Part of Garden Bloggers Buffa10, Buffalo, NY, July 2010
The Allentown Association Community Garden provides a gateway from Buffalo’s Main Street to the quiet side streets and lush gardens of the Allentown neighborhood.
The Parsonage at the Flatbush Reformed Church is the proposed site for a new communal garden. 
This Wednesday, June 16 at 6pm
Are you a gardener, or have you always wanted to get your hands in the dirt?
Sustainable Flatbush is collaborating with the Flatbush Reformed Church to create a new community garden!
Join us in a creative brainstorming session to plan this new neighborhood green space!
WHAT: Community Garden Visioning Meeting
WHEN: Wednesday June 16th at 6pm
WHERE: Flatbush Reformed Church, 890 Flatbush Avenue (at Church Ave.)
Refreshments and childcare will be provided!
What to expect at the meeting:
* see the garden location!
* contribute your ideas for what the garden will be
* what we can grow (flowers? herbs? vegetables?)
* how we can best use the space we have
* how we will build and maintain the garden
* learn how you can get involved!
Sign up here to attend a Visioning Meeting and keep up-to-date on news related to the garden.
For more information: 718-208-0575 / info@sustainableflatbush.org
Sustainable Flatbush brings neighbors together to mobilize, educate, and advocate for sustainable living in our Brooklyn neighborhood and beyond.
The Flatbush Reformed Church is a welcoming, inclusive and ecumenical Church located in the heart of Brooklyn.
A section of the wall filled in by participants in the first Visioning Workshop on June 6.
Help Envision a New Garden: Sunday, June 6, 2010-06-02
New community garden — not at Brooklyn College, Helen Klein, Flatbush Life, 2010-06-08
Flatbush Reformed Church
Sustainable Flatbush
CAMBA
Flatbush Farm Share CSA
Update: June 16: Community Visioning Workshop for a new Communal Garden
Update, 2010.06.04: Added information about the site.
Update, 2010.06.03: Added registration link.
The Parsonage, Flatbush Reformed Church, 2103 Kenmore Terrace, corner of East 21st Street, Flatbush, Brooklyn
Thus Sunday, June 6, from 4-6pm, we’ll be holding the first of two Community Visioning Workshops for a new communal garden on the grounds of the landmarked Flatbush Reformed Church. One site is a small, fenced-off area. The other is the front lawn of the Parsonage. This landmarked historic building was built in 1853 – though portions of it may be even older – and moved to this site in 1913.
Front lawn, looking east from East 21st Street
The main area is the front lawn of the Parsonage. It’s a large area, about 25-feet deep, from the fence along Kenmore Terrace to the porch of the house, and about 85-feet long, from East 21st Street to the Church parking lot. There are opportunities to further develop the buffer plantings, 3-1/2-feet between the fence and the sidewalk, that Church members have already established.
Buffer Plantings, looking from the entrance gate toward East 21st Street
The site is dominated by large, mature Oak trees lining the fence on Kenmore Terrace and East 21st Street. These cast dense shade, and working with this constraint will be one of the challenges for designing the garden and plantings. I have a lot of experience with urban shade gardens, and see the potential in this site.
The most interesting aspects of this project will be the community partnerships. CAMBA, a large community-based service organization, has a young mothers program that meets at the Parsonage. We want the space and gardens to be child-friendly, and provide opportunities for exploration and learning about nature and gardening. The Flatbush Farm Share CSA distributes from the front lawn of the Parsonage. They offer shares for all income levels, and subsidize low-income members. We want to accommodate their needs for space and provide opportunities for education programs.
Soil Sampling for Texture Analysis
Sustainable Flatbush is partnering with the Flatbush Reformed Church to create a new community garden! The whole community is invited to be involved in the planning and care of this neighborhood green space.
Two Community Garden Visioning Meetings have been scheduled for Sunday June 6th and Wednesday June 16th. At these brainstorming sessions community members will visit the garden area, located on church grounds, and work collaboratively to envision this new public green space: what can be grown, how to best utilize the space, how the garden will be built and maintained, what to name the garden, and how to be a part of it!
The new community garden is a joint project of Sustainable Flatbush’s Urban Gardens & Farms Initiative and the Flatbush Reformed Church.
The Urban Gardening and Farming Initiative works to foster community gardening efforts in Flatbush, promoting healthy local food, sustainable horticulture practices, and community building and beautification.
Sustainable Flatbush brings neighbors together to mobilize, educate, and advocate for sustainable living in our Brooklyn neighborhood and beyond.
Flatbush Reformed Church is a welcoming, inclusive and ecumenical Church in the heart of Brooklyn.
WHAT: Community Garden Visioning Meetings
WHEN: Sunday, June 6th at 4pm and Wednesday, June 16th at 6pm.
WHERE: Flatbush Reformed Church, located at 890 Flatbush Avenue at Church Avenue, just three blocks east of the Q train or three blocks west of the 2 train, Church Avenue stop.
Sign up here to attend a Visioning Meeting.
Refreshments and childcare will be provided.
