Fall Accomplishments

The garden committee got a lot of work done today! 

Greenwood Cemetery was our first stop and we got lots of mulch.

Once we were back we planted daffodil, tulip, and iris bulbs in the tree pits on Avenue H.

Thanks to Stephen, Sonia and Claudia for the work and to Nora who supported the workers with cookies and gave a generous donation to the garden.

Plant bulbs with us

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 19 
Meet us in the backyard at 11:30
Plant bulbs with us! We'll be rewarded by their dashing colors in the Spring.
Please let us know if you are coming

Garden Clean-up! November 12

The season for hanging out in the garden is over. Let's put furniture away and do some cleaning up.

Sunday November 12 at 11am in the backyard. 

Bring gloves 

The East 17th Northern Red Oak

By Joel Berson 


On September 14, 2017, a mighty Northern red oak that has overlooked Fiske Terrace since it was originally laid out was removed from the mall in front of 840 East 17th street. This massive tree rose over 80 feet, higher than the adjacent six-story apartment house. It was an impressive 154 inches in circumference. Imagine an observation post at its very top. From such an aerie one could observe over 100 years of evolution and development in Fiske Terrace, houses being built and renovated, the coming of the subway system, and the street life below. At first, horse-drawn carriages and wagons intermingled with a few horseless carriages on our streets. That tree witnessed the blossoming of FT as well as grand old houses torn down and replaced with more modern structures, even a few apartment houses. The comings and goings along our homey Avenue H commercial strip were at its feet, as well as traffic to and from our beloved Avenue H subway station. (Some of us recall being warmed by its pot belly stove. All of us love that the station has been restored to its current glamorous condition.)

Successful garden fundraiser

THANK YOU To all who donated

objects, money, time, and energy to make our garden fundraiser a success.





We raised $271!

Garden fundraising sale this Sunday

SUNDAY 9/24  10 AM - 2PM

Help us keep our garden beautiful.

Join us by:

• Selling your unneeded stuff & donating 20% of the proceeds to the garden
• Donating your unneeded stuff and someone else will sell it. 100% of the proceeds will go to the garden
• Lending us a folding table
• Sorting and pricing donated goods
• Manning a table
• Help set up and take down tables and goods for sale

Are you in? Want to drop your stuff? 
Leave a comment here or write to 1710garden@gmail.com

Thank you

Bring on your kitchen scraps

THE BLACK TUMBLER IS BACK IN BUSINESS

for kitchen scraps. Please chop them somewhat: it'll make the breaking down process easier.

We need volunteers to tumble it. 5 minutes once a week. Make sure lid is closed. Write your name in the comment box.

DO COMPOST

DON'T COMPOST

All your vegetable and fruit wastes, (including rinds and cores) even if they are moldy and ugly Old bread, donuts, cookies, crackers, pizza crust, noodles: anything made out of flour! Grains (cooked or uncooked): rice, barley, you name it Coffee grounds, tea bags, filters Fruit or vegetable pulp from juicing Old spices Outdated boxed foods from the pantry Egg shells (crush well) Corn cobs and husks (cobs breakdown very slowly)

Meat or meat waste, such as bones, fat, gristle, skin, etc. Fish or fish waste Dairy products, such as cheese, butter, cottage cheese, yogurt, cream cheese, sour cream, etc. Grease and oils of any kind Why can't you compost these food wastes? They unbalance the otherwise nutrient-rich structure of other food and vegetation waste and breakdown slowly They attract rodents and other scavenging animals Meat attracts maggots Your compost bin will smell to holy hell and back!

                                          Thanks

Our new compost

Thank you to all that participated making our last batch of compost. 
A group of brave gardeners sieved it today fueling on delicious cookies offered by Sonia.

It's now ready to make our garden look more beautiful by feeding our beds, plants, new hell-strip projects and potted plants...
 

GARDEN FUNDRAISER SALE

SUNDAY 9/24  10 AM - 2PM

Help us keep our garden beautiful.

Join us by:

• Selling your unneeded stuff & donating 20% of the proceeds to the garden
• Donating your unneeded stuff and someone else will sell it. 100% of the proceeds will go to the garden
• Lending us a folding table
• Sorting and pricing donated goods
• Manning a table
• Help set up and take down tables and goods for sale

Are you in? Want to drop your stuff? 
Leave a comment here or write to 1710garden@gmail.com

Thank you

NEW DATE Compost Sieving Fest!

