Riding out the Harvest, BQLT Bike/Van Tour, Saturday, September 27

Posted on 2008-09-23 by admin

UPDATE Friday, 2008-09-26: CANCELLED. The announcement came at 10am from the tour’s organizers:

Intrepid gardeners,

With a forecast of some serious rain, we’ve come to a decision to cancel this Saturday’s (9/27/08) bqlt “Riding out the Harvest” bike/van tour.

Save your energy for next week’s (10/4/08) “Green(e) with Envy,” another great opportunity to explore the world of community gardening.

I’m disappointed, but I’ll admit I wasn’t looking forward to slogging through the rain with my camera. I am looking forward to the Green With Envy Tour of Bed-Stuy Community Gardens next Saturday, October 4.

Classon Ful-Gate Block Association Community Garden, one of nine Brooklyn community gardens on this Saturday’s tour.

The Brooklyn-Queens Land Trust (BQLT) is hosting its Second Annual Bike and Van Tour this Saturday, September 27th:

Jump in the van or hop on a bike – we’re visiting a sampling of BQLT gardens – saying hello, having some snacks along the way. It all begins at 9:30am with a coffee reception at Hollenback Community Garden (Washington Ave between Gates and Green Avenue ). The harvest ride will culminate in a cookout beginning at 3:00pm at Euclid / Pine Street Block Association.

MEETING TIME/COFFEE: 9:30am @ Hollenback Garden
DEPARTURE TIME: 10:00am Sharp!
TOUR’S END/COOKOUT: 3:00pm @ Euclid-Pine Garden

This is a BIKE & VAN TOUR:
Bicyclists will be led by Isak Mendes – RSVP/Info: eaglemendes [at] yahoo [dot]com
Seats in the Van are limited! Reserve yours by contacting Brothel Dean: strechdean [at] msn [dot] com

Suggested donation: $5/person

The gardens on the tour are:

Hollenback Community Garden, Washington Ave. between Gates & Greene Aves.
Classon/Ful-Gate Block Association, Classon Ave. between Putnam & Madison Aves.
St. Mark’s Ave./Prospect Heights, St. Marks between Vanderbilt & Carlton Aves.
Mama Dee’s Garden, St. Mark’s Avenue between Bedford and Rogers Aves.
Westbrook Memorial Garden, Pacific St. between Bedford & Nostrand Aves.
United Herkimer Garden Club, Herkimer St. between Bedfor & Nostrand Aves.
Rogers/Tilden/Veronica Place Garden, Corner of Tilden Ave. and Veronica Place
Sheffield Garden, Sheffield Ave between New Lots and Hegeman Aves.
Euclid-Pine Block Association Garden, Corner of Dumont Ave. & Pine St.

View Larger Map

Classon FulGate Block Association Garden, Green With Envy Tour, II.6, August 10, 2008
Hollenback Community Garden, Clinton Hill, Green With Envy Tour, II.5, August 8, 2008
St. Mark’s Avenue Community Garden, Prospect Heights, Green With Envy Tour, II.2, August 2, 2008

Links

Riding out the Harvest, BQLT Bike/Van Tour
Google map

More love for the Q train

Posted on 2008-09-09 by admin

Part of the Beverly Road subway platform on the Q line.

A writer in today’s New York Observer romances the Q:

I love the Q train. O.K., I love the B, too, but it’s the Q that’s stolen my heart.

When I moved back to Brooklyn in January, the biggest factor in finding an apartment was its proximity to this train line, and especially to the 7th Avenue station (a nice change of pace after riding the G train for three years). It’s just far enough into Brooklyn that I am in a quiet, residential neighborhood, but also only the third stop into the borough, easily depositing me anywhere I need to go in Manhattan.
– Brooklyn, The Borough: Can the Q Be the Next L?, Nicole Brydson, The Observer

She parrots the fiction that “Ditmas Park” equates “Flatbush.” And she heralds what may be the death knell for the livability of my neighborhood: the arrival of celebrities. Comparing the Q to the L does not bode well.

Like the L train of the early ‘00s, the neighborhoods along the Q/B line have seen new crops of people popping out of its stations along a path rumbling through central and southern Brooklyn, from Downtown, Park Slope, Midwood and Ditmas Park, through Sheepshead Bay and, via an expert right turn, Brighton Beach and Coney Island. The Q line even has some of the same digitally enhanced trains that graced the L line a few years back.
…
Not only is the Q/B line convenient, with a recent sighting by Page Six Magazine of Brooklyn celebrity darling Michelle Williams dining with new beau Spike Jonze at popular Ditmas Park eatery The Farm on Adderley (off the Cortelyou Q stop), the perception of southern Brooklyn seems to be getting a makeover.

