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Signs, signs, and more signs: 2020 has challenged us all!

5/26/2020

 
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In order to ask for official access to the gardens for Members and Associates, Executive Board members worked hard to study NY State laws and guidelines and Green Thumb community garden guidelines.  We made a proposal and received RIOC's response. Then about a week later we were able to sign an addendum to our annual lease giving specific requirements from RIOC for RIGC members to officially return to gardening.

One of the requirements was that the Board stay in touch with members and let them know the rules. So, as soon as the letter went out to everyone confirming access on May 17th, we started drafting the required signs, then printing,  then laminating, then posting them.  In the meantime, RIOC's community liaison office, Terrence McCauley also made us an official sign. So by Memorial Day, we had even more reading to post for you all.

Take a moment to read carefully. We appreciate all the support and care gardeners are showing for each other by wearing masks and gloves and by maintaining physical distance.  For some of us extraverted, excited types, it is a constant effort.  For others, it is much easier to stay quiet and solitary.  As we move ahead, please be patient with everyone. 



We are all in this together as a community of volunteers learning new ways to connect.  We can take care of others (remain 6 feet apart, wear mask/gloves, disinfect shared surfaces) and still continue to share our love of all things gardening:  vegetables, flowers, native plants, miniature evergreens, birds, pollinators, ecology, composting, blue skies, green trees, comfortable benches, and all the space and health that nature brings us at RIGC.

"We are back, too!"    More news from Neal

5/23/2020

 
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After 17 years, the cicadas are re-emerging in droves in Virginia, North Carolina, and West Virginia right now.  Similarly, our garden community  is experiencing a rebirth as we too return to our gardens.  

RIOC has agreed to allow members and associates to return, but visitors and guests must remain outside the gates.  The water has been turned on for our plants and for washing our hands.  It’s great to see old friends working their gardens again, but things are not as they were.  Things will not be "normal" for a long time. Now we are keeping our distance, wearing our masks, and not taking the shortest route as we navigate to the most empty paths in the garden. 

There are no shortcuts to getting back to normal.  It may seem like a 17 year wait at times, but we have to take it in stages.  Currently our agreement with RIOC does not allow us to use shared or borrowed tools.  This means that you need to use your own tools, and not use tools that another member used, even if they “appeared" to be healthy. 
Some may be upset that we were forced to lock the communal shed, but I have recently polyurethane coated all the wooden handle tools making them less porous, which in turn makes them easier to sanitize, which lays the groundwork to eventually making them usable in the future.  As for power electric tools, the only one who will handle them is Vaughn.  

It is easy to become complacent and to assume everything is as it was, but we should all proceed with caution and understanding. Please follow the rules. Use gloves and sanitize surfaces and assume that others might not be as thorough as yourself.  Keep your distance from others at least 6 ft away. If you and your neighbor or friend are both gardening, you might not want to spend extended periods of time near each other.  Staying home is the safest option. If you come to the garden, try to come at off peak hours.  We appreciate your support because we are very lucky to have our little garden of Eden, even if it's in the eye of a storm.  

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! ​

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PO Box 127
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