Sunday September 17 the compost in the big black tumbler will be sieved. This will allow us to have natural fertilizer for our front and back yard and some for our home plants.
In the back yard at 9:30/10:00am. 
If work is not an option, coffee and cookies are appreciated 😊!

Ripe compost sieving next week

The black compost tumbler is almost ripe

to sieve: we'll use a large sieve to separate the breakable parts from the unripe material. The unripe material will go back to the tumbler to start our next batch.  

We are using the compost we make to fertilize our garden. It is available for your own potted plants, if you need some.  
 
Anybody willing to join in the sieving project, possibly Fri 15, Sat 16, Sun 17? It'll take about an hour with two people and... it's a good upper body workout :) - Let me know. 


Thanks for helping make our garden beautiful!

Claudia

Compost is closed

BOTH COMPOST BINS ARE CLOSED.

That means nothing can be added to them (fresh kitchen scraps or paper).

Thanks for your cooperation.

Good bye to our tree

2017 Mosquito Truck Spraying & Aerial Larviciding Schedule

Date(s)***	Borough, Neighborhood(s), Zip Code(s)	Status
August 15 between 9PM & 6AM	Brooklyn Neighborhoods: Part of Brownsville, City Line, Crown Heights, Ditmas Park, East New York, Farragut, Greenwood Heights, Kensington, New Lots, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Prospect Park South, Remsen Village, Rugby, Spring Creek, Starrett City, Weeksville, Windsor Terrace, and Wingate Zip codes: Parts of 11203, 11207, 11208, 11212, 11215, 11217, 11218, 11219, 11220, 11225, 11226, 11232, 11234, 11236, 11238, 11239

Top 10 Things You Can Do to Attract Hummingbirds

(All birds eat mosquitoes...) 

10. Add a new native plant species to your garden. You just can’t have too many good hummingbird plants in your garden or yard. Take an inventory of your existing offerings and consult a source of hummingbird plant information for ideas on what to add next. Good sources include plant charts in Enjoying Hummingbirds More, and Creating Your Backyard Bird Garden.

9. Plan a continuous blooming schedule. When you’re leafing through your garden catalogs or wandering the greenhouses of your favorite garden center planning your hummingbird garden, choose plant species that have different blooming periods. For example, choose a ready-to-bloom hanging basket of fuschia for early flowers, a fast-growing Salvia species for midsummer flowers, and a late-blooming trumpet creeper that will be in flower in late summer and fall. Ask a local gardening expert for advice on blooming schedules and seasons for your area, soil type, and climate. Continuous blooming means hummingbirds will always have a reason to be in your yard, especially late in the season when flower production is down but hummingbird numbers are up, with all the recently fledged youngsters.

Please use green tumbler for fresh kitchen scraps

The green tumbler is now open to fresh kitchen scraps. Please chop large stems to speed up the composting process.

Also tumble it when possible. Thanks









NO kitchen scraps in the black tumbler. Thanks. Older kitchen scraps are ripening and need time to complete the process. It still needs frequent tumbling.

Now in our garden

Garden Sale Take 2

Missed our last garden sale? I bet!... there was none.
Planning another one.
Possible dates:  July 9  OR  July 16

We'll pick the date with 3 answers/commitments.

Looking forward to it!

Ride and Shovel Needed

The 1710 Garden Committee is offering a fun way to do upper body workout : 😊
we need a few bags of  free mulch        from the Greenwood Cemetery. Along with that it'd be great to have a couple of arms to help...
If you have a car and time (it'll take about an hour altogether) please let's coordinate about when.
On our way we might stop to get some fertilizer from Lowes on 2nd Avenue and 9th Street.
Thank you

No Garden Sale

Due to lack of interest there is no Garden Sale this coming Sunday.

Welcome our new arrivals

Shurnette and Stephen brought us two huge new planters that are going to be filled with flowers and put in front of our entrance on Ave H.





















Claudia got us a donation new tumbler from the Prospect Lefferts Garden Community Garden. With this we are going to be able to keep collecting kitchen scraps while the big tumbler is closed to let compost ripen.

RIDE needed to Prospect Lefferts Garden

The Maple Street Community Garden in PLG is donating to us a small compost tumbler. We can use it when the large one is full and the scraps need to mature in it.
We need to pick it up this Sunday 5/21 at 11am.
Can anybody go (with or without me)?
The Community Garden is located on 237 Maple St, Brooklyn, NY 11225

The name of the person is Zhenia.

