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.

Related Content

Flickr photo set

Green With Envy Tour II
Pacific Street Bear’s Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, II.1
St. Mark’s Avenue Community Garden, Prospect Heights, Green With Envy Tour, II.2
Prospect Heights Community Farm, Prospect Heights, Green With Envy Tour, II.3
Hollenback Community Garden, Clinton Hill, Green With Envy Tour, II.5
Classon FulGate Block Association Garden, Green With Envy Tour, II.6

Brooklyn Bear’s Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.1
Hoyt Street Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.2
Wyckoff-Bond Community Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.3
David Foulke Memorial Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.4
Warren-St Marks Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy, I.5
Baltic Street Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.6
Lincoln-Berkeley Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.7
Gardens of Union, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.8
Green With Envy, Tour One, Final Stops 9 and 10

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

Related Content

Flickr photo set

Green With Envy Tour II
Pacific Street Bear’s Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, II.1
St. Mark’s Avenue Community Garden, Prospect Heights, Green With Envy Tour, II.2
Prospect Heights Community Farm, Prospect Heights, Green With Envy Tour, II.3
Hollenback Community Garden, Clinton Hill, Green With Envy Tour, II.5

Brooklyn Bear’s Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.1
Hoyt Street Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.2
Wyckoff-Bond Community Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.3
David Foulke Memorial Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.4
Warren-St Marks Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy, I.5
Baltic Street Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.6
Lincoln-Berkeley Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.7
Gardens of Union, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.8
Green With Envy, Tour One, Final Stops 9 and 10

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

Related Content

Flickr photo set

Green With Envy Tour II
Pacific Street Bear’s Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, II.1
St. Mark’s Avenue Community Garden, Prospect Heights, Green With Envy Tour, II.2
Prospect Heights Community Farm, Prospect Heights, Green With Envy Tour, II.3

Brooklyn Bear’s Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.1
Hoyt Street Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.2
Wyckoff-Bond Community Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.3
David Foulke Memorial Garden, Boerum Hill, Green With Envy Tour, I.4
Warren-St Marks Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy, I.5
Baltic Street Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.6
Lincoln-Berkeley Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.7
Gardens of Union, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.8
Green With Envy, Tour One, Final Stops 9 and 10

Links

Hollenback Community Garden