Flatbush by rail with Francis Morrone

Links

Brooklyn, The Borough: Can the Q Be the Next L?, Nicole Brydson, The Observer

Sunday, September 21: Brooklyn Blogade

Posted on 2008-09-08 by admin

NOTE CHANGE IN DATE

The next Brooklyn Blogade is Sunday, September 21, at 1pm, at Juliette in Willliamsburg. This month’s Blogade is hosted by Christine Brodigan of HuffPo and PlumTV. Topics will include personal branding, social media, and audience-building.

To attend, please RSVP Chrissie at christine dot brodigan at gmail dot com.

And save the date of Sunday, October 12 for the next Blogade after this one, when I’ll be your host at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Blogade

Links

Juliette [GMAP]

[where: Juliette, 135 N. 5th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211]

Brooklyn Bear’s Carlton Avenue Garden, Fort Greene, Green With Envy Tour, II.10

Posted on 2008-08-19 by admin

The Green With Envy Tour II at the Brooklyn Bear’s Carlton Avenue Garden in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

The final stop on the Green With Envy Tour II was the Carlton Avenue site of the Brooklyn Bear’s Gardens.

Check the links below for photos from the other stops on both Tours I and II. And watch for announcements for the next Green With Envy Tour, which I’ll post on this blog.

Street Entrance

This garden had the most-developed and luxuriantly planted streetscape of any community garden I’ve seen. This has a big impact even when the garden is closed.

Approaching the garden from the north, the first thing you notice is the three story mural painted on the side wall of the adjacent building.

Here’s a closer look.

As you get closer, the streetside planters demand your attention.

In the planter to the left of the entrance are the silver-white flowering bracts of mountain-mint, Pycnanthemum muticum. I recognized it because I grow the same species in my backyard native plant garden. In this garden as well as my own, at this time of year they are swarming with multiple species of bees, flies, and wasps, all important pollinators of food crops.

Opposite, to the right of the entrance, is another planter with a different design. Asymmetrical plantings like these entrance planters maximize the massing possible with a given plant palette. The greater variety of plants provide for longer, and more varied, blooms. All of these are strategies to attract both plant pollinators and insect predators close to the garden’s growing areas.

Every garden has a “garden is open” sign. This one includes several imperatives.

More ornamental plantings, including several mature trees, lie inside the fence.

Common Areas

The garden is built on a slope. The raised beds form terraces built into the hillside. This photo is the best I got to show this. I’d like to see this garden in the winter.

The picnic area, which appears in the opening photo, is part of the gathering area at the low side of the garden.

Composting

The mandatory composting area. This triple-bin arrangement was the most common. These weathered bins are still on the job. Signs moved from bin to bin let gardeners and visitors know where to add fresh material, and where they can obtain compost for use in their beds.

Glam

Marigold

Monarda

Achillea

Coreopsis

Pakistani-American Festival, Sunday, August 17

Posted on 2008-08-14 by admin

via the NYC DOT Weekend Traffic Advisory:

Coney Island Avenue between Avenue H and Newkirk Avenue will be closed Sunday, August 17, from 11am to 6pm for the Pakistani-American Festival as permitted by the Mayor’s Street Activity Permit Office (SAPO).

The event is sponsored by the Pakistani-American Merchants Association. Today, August 14, is the 61st Anniversary of Pakistan’s independence.

Mosquito Spraying in Southeast Brooklyn overnight

Posted on 2008-08-13 by admin

via Brooklyn Eagle.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will spray for mosquitoes in several areas of Brooklyn and Staten Island tonight between 7:45 p.m. and 6 a.m.

In Brooklyn, the affected areas include Canarsie, Paerdegat Basin, Georgetown, Flatlands, East Flatbush, Mill Basin, Bergen Beach and Canarsie Cemetery.

People in these areas, especially those with respiratory conditions, should stay indoors. Also, they are urged to remove children’s toys, outdoor equipment and clothes from outdoor areas during spraying.

For this spraying, the Health Department will use Anvil 10 + 10, a synthetic pesticide.

Links

Mosquito Control Notice, August 13, 2008 (PDF)
Spraying Schedule
Heath Department Reminds New Yorkers to Protect Themselves against West Nile Virus, DOH Press Release, August 13, 2008
West Nile Virus home page, DOH

The Greene Garden, Fort Greene, Green With Envy Tour, II.9

Posted on 2008-08-12 by admin

Green With Envy Tour at the Greene Garden in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

The Greene Garden is a shady green space across the street from Fort Greene Park. When I saw this, I imagined the wonderful shade gardens that could be created here.

There are no growing areas, just common areas for socializing, and relaxing, interconnected by wandering paths.

The gazebo is really nice. In my long-term vision for integrating the rear of my house with the backyard garden, I imagine something like this at the corner of a back porch, providing an entrance from the driveway and garage at the rear of the property onto the porch and access to the rear of the house.

