The Summit Street Garden: Brooklyn, NY

First meeting of the 2011 season

2011-03-30T22:45:00.002-04:00

This Sunday, April 3rd. If it is good weather it will be held in the garden, if raining or terribly cold it will be held at 96 Summit Street. Meet and Greet at 11:30 with muffins, juice and coffee. Meeting runs from 12-2pm and then if you are new you can have the 15min orientation to become a member.

let's get planting!

There's Work to be Done

2010-06-26T10:32:00.003-04:00

Hello Dear Members,

If you find yourself swinging those gates open to the public on a nice day, one of our garden gurus, Claire, has a few suggestions on things you can do to bide the time and to make our garden even MORE beautiful that it already is. Have a look:

For those who can help this weekend here are some areas that would like some attention, some are ongoing. Mostly watering, weeding, and pruning.

1) Watering:
a) Hydrangeas, the “mop-head” (the big blue one) and “lace-caps” (two in the long border). Deep watering to each, before 11:00 AM or after 7:00PM.
b) Any new plantings in the borders.

2) Dead Ivy Leaves on House Wall: Brushing off the rest of the dead leaves, don’t try to get the dead vines off.

3) Columbia –Summit shady corner:
a) Hellebores (“Lenten, / Christmas Roses”) The finished, brown flowering stalks can be cut as close to the ground as you wish.
b) The four shrubs off the corner can be trimmed into globes or something roundish. Two with small green and white variegated leaves (euonymous)and two with small green leaves (ilex crenata, a type of holly). Scissors or hand pruners. Just let’s not cut them flat to the fence from the outside, roundish there also.

4) The usual hot-weather weeds, seeding about as they will:
a) Mugwort, ailanthus, lamb’s quarters and morning glory. Generally we’ve had no big problems with any of these this year, we’re just pulling them as we see them. So, if you know what they look like, just pull them and toss into the compost.
b) Grass in the paths. The usual treatment, just pull it and compost it.

5) Mediterranean Border (The rubble mound):
a) Autumn clematis: The vines that are streching out across the bed need to be cut way back towards the fence. The recent heat really got that vine going.
b) The grape: Looking good, some wild new shoots can be twined in or cut back,but generally it’s gotten good attention. Lots of grapes ripening!
c) Ground cover juniper: The small brown juniper can be removed or cut back to the ground.
d) Broome roots: Can be dug out or cut back further.

Summit Street Garden in Sun Chips Spot

2010-04-30T17:23:00.002-04:00

Check out this spot, produced for Sun Chips new bio-degradeable bag. A few of the scenes were filmed in our humble little garden, and the spot won the contest! Congratulations to the producers, it's a nice spot. I like the bag degrading into the dirt best, and the slow-mo closeups of the shoveling and composting. It has a nice warm, do-good, community feel to the piece. You can see the spot RIGHT HERE.

The Garden is a Bloomin!

2010-04-25T18:51:00.002-04:00

Have a gander at these few shots I rattled off in the garden the other day. Everything is looking very good. We are off to a wonderful start of another season.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

More Pin-Hole Photography in the garden

2009-09-02T08:20:00.001-04:00

Summit Street Garden, originally uploaded by Steven Chalmers.

Garden Member Steven Chalmers continues his pin-hole photography technique in our garden. This photo of our wheelbarrow is quite nice.

Firefly Delight

2009-07-05T10:53:00.003-04:00

Photo by Jim Richardson

Happy Fourth of July to you all.

We had a busy but beautiful night in the Garden last night. We all noticed an increased presence of my favorite insect of all time, the magnificent FIREFLY. You should all shuffle yourselves down to see them in their glory in our little shared space. It's pretty darn neat that we have so many of them in the middle of Brooklyn. Sheila recently sent me this NY Times article on Fireflies, which is a darn good read.

Here are some interesting facts: The larvae live in the ground for two years, and it's in their last two weeks of their lifespan, where the adults come out to glow to attract mates. They aren't flies at all, but beetles and there are more than 2.000 species worldwide. And there is a predator that looks like a firefly that blinks to deceive the male fireflies into thinking that they are females luring them in for a kill!

It really is a great article. Nothing, in my opinion, is more magical and definitively summer than the sight of the blinking firefly

Thanks for cleaning us up!

2009-06-30T07:59:00.004-04:00

A big thank you to all the members and friends of members who stopped by this past weekend to lend a helping hand in our garden clean-up event. Trees were pruned, benches were mended, weeds were pulled, propane was filled, trash was disposed of and we all had a merry time and some good eats from the BBQ.

We're looking good garden, looking REAL good!

