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Save NYC Compost: In Earth & Compost We Trust

5/1/2020

Miss our NYC compost program? Don’t compost yet, but believe in the program’s great value? We have recently heard from BigReuse and Anna Sacks @the_trashwalker that our Food Scrap Drop Off program is on the budget chopping block.

Christina Delfico, one of our long time RIGC members writes:

Now is a great time to take action!

Please take a moment to send an email to the City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, he has the power to add the Food Scrap Drop Off program back into the budget that the Mayor has proposed cutting. You may also copy Ysabel Abreu, in the Manhattan Borough President's office.   Feel free to use the sample below to copy, cut, paste or even personalize a message to Corey Johnson. You may ask children to send in art, too!

Email:
SpeakerJohnson@council.nyc.gov
CC:
yabreu@manhattanbp.nyc.gov

Subject: Fund & Safely Reopen NYC’s Compost Drop-Off Sites

Dear Speaker Johnson,

An unprecedented pandemic can understandably demand full focus and make environmental advocacy for smart programs seem less relevant and pale in comparison when lives are being lost, so I write knowing this is the context of our times.

Respectfully, this is an urgent plea that you continue to recognize the city smart compost & Food Scrap Drop Off (FSDO) collection program, and make sure to add it in the city budget so that it is not cut.

Our community has come to understand and embrace the fact that food scraps are not trash and are a valuable asset when transformed into compost to amend our neighborhood soils. In addition to creating local jobs, reducing the use of fossil fuels to truck scraps to faraway landfills, the knowledge that food scraps, or organic waste, can release methane gas when in landfill which is more harmful to our air than carbon dioxide, makes this one of the smartest city programs in existence. Please advocate to keep this program.

With major budget cuts threatening DSNY’s curbside compost program, we’re asking for your leadership to ensure that our community drop-off sites can be maintained and expanded starting May 5, so there is no lag in public compost collection and we can keep diverting food scraps from landfill.

Thank you in advance for fighting to fund this essential service and offering New Yorkers an alternative to throwing our food scraps into the trash and exporting them to landfills.

Appreciate all you do to protect the air, land & water and keep New Yorkers healthy.

Respectfully,

For more news, please register here to tune in to the virtual #SaveOurCompost Town Hall next Tuesday 5/5 at 6pm to find out more.

To recap and provide the initial petition link: State Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright posted this announcement in one her 4/24/20 Special Update

Neighbors Fighting For Composting Service Restoration During Pandemic
Neighbors have reported to our office that many essential waste reduction initiatives are going by the wayside.  On the UES and on Roosevelt Island, residents have worked to rally neighbors to participate in the food scrap drop off and compost program. The program saves on trucking to landfill and avoids placing methane gas producing organics in the waste stream to the tune of over 300,000 pounds a day according to DSNY. They are asking for neighbors support on this petition: Sign here.

Food scraps and yard waste organics are not trash, they are natural resources! If these items are taken to landfill, they become global warming greenhouse gases. We know the wonderful value of composting first hand from our garden club experiences. Let's take our city and planet back to far better than normal after this crisis!

Earth Day 2020 marks 50 Years: Virtual Celebration on RI

4/27/2020

Roosevelt Island Celebrates Earth Day Online. #EarthLove 2020

RI celebrated Five for Fifty or 5 days for 50 years

This year’s second annual Roosevelt Island #EarthLove Day event had to be cancelled. However, from Wednesday, April 22nd through Sunday, April 26th, RIOC and partners iDig2Learn, the Roosevelt Island Garden Club (RIGC), Green Roosevelt Island Neighbors (GRIN), and more presented five days of interactive activities to show your #EarthLove for Roosevelt Island: Click here at RIOC's site to see the daily themes and activity ideas: Gratitude; Food; Trees,; Upcycling; and Birds,Bees, and Butterflies! You will also find a link to a beautiful tree alphabet font!

Instagram glimmered with pictures of our Island tagging many varied local folks and institutions. On the Friday evening at virtual talent talent show one family sang "Oh What a Wonderful World" and "It's a Small World After All" in honor of this event. Rebecca Seawright's office included us in her special update!

Stay tuned for more collaboration with RIOC for Roosevelt Island Day in June through their community office alongside iDig2Learn, GRIN, and more.

RIGC Board Members Meet Up Virtually

4/6/2020

Thanks to a garden member's generous sharing, the RIGC Board met and saw each other live as planned on April 5th. They will be able to meet again on Sunday, May 3rd.

Here they are pictured as the rest of the world all seems to be pictured these days: on a zoom platform in early April. RIGC volunteer Board members very much miss seeing you all. Please take care and stay safe!