This garden is a work in progress.

No glam in this garden, yet. It has the potential to become a showcase shade garden. Meanwhile, there some artificial color is scattered about.

Clifton Place Block Association Community Garden, Green With Envy Tour, II.7

Posted on 2008-08-11 by admin

Green With Envy Tour at the Clifton Place Block Association Community Garden in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

Planting areas

The usual raised beds, but laid out in an unusual manner, almost mazelike.

Here’s a view from the street entrance area.

Here’s a view from inside, near the rear of the garden.

A hint of the maze.

Composting

They had some brand-new, still-shiny compost bins.

Glam

Are we sick of sunflowers, yet? I hope not.

Bee on Sunflower

Kale. Almost looks good enough to eat. Almost.

Moss on Rock

I know, you’re sick of Echinacea by now. But it’s hard to take a bad shot of them. They reward close inspection.

And the bees like them some Echinacea, too.

Lily. As fragrant as it looks.

Classon FulGate Block Association Garden, Green With Envy Tour, II.6

Posted on 2008-08-10 by admin

Green With Envy Tour at the Classon FulGate Block Association Garden in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

Classon FulGate was the oldest community on the tour, possibly the oldest in Brooklyn. The unusual name derives from its location: Classon Avenue between Gates Avenue and Fulton Street. It’s been in operation for more than four decades, under the guidance of this man, whose name I cannot recall. I’m better with plants than people.

Street Entrance and Common Areas

Street entrance

Most of the common area is located at the rear of the garden, beneath the only tree. As you can see in the opening photo, the shade was a welcome relief, as were the refreshments at this stop.

A community mural depicting residents of the block covers the back wall. The smaller portraits along the top of the wall depict deceased residents.

Growing Area

Nearly all the space of this comparatively small garden – the area of two townhouses – is devoted to growing food crops.

The growing beds are sunken rather than raised, relative to the central path. Everything is grown in impeccably neat rows in one of two large communal growing areas, one on each side of the path.

Glam

Watermelon leaf

Bee on Canna

Marigold

Zinnia

Hibiscus syriacus, Rose-of-Sharon

Hollenback Community Garden, Clinton Hill, Green With Envy Tour, II.5

Posted on 2008-08-08 by admin

The Green With Envy Tour gets an explanation of the water collection system at the Hollenback Community Garden.

Skipping over stop #4 (we’ll wrap that up with some other short stops at the end), we come to Hollenback Community Garden, stop #5 on Tour 2 of the Green With Envy tour of Brooklyn community gardens. Hollenback is another large community garden. They have the largest and most sophisticated rainwater collection system I’ve seen yet. They have an community composting program. They provide multiple channels for folks to contribute, including their so-far-unique composting toilet.

Street Entrance and Common Areas

Compared to the lush Prospect Heights Farm, in this garden, the common areas near the entrance are spartan.

Ornamental plantings line the paths leading into and through the heart of the garden.

Composting

I was impressed with the scale of these open silos, and the temperatures they achieved.

Each silo was carefully labelled.

And monitored.

The silos were out in the middle of the garden. They had a sweet aroma. There was another composting area, located in the rear of the garden, as is more common.

The finished material is beautiful.

This custom-made compost-mobile is an important element in their collection system. They partner with the GreenMarket, NYC’s farmers’ markets, at Fort Greene Park. They have drop-offs there on the days the Greenmarket operates. They load up garbage cans in the front crate and pedal them back to the garden for composting.

They also have garbage cans at the entrance, just inside the gate, where neighbors can come by and drop off their kitchen scraps even when the garden is not open.

Composting Toilet

This high-end outhouse addresses all the concerns you might have about a composting toilet. There was absolutely no odor around or in this, even when they opened the “basement” lid so we could take a look at the “nightsoil” they’ve collected so far.

The woman on the left seems not so sure of the whole setup.

This sign reminded me of the scene in 2001 regarding the zero-G toilet.

Beneath the base is the finished product. The lid is necessary for periodic maintenance, mainly raking and leveling out the, um, “material”, as well as eventually harvesting the compost. The black lid on the left covers another trap for removing excess liquid. The gray box and white plumbing provide ventilation.

Water Collection

Massive tanks collect water off the flat roof of the adjacent brownstone.

This big “U” trap behind the main tanks is an important part of the system. It collects the initial flush of water off the adjoining roof, which will have the most airborne contaminants. Only when the trap fills does the flow begin filling the tanks. The trap can be drained independently of the tanks.

Glam

Bee on Sunflower.

Very familiar, some kind of Hibiscus, but I can’t place it.

Echinacea and Bee

Rose

Elephant Garlic, I think

Gomphrena

Hollyhock in bud

Links

Hollenback Community Garden

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