Garden Club Events & News

P.S. I.S. 217 Pre-K and 1st Grade Classes Learn at RIGC

5/30/2019

A special shout out to members Anthony Longo, Kaz Buzno, Beverly Schutes, and Graciela Ramirez, and associate Zita Slonevsky who made these visits possible by hosting this year. A seven to eight year tradition of spring field trips from P.S. I.S. 217 continues. This began with 2nd graders studying with iDig2Learn (before we even had a website), and has now shifted now to Pre-K and 1st grade classes. These visits are definitely a source of joy and learning for all of us.

Watch the video below as students who visited last year explain composting to Anthony. Be on the lookout as well for these future gardeners when they visit with their parents on weekends. (I ran into two lovely young visitors with their mom this week as they returned to guide their parent through our pathways and exclaimed at wonders like spiderwebs on pink zinnias.) A very special thank you to P.S. I.S. 217 teachers for reaching out so we can welcome all these learners.

Garden Learning Day and Zero Waste Picnic at RIGC

5/18/2019

Gardeners of all ages shared their learning and passions with each other on this sunny Saturday in May. It was a wonderful day of connections and good weather after lots of spring showers.

The twenty minute workshops offered included: Gardening for Birds and Bees, Composting, Growing Varied Herbs, Composting, Landscaping ideas, Elements of Garden Design, Gardening with Native Plants, Growing Vegetables 101, Edibles: Eat the Weeds, Composting in your Own Plot, Frugal Environmental Gardening.

#EarthLoveDay at Roosevelt Island Green Market

4/28/2019

What can we do? We can slow down and listen to the youth, relearn ways to love our Earth, bring our own bags, compost our food scraps weekly, share a plant with a neighbor, add some compost to the soil, use plants for natural dyes, share a smile and a sandwich with someone we just met, and enlarge our circles of kindness.

Roosevelt Island has a wealth of social infrastructure (libraries, athletic fields, youth & senior centers, pocket parks, gardens) that we cherish. Our Wengerd Farm green market has long been a staple for greeting and connecting with community as well as for restocking our kitchens with fresh produce.

Over three years ago, NYC Compost hosted by Big Reuse began providing us with an official Food Scrap Drop Off site next to our market. Since then, Islanders have been able to divert more than 100,000 pounds of food scraps from landfill! NYC Compost hosted by BigReuse turns them into soil enhancing compost and gives them back to the community - like they did for individuals on Saturday, April 27th!

Thanks to iDig2Learn, RIOC, and many more, our regular Roosevelt Island green market Saturday morning was transformed into a very special day for all ages. We learned more about practices that make a difference and help to reverse global warming. We found out about ways to reuse and recycle right here on RI. In addition to food scraps, clothes and electronics are reusable resources, too! RI Garden Club Outreach was honored to participate in this event.

(Most photographs above by Olya Turcihin! Enjoy the beautiful moments.)

RIGC Compost and RIOC's Youth Center

4/25/2019

On the two Thursdays before #EarthLove Day, Anthony Longo and Julia Ferguson met with RI Youth Center students and staff to discuss, teach, and experience the compost process first hand. What a wonderful connection! We look forward to more times for learning together in the future.

Community Service Opportunities Abound

4/20/2019

Late March and early April brought weekend days for painting the shed and preparing new compost piles. Sunday, April 28th, our first official Community Service day will be complete with many projects to upgrade and maintain our infrastructure: border repairs, path clean up, tool shed organization, water pipe repairs, more compost layering, and landscape planting!

If you have to miss the weekend dates, remember there is a list of possible tasks in the shed and and sign up sheet for your time. The front common area needs sweeping up weekly and we always have trips to AVAC needed regularly as well.

The gardens are now open to the public on weekends. Spring planting season is upon us. Enjoy the new 2019 season.

A Few Guidelines for Spring Clean Up

4/1/2019

Go gently with your garden clean up until the weather stays warm in the 50 degree range Fahrenheit. If you cut back and clear, try to leave some of the dry leaves, hollow stems, and branches stacked neatly standing in a sunny corner so that pollinators can hatch.

Find out more about pollinator planting and pollinating creatures. Click on this link to find a wonderful pdf booklet with extensive resources. Bee Basics North America. The end of this booklet gives specific recommendations like the following abridged list:

What You Can Do

Plant a pollinator garden. Some gardeners are fearful of being stung by bees and would rather they were not in their gardens. Most native bees are quite different from honey bees and yellow jackets (which are not pollinators) as they rarely sting gardeners and if they do, the sting tends to be mild. In fact, there are some bees, such as the Andrenid bees, that are incapable of stinging humans because their stingers are too small and weak to penetrate their skin.
Avoid pesticides or choose non-chemical solutions to insect problems.
Provide a source of pesticide-free water and mud.
Plant native plants from your ecoregion.
Allow some small wildflowers to become part of your lawn.
Provide nesting habitats for bees.

Our New Shed Has a New Coat of Paint

4/1/2019

RIGC community service in action! Many thanks to Neal, Jack, Farouk, Richard, Kas, Patty, Antonio ,Catherine, and Stephane from sections C, B, and A! The paint on our new shed matches our old shed and is looking great. If the weather holds on Saturday, April 6th at 11:00 a.m there will be more paining opportunities for the trim.

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

3/27/2019

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

Karen Lee "Instead of plastic..." March 24, 2019

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!