Pruning Guides

2009-06-23T06:51:00.008-04:00

This past Weekend we had a Pruning Workshop led by Tony. I didn't get to make it personally, but I heard some good learning was had by all. Here are Tony's Links to some good pruning guides. This page can now serve as a bit of a reference when it comes to pruning. So ENJOY!

How-To prune things like GRAPES, CURRANTS, and PEACHES

How-To for PRUNING SHRUBS. and another one HERE

Here is a site for ROSE PRUNING / CARE

Here is a site for LAWN CARE

This site offers articles on PERENNIALS, FLOWERS, and many OTHER GARDENING TOPICS. New articles are added monthly

And Tony recommends this book, if your like me and enjoy reading non-fiction and love to have something you can hold in your hand and flip through. Read the book Understanding Perennials

And there you have it. Some guides to Pruning.

Garden Cleanup this weekend

2009-06-23T06:26:00.003-04:00

This upcoming weekend, Saturday June 27 and Sunday June 28th will be a day of Cleaning and BBQing. Come join your garden members in a pruning, weeding, and chocolate croissant fest! Anyone can come, but don't wear your Sunday best cause we be getting dirty! Food will be provided throughout both days.

Hours: Saturday June 27th - 9am - 3pm
Sunday June 28th - Noon - 6pm

See you all there!

Jazz in June

2009-06-05T19:58:00.005-04:00

Hey neighbors and friends of all things growing!

I just wanted to pass on this tidbit of info I got from a flyer recently. Every Sunday in June, there will be Jazz music playing in the Red Hook Urban Meadow, on the corner of President and Van Brunt Street. For all the details you can go to Red Hook Jazz Fest My space page right HERE.

This Sunday, the line-up is:
2pm - People's Revolutionary Party
3pm - Anne Mette Iversen Quartet
4pm - SPOKE

Click on the links above and you can listen to some of their tracks. See all you cool cats there this Sunday, it's supposed to be a beautiful day! The show is FREE, with a suggested donation of $8.

Tag Sale Tomorrow!

2009-05-29T10:06:00.002-04:00

We're having a Tag Sale tomorrow at our little garden, on the corner of Summit Street and Colombia Street. 8:30am - 2:30pm.

Pardon me for Asking, a local blog, Has posted about our tag sale here!

There be Bees in this here neighborhood!

2009-05-13T18:12:00.012-04:00

So I was hanging between Jalopy and Moonshine the other day, and I got to talking with a fellow hoodie, Marie-Emma. The Summit Street Garden was mentioned, and then I mentioned the blog, and this sparked an interesting conversation that I wanted to share with you.

You see, Emma makes skin care products. Made from Honey + Wax. That comes from Bees. Bees that hail from our very own neighborhood! Neighborbees! If you see me at the 'shine ask me to point out the rooftop where they live. I think this is just the coolest thing. Find out more about Emma and her skin care products made here in Brooklyn at www.betweenyouandthemoon.com.

I'm going to try to possibly set up a meeting with the bee keeper to learn more about him and his Red Hook Bees. Could be a future mini-doc, will keep you posted on my findings.

Brooklyn Folk Festival, this weekend @ Jalopy

2009-05-13T17:57:00.005-04:00

This weekend from Friday night, May 15th - Sunday, May 17th is the Brooklyn Folk Festival brought to you by Down Home Radio and will be at the infamous venue for this kind of thing, our local Jalopy.

Admission is $10 a day or $25 for all 3 days. Not a bad deal I say. Click on the photo above, or link to the BFF for a complete schedule of the weekend's performance.

A cleaner Greenway

2009-05-11T06:35:00.005-04:00

This past Saturday, Oliver and I joined a few volunteers and walked along the Columbia Street section of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway to get 'er clean. We found some truly bizarre trash, which you can see at the photo set above.

I was excited that we got to use official DOT Arterial Maintenance "grabbers" and when I joked about getting a neon DOT safety vest......I GOT ONE.

If you aren't familiar with the The Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway I highly recommend you visit their website. It's pretty impressive, to be planning a 14 mile stretch of public space on the Brooklyn Waterfront, from Greenpoint all the way to Bay Ridge. For nearly 100 years, there has only been four public access points to the water's edge. This MAP shows the proposed route.

I implore everyone to help out any way they can, join the Initiative!

Now on Twitter!

2009-05-07T11:05:00.003-04:00

Well, I am still figuring out how this "Twibe" thing works, so bear with us here. You can see a feed of our tweets in our new widget on our side bar. I'm just not sure if that means your following me, or following the garden.

Click HERE to go to our twibe (twitter group) profile page and join the club!

Help build the Greenway!