Message from our RIGC President

3/25/2020

Dear RIGC Members and Associates,

As bad as things are during this outbreak, this may still be to some extent, the quiet before the storm and NYC is in the eye of the storm, but like all storms, this too shall pass. Meanwhile, we strongly encourage all members to stay home.

Watch the NYS Governor's daily updates on TV. Sign up for RIOC advisories. Visit gardens around the world on virtual tours. Write a blog post on your favorite plant or collect old photos of your own garden for our website and send these to me at rigcpresident@aol.com and to rigardencluboutreach@gmail.com.

Staying home is your best course of action to protect yourself and others. This virus will sicken persons of all ages. In addition, it also remains crucial to have an abundance of caution if you are older or have health issues. Based on our surveys, the biggest portion of our club are people over 70, and the second biggest group are over 60.

We all need to take care of one another by the warm embrace of keeping our distance from one another. Things are changing daily. The "elbow bump" was briefly very popular but is now passé, replaced by 6' of social distancing and lots of hand washing.

Since you are not in the gardens to take care of your plot, you might be worried what your garden will turn into without you; yes, there will be weeds, but so be it. Like everything else, the RIGC Standards Committee is also on hiatus at this time. (And actually our lives would be a lot better if our only worry was about getting an LOV. )

Take care of yourselves, be well, and I look forward to seeing everyone again when this is over.

- - - Neal

Neal Weissman, PRESIDENT
Roosevelt Island Garden Club
rigcpresident@aol.com

A Brave New Spring by Iliada Bass

3/20/2020

With all the escalating news and all the twist and turns around our jobs, kids’ schedules, our lifestyle and the entire economy, it’s easy to forget that, in our gardens, a whole entire new season is quietly brewing and slowly emerging, about to burst into a riot of colors, scents and indescribable beauty.

I am amazed and humbled every early March, a lot of times February, by the brave little crocus showing up in full color, delicate, and perfect in their tininess, pure and unapologetic, nor proud. Especially when they pop their beauty above snow, gorgeous and carefree against frost and frigid winds, there for whoever or no one to see them, it makes you wonder… are they aware how humbling that is for humans? Who of us is capable of standing up so fragile, vulnerable, so carefree and giving in the midst of winter and look so gorgeous in the process?

Or hellebore - grand dames of winter gardens - so poised and elegant. The rosemary has been standing there all along, green and fragrant - just in case you need it, and the sage, wilting a little, but still there, with so much to give. Other herbs start sprouting their leaves - oregano, parsley, and the chives are taller by the inch. As you pass, or lean to touch the fresh green, short whiffs of herbs mix with the smell of the earth and you just have to dig your hands in the soil - the full signal of spring.

A few days ago, the daffodils were coming up all green, with barely a tinge of yellow in the slim buds. What a shock to see so many in bloom today, already double height, their sway as legendary as once portrayed by poets - and little do they know or care about that… Last week, one hyacinth bud was barely out of the soil, it’s tight geometric perfection giving away a hint of pink. This evening, three of them standing tall, still opening and growing, fragile and unformed, still gathering their pink together. The irises are sending their swords up, the columbine’s delicate leaves have been silently confronting February, the strawberries are sending off their offsprings underground in all directions, lupines grow their clusters with decorum.

What a gift!
Never the smell of parsley and its baby sprigs were more enchanting. The garlic and oregano are throwing all their might in every tiny leaf, - each, a powerhouse of beneficial engines running high, pushing to grow. Add to this the general non-stop chirping, the tiny buds of growing colors on the trees and the clouds moving at speed only God knows where, and you completely forget of crisis, of all our human limitations and made-up solutions that only take us that far…

When every day, right in our face, we see and hear the lesson: life is more beautiful without all those agendas and our little ulterior motives; just live and be happy, enjoy what’s around us, forget repeating ourselves how we’re mastering nature and universe - we’re not, we never did, we are just part of it. And we should be grateful to learn from all our fellow living things in the garden how to be simple, and ourselves, and simply give the best we can, ideally - unconditionally.

What does social or physical distancing mean in a garden?

3/14/2020

Go to the CDC page : PREVENTION OF CORONA VIRUS DISEASE 2019

Anyone of any age with an underlying health condition or those who have been exposed to known cases of COVID-19 virus or those who are exhibiting any symptoms of sickness like fever or dry cough should always stay inside.

Individuals who do go outside for mental health and exercise should follow these crucial guidelines to stay safe in this serious time of global pandemic.

