil food webs that support both soil fertility and agricultural ecosystems. Although manufactured inputs provide temporary relief, they reduce the ecological functions of the land, requiring more and greater inputs to achieve the same effect. This is the definition of addiction, and it’s a clear sign that this way of doing business is unsustainable.
Why do we need to ship and truck pollinators around? There are plenty of native pollinators to do the job, where we haven’t decimated their habitats. There are 4,000 species of bees alone in North America. 226 species are known in New York City. Many of them visit my gardens in Flatbush, Brooklyn; some have even taken up residence. Many native bees are ground-dwellers which need only some open ground in which to dig their nests. When every patch of ground is cultivated, plowed under or paved over, native pollinators disappear. Suddenly, we “need” honeybees for pollination.
I care about the honeybees. I like my honey and beeswax candles. I support efforts to legalize beekeeping in New York City. But not at the expense of the biodiversity that is all around us, even in the city, if only we care enough to look for it, value it, and nurture it.
Via Press Release from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Brooklyn, New York—October 26, 2009—On Tuesday, October 27 at 2:45 p.m., the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will award two trees at Brooklyn Botanic Garden “State Champion” status, affirming that they are the largest of their species on record in the state. The trees, a Kansas hawthorn (Crataegus coccinoides) and a Carolina holly (Ilex ambigua var. monticola) are the first trees in New York City to receive this honor. Only native or naturalized, nonhybrid species are eligible for champion designation. These specimens were nominated by a private citizen and their dimensions verified by the DEC.
At the presentation, which will take place in the shade of one of the champion trees, Brooklyn Botanic Garden president Scot Medbury and DEC regional director Suzanne Mattei will make remarks, and educators from the DEC will lead a group of students from BBG’s affiliated high school, Brooklyn Academy for Science and the Environment, in a workshop on the techniques used to measure big trees.
For more information on the New York State Big Tree Register and champion status, please visit www.dec.ny.gov/animals/5248.html. For more information on big trees at BBG, please visit bbg.org/exp/bigtrees/info/what.html.
NYSDEC RECOGNIZES NEW YORK CITY’S FIRST CHAMPION TREES Tuesday, October 27, 2009 | 2:45 p.m. Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn 2/3 to Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum or B/Q to Prospect Park
To arrange press credentials for the award ceremony, please contact Kate Blumm, BBG Communications Manager, at 718-623-7241 or kblumm@bbg.org.
Fraxinus americana, White Ash, one of the street trees that will be on the tour.
On Saturday, October 24, Sustainable Flatbush will host its first Fall Street Tree Walking Tour. And I’m looking forward to once again be one of the guides for the tour.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Brooklyn, NY October 16, 2009
SUSTAINABLE FLATBUSH FALL 2009 STREET TREE WALKING TOUR Saturday, October 24, 2009—Rain or Shine
Based on the success of the annual walking tour events in celebration of Arbor Day and spring in bloom, Sustainable Flatbush is now introducing the inaugural Fall Street Tree Walking Tour. The tour guides will be Tracey Hohman, professional gardener, and Chris Kreussling, aka Flatbush Gardener, both neighborhood residents.
Sustainable Flatbush Street Tree Walking Tour, Arbor Day 2009. That’s me in the middle, next to the tree. Photo by Keka
Throughout the tour, your street tree guide will:
identify trees and their characteristics
share interesting facts
explore local tree history
discuss the many ways street trees benefit the environment
explain how to obtain and care for street trees
and much more!
This free event is a perfect opportunity to visit Victorian Flatbush in the heart of Brooklyn and experience the neighborhood’s breathtaking street trees—including some that are more than 100 years old!
Location: Tours start at Sacred Vibes Apothecary, 376 Argyle Road, just south of Cortelyou Road
Take the Q train to Cortelyou Road Station and walk west after exiting the station toward Argyle Road.
Buses that stop on or near Cortelyou Road include the B23, B103, B68, and BM1,2,3,4 and x29 express busess.
As a reminder, check the MTA website for schedule and service advisories before you head out.
Time: Tours depart at 11:00 AM and 12:00 NOON. Tours take about 2 hours to complete and are 1 mile in length. This is a rain or shine event – please dress for the weather!
I can confirm that, with Dogwoods, White Ash and now Locust trees all in full color. Sweet Gum and Oaks are starting to turn. If cooler weather persists through the week, peak colors will probably arrive just in time for Halloween on the 31st. Still, there should be lots of color for us to enjoy on the 24th.
A Japanese Maple on Marlborough Rad in Prospect Park South, part of the tour, November 2007
The impacts of climate change to urban areas, such as New York City, will be extreme. Today, a typical NYC summer has 15 days with temperatures over 90F, and 2 days over 100F. By the end of this century, even optimistic scenarios, in which we reduce emissions and greenhouse gases starting NOW, NYC will have 39 90F days, and 7 100F days. In a typical summer. Some summers will be worse. People will die. If we do nothing, it will be worse.
I’ve written a lot about more immediate benefits of city trees, such as reduced flooding, summer cooling, and improved air quality. There remain opportunities for nurturing our urban forests. Addressing climate change is one more reason to do so:
Urban trees help offset climate change by capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide in their tissue, reducing energy used by buildings, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel based power plants. Our City’s trees store about 1.35 million tons of carbon valued at $24.9 million. In addition, our trees remove over 42,000 tons of carbon each year. – Benefits of NYC’s Urban Forest, MillionTreesNYC
Planting trees is one thing a gardener can do that will outlive them. But what world will my tree grow into? And what are its chances for survival in that world? I must avoid trees that are already at the southern limit of their range in NYC; by the end of the century, the climate will have escaped them. Trees can’t move fast enough to keep pace with the changes that are coming, that are already happening. They will need our help to survive.
I feel compelled to act as a guardian of my little area of the world, for as long as it, and I, last. Though I have always had, and expect I always will have, a troubled relationship with “community,” perhaps there is one I can be part of which will “watch over a much larger area.” It is my belief, my hope, that collectively we will create, and find in each other, that community. – July 26, 2006: The Bemidji Statement On Seventh Generation Guardianship
The whole world is now our Ark, and we are its Noah. It’s going to be a long ride.
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.
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.
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.
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