2009-05-05T12:15:00.008-04:00

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

On this rainy day I popped by the garden to check on my seedlings (doing fantastic) and I noticed a wet and fading flyer for some upcoming activities to support the local Brooklyn Greenway Initiative.

This Saturday, May 9th at 10am you can lend a hand at BGI's monthly cleanup along the new Colombia Street section of the greenway. Tools, trash bags and work gloves provided. Meet at BGI's office, 145 Colombia Street, between Kane and Degraw. All ages welcome! RSVP to bmccormick(at)brooklyngreenway.org. This same event will also take place at 10am on Saturday, June 13th (every 2nd Saturday of every month.)

This year's New View benefit is Thursday, June 18,2009. Celebrate with BGI with drinks, food, and live music at another new waterfront destination along the future route of the Greenway! All the details on the benefit will be posted on the event page at brooklyngreenway.org so check back now and again.

And if you go to the clean-up this Saturday, I'll see you there!

Brownstoner.com and DIY vertical garden

2009-05-05T08:39:00.003-04:00

About a week ago, I submitted our garden profile, info and a few pictures to brownstoner.com. This past Friday, our humble little urban garden was featured on their blog. Check out the article here.

And in other garden related blogging news, check out this neat idea at greenupgrader.com. Even though it was done in Alaska because of a tough environment and difficult soil, I feel that this kind of garden project exudes the spirit of the urban gardener. What a great way to use vertical space. Click on the photo below to read the article:

Summit Street Garden pinhole

2009-04-30T11:44:00.002-04:00

Summit Street Garden pinhole, originally uploaded by Steven Chalmers.

I believe it was last Saturday i was in the garden, and a potential future member stopped by, he has been taking some classes in photography and he wanted to take some pinhole photographs of the garden. I just happened to be searching the world wide web and I came across his results. Nice job Steve! Thanks for sharing.

Make sure you all swing on by his flickr page and take a gander.

How to become a member of our garden

2009-04-30T11:03:00.003-04:00

The process of becoming a member of the Summit Street Community Garden is very simple. CLICK HERE to view and download our member guidelines. And below is the abridged version, just the nuts and bolts of the process:

If you are interested in becoming a member of the Summit Street Garden, all you have to do is attend a meeting and get a fifteen minute orientation right after. Meetings are held monthly, either on Sunday or Saturday mornings, from April to October, with one weekday evening meeting. Our next meeting is Sunday, May 17th at 11am in the garden (if it rains it is held at 96 Summit Street). At the meeting you can give us your name, email, phone, address, etc, and you will be added to the email list. Garden members are expected to do one open hour session per year (4 hour session) to remain active members.

Mapping of Brooklyn Community Gardens

2009-04-29T08:19:00.003-04:00

Here is some gardening news. Over here at Brownstoner.com they are in the process of mapping the community gardens in Brooklyn. I have submitted the info on our little plot of green, so we should see something posted up there soon about Summit Street Garden.

This past weekend my wife and I went up to CT to help some friends in Hamden build a chicken coop! They have a great little yard in the back of their house, where they have a fabulous garden ( utilizing the WORD METHOD ) and they grow seedlings under lights in the basement. Have a look at their garden, seedlings and the chicken coop here.

Who in the neighborhood has some basement space?! Let's get our own seedling factory growing!

The Flowers are Blooming

2009-04-19T08:56:00.004-04:00

During open hours yesterday, I took a few shots of the garden, mostly macro shots of a lot of the flowers that were in bloom. Enjoy the slide show below:

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Welcome to the Summit Street Garden Blog

2009-04-19T07:37:00.009-04:00

come on in, originally uploaded by Summit Street Garden.

The Summit Street Community Garden was established in 1994 through the efforts of many people in the community, who literally dragged toilets, old tires and trash out of several adjoining abandoned lots. In partnership with the NYC Parks Department and Green Thumb, the Summit Street Community Garden exists to offer a cool, green oasis in the city.

The Summit Street Garden Blog was launched in April of 2009 to serve as a resource not only for our members but for any and all urban gardeners who might be interested in learning more about community gardening. This Blog is an open, participatory and moderated space - an extension of our living garden. We hope this blog serves to document the garden's community events and share "how-to's" on things like gardening, BBQ-ing, composting, planting and harvesting.

If you would like to submit an entry to this blog, please send your post in an email along with any photos (no bigger than 450 pix by 450 pix) to: summitstreeetgarden@gmail.com. Posts should be focused on our community and gardening. We might make a few edits and we'll post it as soon as we can. Thanks for stopping by. Check out our calendar on the side bar for our open hours and garden events.

We hope to see you in the garden soon.