New Community Garden at Flatbush Reformed Church!, Sustainable Flatbush, 2010-05-31
A new Brooklyn community farm/garden, christened “Windsor Farm,” broke ground Sunday, April 28 in Windsor Terrace. I went to lend my support, help out for a bit, and check out the scene.
It’s a challenging site, even for an urban garden. The aerial photography of Google Maps revealed that the site is completely covered by trees. It didn’t show that the property spans a steep slope.
Whatever this slope is, believe me, when you’re on the side of it using edge tools to cut through the brambles, it feels a lot steeper!
Even more challenging are the weeds, which include:
… and a few others I’m forgetting at the moment. I don’t know what annual species the seasons will reveal.
Fallopia japonica, Japanese Knotweed, at Windsor Farm. These stalks, 3-6″ high now, will grow to 8-9′ tall by the end of the summer, and produce thousands of seeds.
On Sunday, the community volunteers began clearing the site, cutting and filling to terrace the slope, and removing debris. I don’t know the history of the site. I came across several piles of concrete and rubble that appeared to be construction debris rather than an on-site foundation. It’s possible that the site has endured some dumping, though there was no evidence I found of serious trash that has been overcome in the formation of other community gardens.
A Farm Grows in Brooklyn, being cheap never tasted so good, 2010-03-28
Windsor Farm, Windsor Terrace Alliance
2010-02-23: Added a brief history of the Garden.
Last Fall, Brooklyn College announced plans to destroy the Campus Road Community Garden, located at the western end of Brooklyn College’s athletic fields since 1997, for a parking lot. This Wednesday, February 24, the Brooklyn Community Board 14 Committee on Education, Libraries & Cultural Affairs is having a public hearing:
When: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 7 PM
Where: CB14 District Office, 810 E 16th Street, Brooklyn, NYAgenda:
1. Update on Brooklyn College Garden – Representatives of Brooklyn College and South Midwood Residence Association
2. Presentation on Brooklyn Public Library initiatives – Tambe Tysha-John, Cluster Leader, Brooklyn Public Library
3. Other businessIf you would like to speak during any of the public hearings or during the public portion of the board meeting, please call the CB14 District Office at 718-859-6357 to register for time. You may also register to speak on the evening of the meeting.
The “Brooklyn College Garden” is part of Brooklyn College’s greenwashing campaign. On February 3, they posted this announcement (since removed) on their Web site:
Brooklyn College announced today the creation of the Brooklyn College Garden that will serve as the basis for a broad spectrum of academic and sustainability initiatives for faculty and students. Members of the surrounding community will also be welcome to plant on individual plots, which will be assigned to them on a yearly base.
The garden, to be situated at the campus’s Avenue H entrance and bordering the college’s athletic field, is designed to be approximately 2,500 square feet.
which is where the Campus Road Garden, occupying more than twice the area, already exists.
View Brooklyn Community Gardens in a larger map
Brooklyn College’s unilateral announcement is disingenuous, at best. They omit any mention of their plans to destroy the Campus Road Garden, or the parking lot that will take its place. Such is the basis for their “sustainability initiatives.”
Not content with destroying a garden with decades of history in the community, they plan to pick at its bones for their private benefit:
Trees and bushes from a temporary community garden that made use of the area in previous years will be carefully replanted in front of the West Quad Center to create an inviting new garden. The college envisions the new green space as a “serenity garden” with comfortable seating for visitors to linger.
A garden that has been in place for 13 years is not a “temporary” garden.
Once again, the hearing is this Thursday, Wednesday, February 24, at 7pm, at the CB14 District Office at 810 E 16th Street.
[bk.ly]
Provided by the Campus Road Garden:
Save the Campus Road Garden in Flatbush, 2009-10-07
South Midwood Garden Tour and Art Show, 2009-08-18
Other Gardens: South Midwood Garden Tour, 2006-07-30
Stop the Demolition of the Campus Rd Garden, online petition
Education, Libraries & Cultural Affairs Committee, Community Board 14
Land of the Free, Home of the…Cars?, Dassa Gutwirth, Sustainable Flatbush, 2010-02-23 (Illustrated with my photos of Campus Road Garden)
BC issues plan for new community garden, stirring ire, Courier-Life, 2010-02-09
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
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.
Stepping into the void left by the City’s abandonment of leaf composting, more than a dozen Brooklyn community gardens, as well as gardens in other boroughs, have banded together in partnership with the GreenBridge Community Garden Alliance of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Council on the Environment of NYC, bk farmyards, Vokashi, and the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition,
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.
View larger map
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
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Brooklyn Leaf Composting Project, 2009-10-02
Final NYC Compost Giveback, 2009-09-30
BK Decay, NYC Leaves: Project LeafDrop
Leaf Composting This Sunday, November 8th, Sustainable Flatbush, 2009-11-07
NYCLeaves: Project LeafDrop Are Picking Up Where the City’s Leaving Off, Brooklyn Green Team, 2009-11-04
New Community Garden Coalition Takes Lead in Leaf Composting, GreenThumb NYC, 2009-10-27
bk farmyards
Council on the Environment of NYC
GreenBridge Community Garden Alliance, Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Neighborhood Open Space Coalition
Vokashi
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.