Please let me know, so that I can confirm with her - thank you

Wisteria on Avenue H

New tumbler needs a ride home!

Great news for compost addicts! Somebody donated to us a smaller tumbler that can be put to work while the content in the big one is ripening.

It is a medium size tumbler that's up for grab on Maple Street Community Garden in PLG. Best day to pick up is Thursdays between 11am and 1pm. We need somebody to bring it home. A weekend pick up can be arranged. I can connect you with the garden person over there.

It's that time of the year...

Hi gardeners, landscapers, garden lovers, garden strollers, garden meditators, garden grillers, garden party goers...
Our beautiful garden needs money for: fertilizer, plants, flowers, some tools like hoses, sprinklers, timers, rakes, a new sun-umbrella etc. The labor is free (us)...💪


Usually, in order to raise money we hold a building sale where part of the moneys goes towards the garden; in the past years we did pretty well and we could buy the large glass table, the sun shade, fertilizer, rakes, wheel barrow etc and we had a great party...

Now, our garden bank is almost empty. We need people who commit to be part of organizing and running the garden sale.

No people, no sale...no sale, no money

For more details please read 4/30 post. Thanks

Garden sale time...

Hi,

It's time for another Garden Sale !!
Our beautiful garden needs money for: fertilizer, plants, flowers, some tools like hoses, sprinklers, timers, rakes, a new compost tumbler, a new sun-umbrella etc. The labor is free (us).

Here's how it works:
   - you come downstairs with anything you don't want in your home that is still in good enough shape for somebody else to use, a table, and sell it yourself and donate a 20% of your total to the garden fund

or
   - you donate your stuff to the garden sale and somebody else will take care of selling it.

For it to happen, we need:

people who commit to help with it, the more we are the less burden on everyone. This is what we usually do:

Before the sale

advertise: 

1. put out signs in and around the building
2. post on local online networks starting around three weeks in advance and repeating once a week  until the day of

The day of sale

1. sort & price donations
2. arrive early on sale day to set up tables - be prepared with small dollar bills and quarters
3. work the sale
4. pack up & clean up
5. pick up signs

Sundays are the best days for foot traffic. 
Possible dates: June 4, June 11, June 18.

Think about it and get back to us by the week of May 8th.

Thanks

Garden day success

We swept, raked, pulled bamboo shoots out, brought out tables, chairs, BBQ grills, put up the sun sail and...

Re: compost tumbling

Date 04-25-2017          Completed Janet   Leaving town 6AM tomorrow so have completed task today

You can edit this submission and view all your submissions easily.

 

Garden Day April 30

Sunday April 30 - at 10:00am

Let's get in the garden to
- clean it
- put our furniture out, including our sunshade
- spread compost around
- fertilize where needed
- plant and or transplant
- plan our next steps:
     - hellstrips, social events...


Bring gloves, wear hats and sunscreen...

See you all there!

Celebrate Earth Day by Composting

COMPOST BIN IS OPEN

NO MEAT, BONES, CHEESE OR CAT LITTER

PLEASE CHOP YOUR KITCHEN SCRAPS A BIT SO THEY DECOMPOSE MORE QUICKLY

Hell-Strips material available

Sam and Mike (thanks, Mike, for the use of your car) drove to Greenwood Cemetery to gather mulch and to Lowe's to buy fencing and some paving stones! Now we're all set.

Hell-strips are waiting for 1710 people to express their creativity!

Some people did this...

Bring your children or your inner child...

A personal mini garden?

Coming home after a day out is really sad for our eyes to fall on our dried up hell strips (the patches of dirt along the edge of the sidewalk).

Planning to 'green up' them and came up with this suggestion:
      
  - we fence portions of the strips, leaving passages for people who get out of their cars;
         -  the fenced areas will be given out to 'adoption' to whoever wants to grow their little green spot with whatever plants and decorations they want            

Would you be interested in playing with and being responsible for some personal garden? A great project for everybody!

If yes, for this to happen we need:

from Lowes or Home Depot - ride needed before the last weekend of April.
       - maybe more fertilizer (to decide- we have a lot of good compost, that might do the trick)
       - cheap fence and sticks

Also, for the garden in general we need
       - free mulch: we can get it at the Greenwood Cemetery. A ride is necessary.

Reply with comments. Thank you

Re: compost tumbling

Date 04-10-2017          Claudia

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Garden day April 30

Spring is obviously here! 

