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Central Bainbridge St. Community Garden
Garden Reminders
Mulch Right
Organic mulch feeds the soil, holds down weeds, moderates soil temperature, conserves soil moisture, and looks nice, too. Extend mulch beyond the root ball of newly planted trees and shrubs. Never mound mulch against the stem or trunk. Keep mulch about three inches deep. Fluff it up by raking occasionally, and replenish as needed.
Plant Tomatoes
Tomatoes can be planted after all danger of frost and once the soil has had time to warm up. Set transplants deeper than they grew in the pots because they can sprout roots from the stems. Water generously with a transplant solution of compost tea or diluted water-soluble fertilizer. If you plan to use stakes, pound them in now to avoid hitting roots later.
Stop Cutworms
Were your tomato/pepper/melon transplants mysteriously broken off at the soil line overnight? That's cutworms. To thwart them, wrap a newspaper collar around the stem, extending about an inch above and below the soil line. Or insert a piece of dowel rod, large nail, or popsicle stick vertically into the soil right next to the stem.
Replace Early Annuals
Many early-season annuals, such as pansies and primroses, will flag and fade as soon as the weather heats up. Plan ahead and purchase heat-loving annuals to replace them while the selection is good. Some to consider: lantana, nicotiana, geraniums, cannas, dahlias, angelonia, thunbergia, begonias, and the new varieties of sun-loving coleus.
Include Ornamental Vegetables
Some vegetable plants are attractive enough to be grown in the mixed border or flower bed or in a container on the deck. For example, tomato and pepper plants and fruits are good looking, trellised cucumber or squash vines can be ornamental, and colorful varieties of Swiss chard can add an exotic tropical look.
The Harvest for Neighborhoods Campaign, launched a few summers ago in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, seeks to assist community gardeners in confronting food insecurity by helping them do what they do best -- find local solutions.
A Neighborhood Takes Action
The community gardeners of Bedford-Stuyvesant are incredibly diverse in terms of their backgrounds and life histories: they are retired grandparents and working moms; recent immigrants and New York natives; have Master's degrees and high school diplomas. There is, however, a common thread that binds them all together: the desire to effect positive change in their historic neighborhood, and to take a hands-on approach to improving their own lives and the lives of their neighbors.
Green Guerillas worked with the now defunct Bedford-Stuyvesant Garden Coalition to get ten community garden groups to participate in launching the Harvest for Neighborhoods campaign.
A number of gardens in Bed-Stuy, such as the New Harvest Community Garden on Vernon Avenue, have been affiliated with churches that run food pantries and soup kitchens for years. Harvest for Neighborhoods seeks to help them grow more food by teaching gardeners to extend their growing season and plant a second harvest, and by helping them learn about crop enhancing techniques such as composting and water conservation.
John the Baptist Community Garden on Stuyvesant Avenue, not far away from Central Bainbridge, is run by volunteers from a community center of the same name. This garden runs workshops like Garden Mosaics and composting in English and Spanis
Workshops held in gardens all over Bed-Stuy have brought gardeners together to share experiences, so that those seasoned in the art of growing food for their neighbors can impart their experience to those who are just starting out.
One achievement of the summer, however, has been the establishment of new relationships between community gardeners and emergency food providers - like the one that was formed when the gardeners at the Central Bainbridge Block Association Garden got together, pooled their resources, and made their first ever donation to a local church's food pantry. "The church members who took our donation were so happy they were hugging each other," Mary Jones said. "They said they would pray for the garden at the next service."
information came from BQLT, Bedford Stuyvesant Garden Coalition members, Central Bainbridge Community Garden members, Council of the Environment, John the Baptist, Inc., and DigIt archives at
http://www.greenguerillas.org/healthy.asp?id=106
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Update
By Mary Jones, CBCG garden president and BQLT Board member.
Central Bainbridge hosted a Soil Quality workshop led by the Olympus Garden Club the last week in September. Garden members learned how to test their soil's quality and found out what minerals were missing, present, and how to amend the soil.
The Olympus Garden Club will be returning to conduct two workshops including Companion Planting this April. The event is posted on our calendar.
The next garden membership meeting is Tuesday April 11. 2006 at 1:00 p.m. in the garden. We are planning our Grand Opening and our Garden Mosaics program. Garden Mosaics is a teaching science using the garden as classroom program that features intergenerational learning...kids learning from their elders. Science, critical thinking, interviewing, and writing skills are bound to improve from use. The research was done by Cornell University.
The meeting is closed to non-members.
Allium giganteum, giant onion
If you're interested in plants that draw attention to themselves, consider the allium. Allium giganteum, loosely translated is a giant onion. In the spring, it's large balls of purple flowers present a burst of color in the garden. The technical term for this round flower head is umbel. The foliage is forgettable while the large balls of purple flowers look like giant lollipops!
Allium giganteum planted in the fall, allow gardeners joy in the spring. Hardy in zones 4-8; the bulbs require well-drained soils and sunny locations in the border or garden.
Plant in groupings of three for best show. If you plant extra bulbs, they make interesting cut flowers in the home. If you allow the flowers to dry in the garden, they will add unusual interest and texture.
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WE ARE LOCATED at: 277-279 Bainbridge St. Brooklyn, NY 11233,
at the corner of: PATCHEN Ave. and BAINBRIDGE St.
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WARNING From National Gardening Association/
Are YOU Prepared for Accidental Poisonings?
By Barbara Martin - Mid-Atlantic
In 2001, poison centers received more than 90,000 calls regarding exposure to pesticides -- more than half of them involving children under age six. Please keep gardening chemicals in their original labeled containers and under lock and key, safely out of the reach of children and pets. And keep this number posted by your phone: 1-800-222-1222. Go put it there now. This Poison Control Center Web site has good information:
http://www.1-800-222-1222.info/
Educational Things in CBCG
Garden Mosaics Science Pages
Olympus Garden Club Workshops
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