[bit.ly]
South Midwood Garden Tour and Art Show, 2009-08-18
Other Gardens: South Midwood Garden Tour, 2006-07-30
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
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) 768-6868Subways:
M. R to Union StBuses:
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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The Baltic Street Community Garden and the century-old gothic P.S. 133 school building in Park Slope are threatened by School Construction Authority (SCA) plans to raze both for a new school building.
More details on the issues and what’s at stake are below the fold.
What you can do:
- Call or write to Councilman David Yassky’s office, and urge him to support the preservation of the existing garden and school, and to press for an alternative, appropriate plan.
Phone: 718-875-5200.
Email: yassky@council.nyc.ny.us
Address: 114 Court Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201- Sign the online petition [http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/4thAveLandmark/]
- Come to the Community Board 6 meeting TONIGHT, 6/8 at 6:30pm where this issue will be discussed. Representatives from both the SCA and Yassky’s office will be there. Location:
Old First Reformed Church [GMAP]
729 Carroll Street
(Corner of 7th Avenue)
Brooklyn, New YorkTo learn more, please contact us at baltic.garden@gmail.com
The School Construction Authority (SCA) recently announced its plans to demolish historic PS 133 in Park Slope (375 Butler Street at 4th Avenue) to make way for a new, much larger school structure. This remarkable gothic school, a recognized historic resource designed by renowned educational architect CBJ Snyder, is a beloved community anchor.
It has been determined eligible for the State and National Register of Historic Places, and a number of other Snyder schools throughout the city are already designated local landmarks, including Morris High School in The Bronx and the former Stuyvesant High School on East 15th Street in Manhattan.
Local residents are devastated by the notion of losing PS 133 and have developed alternative plans that would allow for the building to be preserved with an annex constructed to accommodate the additional seats. The SCA has expressed no interest in considering these alternatives and has neglected to include local stakeholders in any of the discussions surrounding the proposal.
– Park Slope Snyder School to be Demo’d by NYC School Construction Authority, Historic Districts Council, 2009-06-05
An online petition to save the century old PS 133 building and adjacent 30 year old community garden has been created. Please consider signing it if you have any concerns about the NY School Construction Authority’s
proposal to tear down the current school building, and build a massive 960 seat school on the site of the garden and school playground. Construction is slated to begin in just a couple of months.The proposal has been created in haste, without any input from the planned community immediately surrounding it, and without concern for the safety of the neighborhood. There is no plan in place for handling
the toxic waste that will be disturbed and dug up on the contaminated site. Traffic concerns due to the 660 seat increase have not been adequately addressed. Neighborhood residents feel that the lightning pace of this project should be slowed, and alternative plans be considered
The School Construction Authority wants to tear down the century old PS 133 bldg (which is wait listed for the landmark status) and the Baltic St Community garden to build a nearly 1000 seat new school on that property. There are so many reasons why this proposal is flawed including:
- the surrounding community was not consulted at all, and they are against the project as it is drawn up at present.
- school is too massive for the tiny streets and houses of Baltic & Butler, which along with the garden is a planned community built nearly 30 years ago.
- traffic problems not adequately addressed. Dropping off and picking up 960 students per day is unsafe in that location. 50 school buses will be circling that small half block area.
- environmental impact study states that the site is contaminated with hazardous substances. To date, they have no plan in place on how to safely deal with the contaminated soil.
- school is sited in District 13, but they will get no increase in seats. Instead, District 15 (who is paying and pushing for this project) will get an additional 560 seats. The new bldg would house 3 separate schools–districts 13, 15, and 75, but in a very segregated way. There would be no mixing of the students. Many parents object to this segregation.
- many people feel that as soon as it is finished, rezoning will occur, granting entire school to District 15, which leaves 13 with no new benefit, just a loss of a school.
- garden has been in that site for 20 years, and has fully mature trees, shrubs, hedges, etc will be destroyed as it will be too hot in August to transplant even if new homes could be found for them. It is a unique space with thousands of sq feet for growing food in addition to the ornamentals.
- this is the only open, green space on 4th Ave for a the entire 6 mile stretch from Flatbush to the Verrazano.
Save the Baltic Street Community Garden in Park Slope, 2009-01-21
Baltic Street Community Garden, Park Slope, Green With Envy Tour, I.6
My Flickr photo set of this garden
Save 4th Ave Park Slope Landmark and Community Garden (online petition)
Park Slope Snyder School to be Demo’d by NYC School Construction Authority, Historic Districts Council, 2009-06-05
Meet at 12noon tomorrow at the corner of 9th Avenue and 39th Street [GMAP] to rally in support of creating a new community garden in Sunset Park: the Culver Community Garden. The group is organizing to convert the currently vacant lots on either side of the 9th Avenue station of the D/M subway line into public green spaces.
Sunset Park can haz Community Garden?, 2008-11-25
