New transplants are in!

Hi all,

We successfully delivered transplants from the New Jersey greenhouse, including sweet and hot peppers, eggplants, herbs, and tomatoes. After a few days in the ground, these plants are getting used to their new homes and appear to be enjoying their first few days in the outdoors. Some of the tomato and pepper plants are already starting to fruit (pictures to follow...)! Yesterday was a lot of tomato plant-pruning, a task that feels a little bit like plant murder if you're not used to it, but it'll help the tall, gangly plants stay strong and fruitful. A few new gardeners sowed seeds directly into the soil, and we're all excited to see them come up.

We're certainly starting to develop a more regular routine in the garden each workday, a large part of which is setting up the long garden hose to water the plants. Our workdays lately have been well attended, which makes chores like this one much easier! With the holiday weekend coming up, we're looking for someone to water the new transplants- anyone interested?

Hope to see you Friday at 4:30!

Margaret

Some pictures from our third week...

Plants are in the ground!

Hi, all!

Today was a big, big day for the garden. We held our normal Friday workday hours from 4:30-7:30, and had a great turnout. Nearly fifteen community members and prospective gardeners came out on this drizzly afternoon to prepare more of the beds for planting! We resolved our soil shortage problem with a mixture of compost and mulch in each bed. Two of the plots are now home to several tomato seedlings, and many more seedlings are on their way from New Jersey this Monday. It was certainly an encouraging workday, we hope to keep the momentum going and the spirits high!

Tomorrow is our first Saturday morning workday, and will take place from 8:30-10:30. Hope to see you there!

Soil, Compost, and Mulch. Oh, my!

We received three very important deliveries yesterday. Merry and her sister Robyn traveled to Queens early yesterday morning to pick up our soil donation from Green Thumb at their garden compound. We stuck around the garden in the early afternoon to receive a HEFTY batch of mulch, courtesy of a local landscaping company, and then drove to the Fresh Kills Compost Site to pick up a truckload of rich, organic compost. A mixture of these three materials will fill each of our raised beds to create a thriving environment for our plants. Once the beds are filled, we'll begin to transport and transplant our seedlings from New Jersey, and begin to seed even more veggies and herbs directly into the soil.

Our two remaining workdays this week, tonight at 4:30 and Friday at 4:30, will require much help. Please stop by if you are free! We promise a fun, messy time.

Two Weeks In...

The end of another busy, productive week. We now have all our beds built and ready to be filled with compost, soil and plants. I love looking at the property every morning and seeing how much it has changed since day one. A friendly neighbor shared some photos of the how the property looked two years ago. What a change! It used to be used as a dump for unwanted VCRs, glass bottles and other household items. We even uncovered some digging around this week. I'm glad that this project is allowing the whole community to take action in beautifying a shared space.

I've grown attached to the property myself and can't seem to go a day without at lease walking through the garden and pulling up a few weeds. With father's day tomorrow Margaret and I are back in New Jersey. I'm having a bit of separation anxiety from not being able to check up on the garden. I'm looking forward to getting our seedlings in the ground by Wednesday next week (fingering crossed!)

Picture 1: Our first shipment of lumber!

Picture 2: The property in 2009

Busy Day at Roots of Peace

Hello All! Another busy day in the garden. We started the day in the garden with two big shipments of lumber and supplies. It was a great feeling to see all our price bargaining pay off in the form of wood, a shed, landscaping fabric and nails. After the shipments were unloaded and the shed quickly assembled community members arrived for our first workshop of the season. The workshop was about gardening in the three seasons of New York and provided us with some new knowledge and new connections in the community. Both important things. Later in the evening we returned to the garden to assemble some raised beds with the help of two of Margaret's close friends from Bates College. By the end of the night we had all the cuts made and seven beds assembled. Thirteen to go!

Mulch and Lumber- Hooray!

Happy Monday, garden followers!

Following the success of the ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday, Merry and I arrived at the garden this morning with a new sense of energy and pride. Today, we finished weeding the major pathways between the raised bed spaces, although we know that weeding is a job that will never be finished. We began mulching, which is a process we are both very excited to continue. It's amazing how much the space has evolved in the past 10 days, and how much more positive change is to come. We're receiving a shipment of lumber on Wednesday from Green Thumb that will be used to build raised beds, and so we are happily assembling a team of volunteers who are interested in some fun construction. Once the beds are constructed and the soil and compost delivered, the seedlings can finally emerge from their greenhouse home and into the ground in which they belong!

Until then,
Margaret

Ribbon Cutting

Today we celebrated the opening of the garden with a very successful ribbon cutting. The morning started with heavy rain, but cleared just in time for the ceremony. We had a great turnout that included community members, elected officials, clergy, family and friends. It was great to look around and see so many people who are invested in the project. The ceremony marked an exciting beginning but also made me reflect on the past months leading up to the big event. I've gotten the chance to meet so many amazing and passionate people. I am very lucky and am looking forward to what the future holds for the Roots of Peace Community Garden.

More exciting news....Wednesday June 15th, we will have our first guest lecture hosted by Just Food on gardening for the three seasons in NYC. The free event kicks off at 11:00am. Refreshments will be served. New York 1 will be covering the event so it would be great to get a good turnout!

-Merry

Days 2 + 3

The past two days have been just as busy as the first! We're getting to know and love our garden space through weeding, raking, and other prep work. Yesterday, we started to plan for a recycled rain water collection system that will be placed in the garden to allow a close, renewable source of clean water to give to thirsty plants. We're also looking into building a compost bin to make good use of our extra weeds, sticks, table scraps, and garden leftovers, to provide an all-natural fertilizer for the garden.
It looks like our first flowers will be transplanted from our greenhouse in New Jersey to the garden on Friday, just in time for the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on Saturday. In the mean time, we're hoping to begin building raised beds next week, so let's hope this heat wave cools down a bit!

Hope to see you on Saturday,
Margaret

Day 1

First day in the garden.

Margaret and I got an earlier start this morning in the garden. After admiring our newly painted fence we cleared some debris, measured for raised beds and got to work on weeding. I never thought weeding could be so satisfying, but its nice to see your efforts have an immediate and visible effect. Definitely more weeding to go though!

I hope that we can acquire a few more volunteers as the week goes on and the ribbon cutting ceremony gets closer. The more the merrier!

-Merry

Opening Day!

Hello All!

The Roots of Peace Community Garden is opening for construction this Monday, June 6th! We will be open from 9:00 am- 1:00 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays then from 4:00pm-7:30 pm on Fridays. If you have a group that would like to help out in the garden at another time please contact Meredith Byrne at mbyrne1@conncoll.edu. We are more than happy to accommodated your requests.

A special thanks to the great volunteers from Morgan Stanley that came into the garden this past Saturday, June 4th. Our fence is now graffiti free thanks to their hard work.

This week will be filled mostly with prep work including weeding, general layout, unloading supplies and getting ready for our upcoming ribbon ceremony.

The ribbon cutting will be taking place Saturday, June 11th at noon. I hope that you can all make it and celebrate the beginning of a productive season.