Vegetables and Visitors

A busy week with many guest!

With Margaret off on vacation the garden was short a hand this week. Lucky for me, I had some great friends come and help out. Three of my friends from Connecticut College will be making an appearance in the garden and offer some of their gardening expertise to the project.

We also began to the process of handing the garden over to the community this week. On Monday night I met with a few, committed garden members to discuss the future of The Roots of Peace Garden. There enthusiasm assured me that the Roots of Peace Garden will live on after I leave and continue to have a positive impact on the community.

This week also welcomed new eggplants, peppers and ripe tomatoes. We had two tomatoes and three peppers harvested on Monday!

If a garden could talk...

We have now been in business at the Roots of Peace Community Garden for over a month and a half. With all necessities in place (soil, plants and raised beds) we are starting to beautify the space. This past week we added some hydrangeas and holly along our back fence. A local landscaper even showed us how to use bamboo in the garden and how to keep it under control (I still have my reservations.)

With all have-to's aside its been nice to sit back and really get to know the community members better. I'm learning everyone's styles of work. Turns out you can really tell a lot about a person from their garden plot!

Some Pictures

New Yorker of the Week

Check out the NY1 segment that aired this weekend:

http://www.ny1.com/content/features/142514/nyer-of-the-week--student-brings-staten-island-community-garden-to-life?ap=1&MP4

The Big Picture..

After learning the ins and outs of the NYC subway system I made it to the launch of Change by Us NYC, a website that connects New Yorkers to share ideas and create projects that improve the city. The speakers were from grassroots organizations, that have put huge amounts of time, effort and passion into projects that have improved the lives and well-being of New Yorkers. After hearing some of the speakers talk about their well established projects and organizations, it made me realize how easy it is to loose sight of the big picture. What I mean is the overall objective, in our case improving the health and atmosphere of a community in Staten Island that has been to frequently overlooked. I find myself getting caught up in small details and daily trials and tribulations. Its important to pull back and see all we have accomplished in the month the Roots of Peace Garden has been opened. A month ago the space couldn't even be called a garden and now we have tomatoes, eggplants and peppers thanks to the support of the community.

Group meeting tonight 7:30 pm at the YMCA Counseling Services Center (285 Vanderbilt Ave. SI, New York 10304) Come for deserts, dialogue and garden news!

Don't be fooled...

Transplants are like magic. One day, there was barely anything growing in the garden, and the next, it's full of 18 inch peppers and tomatoes. Are we suddenly gardening masters who have figured out how to make mature plants grow overnight? No, those are indeed the transplants that we delivered last week from New Jersey. However! The most exciting thing (so far) this week is that the seeds that were sowed last week by the fleet of volunteer gardeners at one of the evening work days are now starting to appear! Upon our visit to the garden yesterday to do some much needed watering, we noticed tons of beans, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, and okra beginning to sprout out of the soil. So begins the lives of the first plants sowed directly at Roots of Peace! Excitement abounds.