Stay 6 - 10 feet from others at all times.
Take a different pathway if it looks like you must cross near someone.
Use clean gardening gloves at each visit. Disinfect tools and items used before and after use - even when using gloves.
Keep the gates locked at all times. Avoid any direct contact with the gates and wash hands before and after all visits.
Take any trash out on your own to AVAC. Do NOT leave any items in any common trash cans for others to dispose of.
Never congregate in groups. Limit time spent in your garden out of courtesy to others.

update 3/22 re: organic materials from the garden

The branch pile and new materials area of the communal compost system are closed and at capacity.
Leave any clippings of any kind neatly in your own garden.

2020 Arrives for Roosevelt Island Garden Club

1/26/2020

Your 2020 RIGC Executive Board met for their first meeting on Tuesday, January 21st with a full quorum and two new members. Our 2020 Secretary ,Robert Ostergaard, has created a great new online registration packet for everyone!

Find your email and start by reviewing the RIGC Rules & Regulations and the RIGC By-Laws. Then click on the registration button and simply fill in all the blanks. Your final registration step is to write a check, place it in an envelope with a stamp, and mail it to: Roosevelt Island Garden Club Attn: Treasurer . P.O. BOX 127 . New York, NY 10044

All registration materials are due by February 29th! As you write your registration check, consider adding a tax-free donation. Your donation will go toward projects such as border replacement, improving disabled gardeners’ access to plots, landscape enhancements, and managing unexpected needs.

Meanwhile in the garden, mild temperatures made for beautiful weather in late January and there is no better way to celebrate a new year than by sifting new compost. The communal compost piles have been heating up well all during this winter season and some compost is now ready to be sifted. Anthony, Jenna, Aiesha, Akylbai, Julia, and Jérôme were all out recently sifting and chatting.

Welcome to the new 2020 RIGC year! Stop by the composting area this spring to speak with Anthony Longo or another compost committee member and find out more! "At RIGC, what comes from the ground, returns to the ground." Doesn't our logo say something about that idea, too? "In Earth We Trust!"

2020 Mulchfest Extravaganza with RIGC

1/4/2020

Have you ever wondered what really happens to the holiday trees you ask the maintenance to take out of your apartment? Well, New York city has a program called Mulchfest and you can take your tree to a chipping day or a drop off site across the boroughs in early to mid-January. In Manhattan the city picks up the trees left on the street on certain days. These trees are chipped and used for mulch to feed city tree beds and also parks and also to create NYC Compost.

This year RIGC member Anthony Longo continued a longstanding practice of picking up all the Roosevelt Island tree sale trimmings and composting them in our garden bins. This has been happening for at least 5 years. In addition, Julia Ferguson and Jerome Dutilloy took this RIGC dream a step further and picked up 27 trees from neighbors and building staff around the Island. On Saturday, January 4th, they transported these organic resources to the Astoria Park Mulchfest Chipping Site and saw them all mulched for NYC parks! Trees in landfills turn to greenhouse gasses, but chipped trees are returned to feed the soil and close the natural loop making for almost zero waste in a natural cycle created by the earth!

RIGC members are actively working to connect with RIOC and plan for 2021. Maybe we can get a drop off site or a chipping day on the Island for more convenience.

Honoring Geof Kerr for his Service as RIGC Treasurer

12/19/2019

On December 19th, several RIGC members were able to present Geof Kerr with a beautiful framed painting of the gardens by RIGC member artist Peggy Roalf. Geof has been our well-beloved and amazing treasurer for the past 5 years. Geof helped us to get our 501c3 status and worked to arrange for a mini-audit or compilation of our books a few years ago. Geof quietly and professionally handled our taxes and insurance annually. By guiding and advising the Board, he has carefully built up a very steady practice of RIGC book keeping, budgeting, and reserve building for this group to become the healthy volunteer non-profit organization that it is today.

This year Geof Kerr decided to retire from the RIGC Treasurer position and also to give up his plot and become a Legacy Gardener Associate. The Board wanted to present him with a gift as a symbol of our appreciation and was able to find this December date for the small gathering at Island House. Geof will be sorely missed, but we look forward to seeing him on his bike and in the gardens!

2019: A Long Season of Free Garden Classes at RIGC (4th-8th Graders)

11/17/2019

Thanks to Laura, a new RIGC Associate, we were able to offer free gardening experiences for 4th to 8th graders almost every Sunday afternoon from June through mid-November. The older elementary and middle school students live on Roosevelt Island and have parents on the RIGC waitlist. They are interested in being outdoors and learning by doing. We started with 4-6 students regularly until it became colder and numbers changed. Pretty much rain or shine, we listened and watched for eco-systems in the garden, made scavenger hunts, planted seeds, observed the changing seasons, harvested vegetables, raked, dug, watered, swept, sifted compost and created games. In the end we built a raised bed for the 2020 season. Watch for class announcements and sign up in the new gardening season!

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