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