Warren St. Mark's Community Garden

Garden Days and Bylaws posted

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2008-04-21T18:04:37-04:00

You can access the garden bylaws as well as the dates of 2008 Garden Days in the Our Garden section in the upper right corner of the page.

The easy way to keep track of this site

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2008-04-07T22:15:21-04:00

Want to know when we've put up new material without having to stop by here every day? Consider subscribing in an RSS news aggregator. If you're not using one already, and tech-y acronyms like "RSS" feel a little overwhelming, this RSS Explained page will give you the lowdown on these handy utilities in plain English -- insofar as that's possible. It also includes links to popular aggregators in case you decide to start using one.

You can subscribe to this site by clicking the 'Subscribe to this blog's feed' link in the column at right, near the copyright notice. You'll need to sign up for an aggregator first, though.

Hot Chips

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2008-04-07T21:59:21-04:00

Our first woodchip delivery of the year arrived on Monday, courtesy of the Prospect Tree company. Now it's in a big heap on the Warren Street side, waiting for garden members to cover our paths with the stuff.

The chips break down over the winter, turning into rich, dark compost which can be added to vegetable and flower plots. And every spring, the cycle starts again, with gardeners loading up wheelbarrows to distribute the chips across paths from one end of the property to the other.

See that steam coming off the woodchips? That's from the heat generated when you pile up a whole bunch of finely-chopped vegetation and let it sit for a while. Think of it as a sign of heavy-duty composting in action.

If you'd like to help distribute the woodchips, please contact Chris for instructions. As you'll see by clicking on the thumbnail at left, there's a lot to go around.

First Garden Day of 2008

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2008-04-07T21:31:08-04:00

Amy showing new members around

About forty people turned out for this season's first Garden Day on Sunday, April 6th. Chris, the Garden Coordinator, wrote these comments afterwards:

"At this time of year the garden offers few hints of its potential; just scattered daubs of color from the crocuses, hyacinths, narcissi and daffodils that we planted last fall. But these weeks offer a great opportunity to see the bones of the garden and to look at the clean slate on which we'll start planning the changes that will take effect in 2008.

"Our first garden day was a huge success. We signed up loads of enthusiastic new members, got a great start on tackling the early-sprouting weeds and organized the composter to begin receiving regular deliveries from the Park Slope Food Co-op."

If you're on the WSMCG listserve, you can also check out a Garden Day message sent on Monday by Mical, who's serving as an ad-hoc officer.

(Click thumbnails to enlarge)

BBG's course list is out now

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2008-03-31T17:09:02-04:00

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is just out with its listing of this year's spring and summer adult education courses, including instruction in city gardening, composting and horticulture.

You can take classes to certify as a citizen pruner, qualified to care for the city's street trees, and even sign on for the BBG's well-regarded certificate program in horticulture.

Photo: Lotus in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Japanese garden, 2004

Now on display in our garden...

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2008-03-27T12:57:47-04:00

...proof that spring has arrived. Check out our photo gallery-ette titled "Early Spring Flowers 2008" here, or in our albums section in the right-hand column.

Sign of spring

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2008-03-22T15:47:26-04:00

Spotted on a bike trip home from Fairway: the Gowanus Nursery in Red Hook -- popular with a number of WSMCG gardeners -- is open for the season.

Mark your calendar: first Garden Day is April 6th

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2008-03-19T16:29:05-04:00

Our first Garden Day of 2008 is just weeks away, on Sunday, April 6th. We'll start with a meeting at 10am, then get down to gardening at 11am. New members can sign up at the meeting, and members who want individual plots for the year can request them.

We'll learn about plans for the garden's layout, get caught up with old friends (and make some new ones), and work together as we whip the garden into shape for the growing season. Don't miss out on this chance to get your neighborhood garden off to a great start for the year.

New composter is ready to roll

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2008-03-19T15:25:57-04:00

Mical stands poised to feed our new Food Coop composter

Starting this year, the garden will be operating as a compost source for the Park Slope Food Coop. We'll gather and break down uncooked fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and other materials in a new composter donated by the Coop for just this purpose. At the same time, we'll carry on with our existing composting system for our own plots.

The new composter (current nickname: Roland Turner) arrived back in January inside a couple of large, flat boxes. Tim handled most of the assembly, and a team of gardeners helped lift it onto its legs and make some adjustments to the door and vents.

Garden members who also happen to be Coop members will be sorting and transporting Roland's contents to fulfill their PSFC workslot requirements. We've started out with four Coop composting slots, but some new ones may open up in the future.

And Roland's already cooking; a check of the compost the other day showed it steaming away in the chilly March air. That heat is a sign that the scraps are breaking down exactly as they should.

Please note: Only certain kinds of food and materials are suitable for composting. Adding the wrong thing to the mix can render an entire batch useless. If you're unfamiliar with composting, check with a supervisor at one of the upcoming Garden Days for the details on what's acceptible to put in, and watch this space. We hope to have a list of compost-friendly items online shortly.

Weedspotting

Warren-St. Mark's Community Garden — 2007-09-09T14:17:32-04:00

Back in mid-August, master gardener Mary G. of the Brooklyn Bears Community Gardens (that's her holding the book) led a weed identification tour at Warren-St. Mark's. About a dozen people from our garden and others turned up to learn how to spot a weed -- and what to do with it when you've identified it.

A weed is any plant that you don't want in your garden, but many of the growing things that we commonly dismiss as mere weeds can serve as food, medicine or both. Mary gave us a good survey of some of the garden's more common unintended plants, and provided background about their uses and invasiveness.

We're using pictures taken during the tour as the basis for a weed identification photo gallery in the column at right. It's a work in progress, and we plan to add to it as time goes on.