Greening Flatbush 2010 (photo by Maria Bergenhem)

Hello Sustainable Flatbush community!

Thank you so much to everyone that joined us at the second annual Greening Flatbush event on Sunday, February 21st! I hope you all enjoyed yourselves and learned a lot about what we can do to actively ensure that our food is local–grow it ourselves:) I had a lot of fun spending my afternoon with you all!

Barry's sprouts (photo by Flatbush Gardener)

What was your favorite part of the event? I have to say the food samples excited me the most. Barry’s sprouts were so tasty and fresh, it really proved to me that we can grow quality stuff right in our apartments/homes. And the Moroccan carrot and orange salad was like nothing I’ve ever tasted, I’m going to look up Just Food Chef Nicole Caruth’s blog ASAP to find out more recipes. I’m having people over for dinner next weekend, I’m totally going to try and make it for them! I also enjoyed speaking to Pieranna about composting with worms, I was skeptical before but she made it sounds so doable. She mentioned that Brooklyn Botanical Garden has a hotline you can call for composting questions, so you’ll always have help there if you need it.

Thank you all for making this a great event! I look forward to starting to recognize some of your faces at future events:)

ADDITIONAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Thank you to our sponsors: Kings County Nurseries, Flatbush Food Co-op (for providing tasty snacks and ingredients for Nicole’s cooking demo), and Vox Pop for the coffee!

Thank you to our DJ Azmatec for the musical soundscape!

Thank you to our venue, Dorchester Senior Center!

Emily Goodman in Gardening for Children (photo by Flatbush Gardener)

PRESENTERS and WORKSHOPS

Maikel Carder
“Seeds, Soil, and Sunshine”
This workshop will cover what to grow, where to grow it [indoors, outdoors, in the ground, in containers] and how to grow it. Participants will learn how to prepare soil, plant seeds and care for seedlings, and how to grow herbs and microgreens on the windowsill.
Maikel Carder has been gardening all his life [60+ years] and is a confirmed “foodie”. He is active in local urban gardening and other efforts to re-invent daily life on a more simple, sustainable and satisfying basis.

Emily Goodman
“Gardening for Children”
Park Slope resident Emily Goodman never really appreciated plants until she moved to New York City and realized she missed seeing green. She studied horticulture at the New York Botanic Garden, worked briefly as a professional gardener, and is now a full-time freelance writer and editor with a special interest in writing and teaching about plants. Her award-winning children’s book PLANT SECRETS was published by Charlesbridge in 2009.

Nicole J. Caruth
“Cooking Tips from a Just Food Community Chef”
Nicole J. Caruth has been a Community Chef with Just Food since 2009. When she’s not giving cooking demos, she primarily works as a freelance writer and visual art curator. She contributes a monthly food-art column to the PBS-affiliated blog, Art:21; and frequently pens reviews for the contemporary art e-journal …might be good. Her writing has been published by the Brooklyn Museum; Studio Museum in Harlem; Brooklyn Fine Arts Magazine, and Gastronomica to name only a few. She is currently organizing an exhibition about food for the Center for Book Arts in New York. Her companion book — a cookbook featuring recipes by contemporary artists and art world professionals — will be the first in an ongoing series. Both projects debut next spring. Caruth resides in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.

Maya Nayak
“The Windowfarms Project”
Windowfarms are vertical hydroponic systems made of recycled bottles and used indoors to grow veggies year-round. The Windowfarms Project combines social media, urban farming and open-source product development to provide city dwellers with the tools to grow food and cultivate their understanding of agriculture and collaborative change-making. Please visit www.windowfarms.org to see photos/additional information.

Pieranna Pieroni
“Composting with Worms in Your Apartment”
Working with residents, schools, community gardens, and other organizations, the Brooklyn Compost Project offers workshops on both indoor and outdoor composting and provides technical assistance to gardeners, building managers, landscapers, and institutions who wish to compost.
Pieranna Pieroni is a Brooklyn Botanic Garden-trained Master Composter and educator who works with New York City public school students around school-community gardening and ecoliteracy.

Barry Schwartz
“Seed for Change”
Barry Schwartz is a recent transplant to the Peoples Republic of Brooklyn, having moved here from being the medical director for a socialist youth movement camp in Liberty, NY, and before that cooking for Ananda Ashram in Monroe, NY. The skills he has learned along the way have culminated in starting “Seed for Change”, a sprouting and microgreen workshop which features “Garden in a Bag”, a simple way to grow sprouts. He also makes fresh tempeh out of many different types of beans and makes wonderful ghee. He is looking to start a collective kitchen in the area if anyone is interested or has feedback.

