4.30.12 Good news, blog readers! The blog is up and running again. Check back here for garden meeting updates, events and work day info. You can also join the Summit Street Garden facebook group to view meeting notes, calendar of events, and more. Our next meeting and work day is scheduled for Saturday, May 19th. Meeting will begin at 11:30. On the agenda: scheduling events for the 2012 gardening season. A work day will begin immediately afterwards, and last until about 3pm. Anyone wishing to be a member can show up for the meeting and get a 15 minute walk through/orientation right afterwards. Happy Gardening!

First meeting of the 2011 season

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

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

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!

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

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

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