Let's get in the garden to
- clean it
- put our furniture out, including our sunshade
- spread compost around
- fertilize where needed
- plant and or transplant
- plan our next steps:
     - hellstrips, social events...

Sunday April 30 - at 10:00am
Bring gloves, wear hats and sunscreen...

See you all there!

Tumbling schedule

Claudia on Mondays 
Janet on Wednesdays 
Pauline on weekends

Re: compost tumbling

Date 04-02-2017          Completed Sam   still wet

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Compost still needs help - DO NOT ADD FRESH SCRAPS

Today we tumbled the compost and realized it is not totally ready yet: it seems it needs some browns (carbon). We sieved whatever could go through the sieve and put back the unripe part in the tumbler with some old dry leaves and some wet ones.

In order to have this batch ready in about three weeks, we need to tumble it about 3 times a week.
It only takes 5 minutes: you spin the tumbler 2/3 times in one direction and the same in the other direction making sure the lid is tightly closed and not holding on to it when tumbling.

C1 and A4 are already doing it.

Could anybody chip in some extra time? Please let me know so that we can make a calendar and have a nice flow.

In the meantime, please do not add any fresh scraps to the tumbler.
Thanks

Compost...

It seems that the winter has finally left us and we can take the mature compost out of the tumbler.
Anybody available to share some time this weekend? Possible days: Friday, Saturday afternoon and Sunday all day. 

COMPOST RESCHEDULED

Due to the very cold weather, we decided to reschedule the compost sieving to next week end. I'll keep you posted! Stay warm

In the garden Saturday March 4

Preparing for the garden season tomorrow!

Morning - around 10 am - cleaning and tidying up behind the driers to make tools and other garden tricks available to the shareholders who want to try their green thumb in the back or front yard.

Last year's compost

At 1:00pm we'll sieve the ripe compost, store it away and finally make the tumbler available for new kitchen scraps!

Come say hello! and remember...: your contribution can be simply a warm cup of tea or coffee to share with the others 😉

RIDE NEEDED

Hi passionate and lukewarm garden lovers!
We need some items for the new season. The following best quality/price ratio items won't be shipped to us:

True Temper 6-cu ft Steel Wheelbarrow (1); 

Sta-Green 30-lb Organic Garden Lime (1); 

Scotts 5,000-sq ft Green Max Lawn Fertilizer (3)

Who can pick them up?

The closest Lowe's is located at Kings Plaza (Flatbush and Ave U), about 6 miles from here. 

Store hours 6:00am - 10:00pm Mon-Sat; 8:00am - 9:00pm Sun.

For more details, please email 1710garden@gmail.com. 

Thank you

 

 

 

Time to enjoy our precious outdoor space

Hello Garden lovers, the unseasonably warm weather is an invitation to take care of our garden, so that we can enjoy with our family, friends and shareholders.
Here's a possible to-do list of upcoming projects:

SIEVE MATURE COMPOST - in a week/ten days. It takes about 1, 1/2 hour

OPEN TUMBLER TO NEW KITCHEN SCRAPS - the same day we empty the tumbler of the mature compost

MAKE A LASTING "OPEN" SIGN to put onto the compost bin and PRINT A FEW FLYERS to inform all the shareholders about the new compost status. We'll eventually need a new "CLOSED" sign as well. The "OPEN" flyers should be ready by the time our tumbler is 'accepting' fresh fuel.

SPREAD COMPOST IN BEDS – to fertilize them. It takes about 45 minutes

PLANT GRASS IN HELL STRIPS (the strips of grass along Avenue H and E18th street sidewalks. We need to turn over the dirt, spread compost, seed grass, make and install a small protective fence to prevent people from treading on the new seedlings. Water it). This project might take about three hours, plus the watering time; the more we are the less it'll take

FURNITURE AND SUN SHADE OUT About 1hour including the mounting of the sunshade

BRING TIMERS AND SPRINKLERS OUT AND SET THEM UP About an hour

BACKYARD CLEAN UP Sweeping leaves, etc, tidying, planning, BBQ out. Depending on how many people it can take around 2 hours

ORGANIZE A CAR TO GET FREE MULCH Usually from Greenwood Cemetery. An hour

PLAN OUR NEXT GARDEN SALE 

PLAN A GARDEN PARTY 

I am going to order a few items we need to make our gardening experience easier! Looking forward to seeing you all downstairs. 

Winter garden poem

Winter garden

by Matsuo Basho

 

Winter garden,
the moon thinned to a thread,
insects singing.
Translated by Robert Hass