Lisa Maya Knauer
“How (and Why) to Join the Flatbush Farm Share CSA”
The mission of Flatbush Farm Share is to make fresh organic produce available to any Brooklyn resident, regardless of economic status.
Lisa Maya Knauer is a member of the core group of Flatbush Farmshare. She is a professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where she is also involved in sustainability initiatives. She is currently helping develop a women’s weaving cooperative and a micro-enterprise incubator focusing on women, immigrants and low-income residents in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Madeline Nelson
“Save the Campus Road Community Garden”
This gorgeous community garden and functioning ecosystem has graced Brooklyn College since 1991. It’s now endangered by the College’s plan to build a parking lot on the garden site. The gardeners welcome you to see why we want to save the peaches and mulberries, azaleas and daylillies, a refuge for people, bees, and Brooklyn parrots.
Madeline Nelson is a freegan, bicycle activist, forager and avid gardener. She’s especially interested in growing plants native to Brooklyn, as well as no-cost and very-low-cost food gathering and growing.

Brooklyn College Welcome Back Bash

Campus Road was closed down and filled with tables of student groups and community organizations, games, street performers from Circus Amok, and live music provided by the Pimps of Joytime. Sustainable Flatbush provided Brooklyn College students and neighbors with information about the goal of our organization as well as our four initiatives.

Circus Amok

At the Welcome Back Bash Sustainable Flatbush invited Sam from Transportation Alternatives, who informed people about the organization’s advocacy for bicycling, walking, and public transit; Rommel from Recycle-A-Bicycle, who was able to put many students’ bikes back into tip-top shape; and master composters from Brooklyn Compost Project, who encouraged students to learn about worm composting.Community gardeners from Brooklyn College’s Campus Road Garden were there to make students aware of the proposed demolition of the garden and solicit signatures for their petition to save it. They also took students and neighbors on walking tours through the garden’s peach trees, figs, pumpkins, mums, and much more to make them conscious of the garden’s existence.

With music in the background and students playing basketball, Sustainable Flatbush was able to educate students about sustainable living. Questions about urban gardening, composting, bicycling, and many more were answered. People were able to pick up information on Sustainable Flatbush events and projects, New York City bicycle maps, and Biking Rules pamphlets.

If you missed the bearded woman get out of a straight jacket, a man string himself through a wire hanger, a woman swallowing swords, all the fun and music, and most importantly Sustainable Flatbush, there will be another Welcome Back Bash in Spring.

The Time for Lunch Campaign is a project of Slow Food USA, an educational non-profit with the goal of creating a world in which everyone can enjoy food that is good, clean and fair. The purpose of Time for Lunch is to bring focus to the upcoming Congressional review of Child Nutrition Act, which governs the national school lunch program. You can read all about this on their website.

As part of the campaign, people are holding EAT-INs at schools across the nation on or about Labor Day, Sept 7. This is basically a community potluck of fresh, fantastic, REAL food.

Sunday September 6th, 2-5pm, at Campus Road Garden
Campus Road Garden has combined their event with a roving potluck series at Brooklyn community gardens, taking place on SUNDAYs, from 2 til 5pm, throughout the month of September. See our calendar for more information! Campus Road Community Garden is located at the intersection of Campus Road and Avenue H.

Monday September 7th, 12-3pm, at P.S. 217
P.S. 217′s event is being organized by their Parents’ Association, with Sustainable Flatbush supporting. The P.S. 217 schoolyard is located at the corner of Coney Island and Newkirk Avenues.
Bring a dish to share – and a picnic blanket and/or beach chairs! The more, the merrier! Bring the entire family, friends, and neighbors! No need to register, just show up!

Click here to sign Slow Food USA’s petition to put REAL FOOD in our schools.

(Updated with details!)

Sunday, July 19, at 2pm, outdoors, at the Campus Road Community Garden

Campus Road Community Garden is just inside the grounds of Brooklyn College. Come to Ocean Avenue and Avenue H, take the short extension of H to the campus back entrance, tell the guard you’re coming to the garden, and you’re in!

Bring a brunch dish or beverage to share! Our discussion theme will be people gardening together in public and semi-public spaces.

The Campus Road garden is a gorgeous oasis of mature flowering shrubs and trees, lovely seating areas, plus individual plots where members grow veggies and flowers.

Brooklyn College wants to raze the garden and pave it for a small parking lot. The gardeners are resisting and can use all the community support we can get.

RSVP here or email directly on the Green Edge site.

Visit Flatbush Supper Club on the GreenEdge NYC network

Campus Road Community Garden (photo by Flatbush Gardener)