In the Kitchen Garden on April 7

Although it was chilly, Els, Jane Ann, Marcelo, Iris, and Susan met at the garden on Saturday morning to continue preparations for the coming season. As we dug and hauled wheelbarrows full of compost and wood chips, it suddenly didn’t seem chilly at all!

We did some work on individual beds—pulling weeds, adding compost and dirt from the dirt pile, and pondering when and where to plant vegetables and flowers—but we mostly turned our attention to the common areas. We enlarged the bed that runs parallel to the street by digging up the crabgrass and moving the stone edge back. All the areas we cleared either became part of the garden bed or were covered with layers of wet cardboard and then wood chips to keep the crabgrass and weeds from returning, as well as to make it look nice. We’ve made good dents in the wood chip and dirt piles over the last few weeks—altho the photo of the wood chip pile doesn’t show this as dramatically as I had hoped.

Back against the fence, we noticed some old Brussels sprout plants that had never reached their full potential in the fall but had lived on thru the winter as funky looking green stalks topped by a bunch of leaves with a teeny, tiny Brussels sprout below each leaf. Els, ever resourceful, had pulled one out last week and chopped the leaves up for a salad. She pulled the remaining ones and we divided them up. Els' recipe included kalamata olives, fennel, radishes and a Greek dressing. I added shredded grilled chicken, grated carrot, avocado and a lemon juice and olive oil dressing. It was delicious!

Soon we will start planting some greens. Crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and the like will need to wait till the end of May. It’s great to be working together in the fresh air in the Kitchen Garden once again. Our next workshop with Claudia Joseph of the NY Permaculture Exchange will be on Saturday morning, April 28.

- Iris

Back to the Kitchen Garden! March 31

Things are starting back up at the Kitchen Garden! Two weeks ago, a small but hearty crew (Els, Ben, Marcelo) began preparing the garden for spring planting--building up the community beds with dirt and compost and ripping up the crabgrass in between and covering the bare earth with wood chips from the pile in the parking lot. This past Saturday, a larger group of us joined in—Marcelo, Solange, Susan, Blanca, Laura, Iris and Els. We managed to get the irrigation lines on top of those newly built up beds (which we hadn't been sure we could) and removed more crabgrass and laid down wet cardboard and then a layer of wood chips. Lots of trips with the wheelbarrow! We began enlarging the community bed on the street side. Marcelo and helpers sifted the compost and put it on the community bed near the street and mixed some into the dirt pile to continue improving its usefulness. A highlight was when a young gardener/scientist stopped by with his mom and enjoyed examining the worm Marcelo found in the compost.

It was a great day to be out in the sunshine working together and getting ready for spring planting. And then today, it snowed! And then, it melted... spring is indeed on its way...

- Iris

Applying Permaculture to the Kitchen Garden

Claudia Joseph, a permaculture teacher from Brooklyn, is leading three classes this spring at the Kitchen Garden. The question at hand is: what is transformed when applying the knowledge of permaculture to this community garden.

There will be three classes: Sat March 24, April 28, and May 19, from 9 AM to noon. They are open to all. However know that the focus will be on the Kitchen Garden.

Crops we would like to plant for the communal garden and/or individual plots: Greens (kale, chard, spinach, collards, mizuna and a variety of lettuces), tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers (hot and sweet), eggplants (?), broccoli (?), Brussels sprouts (Susan, maybe Laura), beets, carrots, winter squashes, tomatillos (Iris), peas, herbs (cilantro, parsley; we have lots of sage, oregano, thyme, mint), mushrooms?, native flowers to attract beneficial insects and for beauty. Gabriela plans to use her bed for medicinal plants.

Here are the questions the group has for Claudia. Stay tuned for some learnings to be posted here. 

1. We currently have crab grass in between the beds and bare dirt under our table (where we had a huge crop of volunteer lambs quarters last year! Not a good spot for them.) We also have a large pile of dirt and a smaller one of wood chips. Would it be good to spread the woodchip pile under the table or in between some of the beds (not sure how far the chips will go)? Or how about spreading the dirt pile as far as it goes and covering those areas with wood chips?
2. What’s Claudia’s opinion of the Norway Maple that shades part of the garden and is rumored to be non-beneficial (or actively worse)? Cut it down and chip it for garden paths? Leave it and grow mushrooms underneath? (Whether it could actually be cut down is a decision of Roots & Wings bc of finances.)
3. Can we find an area for perennial fruits and nuts?
4. Are we using our space well? Is there more room for planting?
   
