Roosevelt Island Garden Community
  • Home
    • About RIGC
    • FAQs
  • How to Join
  • Garden Blog
  • Local News
    • Garden Photos
    • News Archive
  • Outdoors on R Island
  • Resources
    • Weeds & Invasives to Remove
    • Healthy Soil
    • General Gardening Tips
    • Go Green!

2019 Keep RIGC Clean: Please Take Care of Your Own Trash

3/27/2019

 
Picture
What about trash?  
Gardeners are responsible for their own trash. If it comes from you or your plot, you need to take it out with you.  If you have brought any picnic items, decorations,  tomato cages, pots or anything else to your garden that you would now like to clean up, please take this trash out of the gardens and home to your own building AVAC. 
​
If you want to take large items to the main AVAC site, but you don't know how,  please leave these items in your garden temporarily. Stack items neatly in your own plot and send an email.  We will try to work with you so that a Board member or another RIGC member volunteer can meet you and help you take them to AVAC.  For a trip to AVAC, please speak with Julia Ferguson or another Board member in the garden or send an email to rigardenclub@gmail.com.

Why this change? RIGC has a contract with RIOC for only a very small amount of trash removal only once a week from mid April through November. We would like to treat this service and the RIOC employees considerately and do not want to abuse this contract.  Also, Board members and other garden club volunteers have 
regularly had to take large loads of trash items to AVAC bins.  We must now take out whatever we bring in.  This habit will improve our gardens and make better use of our volunteer time. 

In general, gardening is about plants and soil: growing beautiful flowers, vegetables, herbs, and plants!  Thank you for remembering that RIGC plots are not "patios". RIGC plots are community gardens in a  public space shared with visitors and guests. We are entrusted and allowed the use of this space to run a community garden for growing plants. 


The pictures below show the kinds of items that have been left in the back common area or outside the gate in the past.  NO MORE ITEMS may be placed outside the back gates.  All these items were individual gardener's possessions and responsibility. When something grows old or no longer usable, gardeners must take out what they have brought in. 

Living and Gardening without Plastic

3/26/2019

 
Picture
Karen Lee "Instead of plastic..." March 24, 2019
Picture
There is no AWAY. This planet is our only home and our only source of life.
On March 24th, Karen Lee presented briefly before our Spring General Meeting.  Please take a look at her presentation and this accompanying website link.  Karen's presentation and the Plastic Pollution Coalition website both explain the critical importance of avoiding and reducing our current over use of plastic.  Karen outlined simple steps to change our practices surely and steadily. She also gave us free compostable bags and other treats to help us start creating new habits right away.

Spring General Meeting March 24th   7:00 - 8:00 p.m.

3/25/2019

 
RIGC's Spring General Meeting on March 24th was a great success. We had a strong attendance of 60 which is far over quorum.  Special surprises included Girl Scout cookie sales and a presentation with free give aways by Karen Lee on the importance of learning how to garden and live with far less plastic!  Special thanks to Joyce Short who led the sign up team of volunteers. 

Neal Weissman, President, created a power point that led us through all important announcements, officer and committee reports, and a summary of last year's survey results with humor and attention to detail.  Johan Marfey, Vice President, spoke about our waitlist and announced this year's community service dates.  Jack Burkhalter, Secretary, spoke about registration, rules and regulations updates to be completed, and announced plans to step down from the Secretary role. He called out for those interested to join the Board in 2020!  Geof Kerr, Treasurer explained how he works with the Board and keeps our financial records healthy and complete. As a result, the club is prepared both for expected and also for any unexpected needs..

See pictures and more news below with selections from the power point. And remember, standing committee sign ups for work with Compost, Landscape, Outreach, Rose Garden, and Standards are ongoing all year! Join us! 

Enjoy this short video of a local hawk at RIGC

3/3/2019

 
Calling all RI birders and lovers of nature! Roosevelt Island hosts monarch butterfly corridor sites and pollinator plantings from the northern lighthouse tip to southern parkland end. All of this means we have an eco-system where we can see  beautiful birds at spots across the Island. Birds are especially abundant at the Roosevelt Island Garden Club.  Let's work together to keep pesticides off our Island plants as we do at RIGC. Let's keep RI, our beautiful urban nature paradise, as a healthy home for all our living neighbors.

Cornell Tech "Coffee Break and Compost" with RIGC

3/3/2019

 
Picture
March 1st, 2019 

We have just "opened up" the garden season and compost piles together with Cornell Tech students between snow storms as we welcomed the month of March to RIGC 2019. We had "closed down" the garden together in late fall with Cornell Tech Gives Thanks on November 28th.

Cornell Tech Community Liaison Jane Swanson reached out again in February for more community service with RIGC. This time Samara Selden, Program Coordinator with Student Services and K-12 initiatives organized a group of graduate students, both masters and doctoral candidates, for a day outside volunteering together.  Anthony Longo with RIGC Compost and Green RI Neighbors was ready as was Julia Ferguson with RIGC Outreach.

It had snowed in the night, but this just made the garden more beautiful. Our local cooper's hawk stopped by in a tree just before the students arrived. We had all dressed warmly and greeted each other at 10:30 a.m. and by 12:00 noon, we had made connections, talked about compost, and sifted about 16-17 cubic feet or 125 gallons of compost.  These organic materials from RIGC had been "cooking" all during our mild winter and are now ready to be shared as soil amendment!  There was time left over for walking about, breathing in the queit, taking pictures, and drinking some warm coffee before heading back to work on a Friday afternoon.

We look forward to more time volunteering together outside for green spaces and gardens on Roosevelt Island.

    Categories

    All
    Accessibility
    Art
    Birds
    Children
    Composting
    Education
    Gardeners
    History
    Horticulture
    Infrastructure Upkeep
    Nature
    Outreach
    Poetry
    Pollinators
    Pond
    Roses
    Safety
    Service
    Social Events
    Standards
    Sustainability
    Visitor Appreciation

    Archives by date

    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014

    RSS Feed

Picture
Email for website submissions 
or comments: 
rigardencluboutreach@gmail.com

Email for general 
concerns:
rigardenclub@gmail.com
Write to us:
RIGC
PO Box 127
NY, NY 10044
Proudly powered by Weebly