August crops

abundance of tomatoes

Inaugural Concert

It was raining, but TRUCE opened their doors and their auditorium.  For the last number, we walked over to the garden for one last glorious song.   The sun cleared and the plants looked happy.
Marvin Hadley, Shirley Ullah, and Selina Hughes performed.  They were gracious and positive and their music was amazing.  Everyone enjoyed their good will and spirit.

A butterfly attends

stars on stage

artists tour garden

Free concert in the garden

Saturday, August 22nd at 3p.m., join us in the garden to welcome artist Marvin Hadley leading The South Harlem Inspirational Singers!

Concert Flyer Here

Storm damage

New York’s short but brutal storm last night brought down a garden tree. One of the larger trees on the lot, it fell right on top of our prize sunflowers and covered some planting boxes. The garden was closed and no one was hurt.

Summer storm takes out front tree

Garden's largest tree crashed towards the street

August heat brings new crops

The garden is full of growth.

plum tomatoes

eggplant and tomato ripen together

corn

hot peppers

Work weekend in the garden

Gardeners worked on clearing the stage and gave it a coat of varnish in anticipation of Marvin Hadley’s appearance Saturday the 22nd at 3pm.
We cleaned and protected the benches, installed a shelter roof structure, planted a worn wheelbarrow and set up a produce display.

Special congratulations to Michelle, Marilyn, Julian, Ivy and Steve on all this hard work, and many thanks to Ian for the great designs and guidance.

Hidden treasures

New coat for the stage

a new roof being tested

the old is new again

Ready to compost

Ian explained how composting is a snap – a natural process we can help along.

Checking out the new bins

Thanks to the new bins and a team of newly trained and/or refreshed gardeners we are ready to do some serious composting, building rich soil for our garden. Now the grass, wood chips, stems, leaves and other garden debris can all be recycled into rich dirt efficiently (careful with those weed roots and seeds though). Take a look at the list of what to compost in our garden.

Want to do even more? Now, gardeners may bring vegetable and fruit peels, bread and other kitchen waste from home to add to the pile. Once at the garden, you can leave your compost materials in the metal compost bin. From there, trained gardeners will carry it to the first bin, on the far right side. The compost is then transferred to the left as it is turned,  until it is finished about three months later.

He gave us some great tips to avoid common composting mishaps. Because our compost is alive with microorganisms we will give it some air and water (the pile should be moist, not wet) to help it along. We will discourage animals by never putting tempting milk products, meats or cooked/processed foods in our urban compost.

We inspected the new compost bins. They are really well-made. The front panels slide upwards to allow for easy access to the finished compost at the bottom of the bins. Get ready for some great soil!

After the workshop, Ian put the finishing touches on the cover and Michelle helped install the bin on bricks to prevent wood rot. We inaugurated the bins with a load from the metal compost can from the front of the garden.

William tells stories from the farm

New garden member and long-time neighbor William told us about his experience with composting when he was growing up. Thanks to a job stocking shelves at the grocery store, he and his brothers brought home the older produce and buried it in the fields to make their soil the envy of everyone around. Trash to treasure, the Stone Soup way!

Studying the ingredients list for some Stone Soup style compost

Garden Team Needed: GreenThumb Harvest Fair and First Annual Urban Farmy Olympics Announced

Represent our garden on September 12th from noon to 6p.m. This is an urgent appeal – If we can build a team this week, we can register to compete and see how our crops and skills measure up against other city gardens. We’ll need at least two seniors over 60 and two youths under 21 and everyone in between who wants to join in and support us.

Once a year, gardeners from all over the city come together to show off what they’ve grown this season.

Check our new garden calendar on this site for this and other events, but don’t miss this one. Here are the details:

HarvestFair2009Flier

FarmyOlympicsRegistration 2009