   
5. What can we do about the deep back bed to provide more accessibility to all parts of it?
6. How can we grow more vertically, using the fences for growing? Beans? Cucumbers? Peas? Flowers?
7. Can we use the raised beds with the hoops for seed starting or in some other helpful way?
8. Should we plant clover or some other crop instead of crab grass in between the two long communal beds or reconfigure them in any way?
9. How important is it to rotate crops in the communal beds?
10. What should we plant at various times, especially in order to have some fall/winter crops? (succession planting strategy)
11. Can anything be grown in the same bed as garlic to maximize use of space?
12. What are beneficial combinations of plants that we could grow together?
13. Is there anything we should do before the first workshop? Spread dirt/woodchips? Start seeds? (limited capacity for this)
14. What about control of invasive species and pests?We’ve had wild grape and poison ivy coming from next property via the stone wall, powdery mildew, leaf miners and cabbage worms

October 7 at the Kitchen Garden

Ben and Carolyn were so early I didn't even see them, although I arrived at 10 to 10. Mark and Marc left early for a funeral service in South church but not after harvesting tomatoes, tomatillos and eggplants. The compost bin was worked and Mark raked up and shredded leaves for the brown bin. Blanca finished the winter kill on her plot which was rather empty once she and Laura took out one of the diseased broccoli plants. I trimmed more branches that are only sapping away energy from the plants that are still trying to give fruit, both in our own and in other plots.

I found a recipe for fermenting nasturtium seedpods. It is a slow process, the first step is to leave them in a brine for 10 days. If this will result in tasty "capers", we should harvest more. There are still plenty of flowers in our garden! In fact we were commenting that the garden never looked as pretty still at this time of year. Go gardeners!

-Els

 

Bug update: According to Laura's sources this is a ladybug larva, which is an insect eater and not eating the leaves. Does anybody have any thoughts?

This bug was found on one of the eaten leaves of our eggplants. Does anyone recognize it and if we can just ignore it at this late stage or need to take action?

Spiritual Activism: Meeting the Network of Spiritual Progressives

On Sunday, October 1st, the NYC chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) visited South Church. The NSP is an interfaith group with the overarching goal of pushing for a New Bottom Line that serves core human needs of love, generosity, compassion, etc to replace the current bottom line of maximizing profit and power. Check out the website for details on their vision, strategy, inclusive concept of spirituality and more.

Members of the NYC-metro area chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives made this field trip to Dobbs Ferry to visit the Kitchen Garden, get to know the gardeners, other Roots & Wings participants, and the church community to talk about the Network's ideas, community and individual needs and desires, and to explore shared visions and ways we might work together. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Gabriela, who's been part of the chapter since 2015.

September 2nd & 9th at the Garden

First, a quick reminder that our potluck is coming up soon, on Sunday, September 17th at 4:30 PM at the Kitchen Garden. We hope you can make it! Please send any questions to Gabriela.

On September 2nd we had smaller than usual group: Mark, Linda H., Linda M., Susan and Els. Mark was at his best, as always, tidying up. He removed practically all the lambs quarter that was growing under the table  in preparation for the pot luck dinner. There was a great crop of eggplants and cucumbers for the food pantry. It was harvest time in the individual plots too, plus cutting back tomatillo and tomato plants. Susan tested the dripping system and all tubes seem to be working. She did change the settings so that there is more water per session. Last but not least, the lettuce seedlings Susan had left in the garden before her vacations were big enough to be planted out. We hope to still get a fall crop of them.

- Els.

On September 9th, we had a nice crowd at the garden: Marcelo and his cousin Marisa, who's visiting from Argentina, Blanca, Solange, Iris, Els, Mark, Susan, Ben, and Gabriela. We did the usual harvesting and tending, weeding as well as a bit of cover crop planting. Gabriela brought a hoe--a tool Doug DeCandia had recommended to prepare planting areas--and Mark brought cover crop seed mixes and a flat spade to help cut plant residues and other compostable materials for faster decomposition. We were lucky to have Solange, who made two trips home to affix the handle to the hoe and then later to sharpen the spade edge--thank you Solange and Ernesto (Solange's husband)!! 

Our first ever potato harvest!

Iris gives her plot a bit of extra moisture

Marisa and Marcelo evaluate the eggplants

Susan carefully thins her plants

Mark puts to use the new flat spade

Solange and Blanca confer on the health of these tomato plants

Els saws cover crop seeds.

 

Ben is trying to tame his tomatillos

Gabriela harvests some calendula flowers.

- Gabriela.

Kitchen Garden Update + Potluck

Please mark your calendars for the annual Kitchen Garden potluck! It will be on Sunday, September 17th from 4:30 to 7:30 PM and everyone is invited! We will also be offering a compost mini-training by Elisa Zazzera that same day. Keep an eye on your email for a reminder closer to the date.

It's been a busy summer, and with many of us in and out of town and catching up with various activities, we haven't been able to communicate as regularly as usual. Instead of trying to recap everything that's been going on, here is a selection of snapshots from the past few weeks. Enjoy and we hope to see you at the potluck!

The garden has been lush this summer!

Linda proudly displays one of her record breaking tomatos!

Here we are tasting one of the huge tomatoes--it was delicious!

Iris was exultant over her first carrots!

Thanks to Solange's husband we now have access to the tool shed once again! Yay!

Ben spent a good part of this day cutting back the overgrown weeds

Blanca ready for another gardening day!

Discussing the tomato harvest

       

The herbs are doing well.

And we're getting lots of cucumbers.

We've done a few seed experiments. These are cilantro seeds, also known as coriander. To be used as seed for next year of as spice.

A sample of the Food Pantry harvest.

- Gabriela.