Community Compost

[Coquille]

Hello Composters,

I'm so sorry about the spam. I have set up the group so that all
messages will be moderated and it shouldn't happen again.

Is it true that Green Thumb can no longer provide community gardens
any kind of compost? What is happening with the organizing around
bringing back compost?

Also, I received this question about compost signs:

Zack is helping us build a compost bin at V&T…..we’re almost
finished. I love the “Compost Public Drop-Off” sign you have posted
on Shiloh’s gate. Where can we get a similar sign with all pertinent
compost facts on one sheet? I tried to send an e-mail to the contact
posted on the garden Hazeline – e-mail was returned. Please send me
info I’d like to have compost signs posted on the Gardens.

Does anyone know the answer?

Thanks,
Coquille, Composter BKLYN

[Jessica Katz]

Hi Coquille,

I don't know about the future situation, but my community garden - 6/15 Green - did get a delivery of compost this summer.  It was a delayed delivery and I think it was because they had trouble getting it.

I coordinated a very successful leaf collection project at 6/15 Green last fall, because the City wasn't doing household leaf pickups.  I hope to expand on that this year.

I'm going to contact Green Guerillas and BBG and see what they are planning, as well as some of the larger community gardens that have active leaf collection projects. Hopefully, we can all coordinate and make this at least a borough-wide effort.

I hope you've had a creative and enjoyable summer.

Thanks for taking care of that spam.......that was weird!

Jess

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Coquille <coqu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Composters,

I'm so sorry about the spam. I have set up the group so that all
messages will be moderated and it shouldn't happen again.

Is it true that Green Thumb can no longer provide community gardens
any kind of compost? What is happening with the organizing around
bringing back compost?

--
Jessica Katz
Brooklyn, NY
************************************************************
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world."
"To forget to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."      - Mahatma Ghandi

[Beth]

Hey Jessica and Coquille,

I'm the new compost intern at East New York Farms, and just spoke with
the fabulous Jon from PHCF, who is not only gearing up for the same
issues but also suggested I contact you. We should all meet up to
talk more about the leaf collection/compost situation. While ENYF is
going to collect leaves from the surrounding community this year,
we're also hoping to unite with folks citywide to make headway with
City Council and the Parks Department (through the Million Trees
Initiative). Feedback has been somewhat positive so far from Council
(we may get a public hearing this fall) but while I'm not holding my
breath with them, I also don't want to let the issue slide. Jon
suggested we may be able to get dedicated city park space for leaf
composting this year - if we can send up a smart plan.

How does next Monday or Tuesday sound for a potluck talk? I can check
in with Zack and Jon to see when/where they can meet. Looking forward
to working with you on strategies for compost/leaf collection efforts
both in our own gardens and beyond!

P.S. As far as I know, Green Thumb should still be giving compost to
community gardens (though I need to check on the status, could be
limited to larger gardens), but the Givebacks to the public are no
longer.

On Sep 21, 1:29 pm, Jessica Katz <bklyn.nighth...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Coquille,
>
> I don't know about the future situation, but my community garden - 6/15
> Green - did get a delivery of compost this summer.  It was a delayed
> delivery and I think it was because they had trouble getting it.
>
> I coordinated a very successful leaf collection project at 6/15 Green last
> fall, because the City wasn't doing household leaf pickups.  I hope to
> expand on that this year.
>
> I'm going to contact Green Guerillas and BBG and see what they are planning,
> as well as some of the larger community gardens that have active leaf
> collection projects. Hopefully, we can all coordinate and make this at least
> a borough-wide effort.
>
> I hope you've had a creative and enjoyable summer.
>
> Thanks for taking care of that spam.......that was weird!
>
> Jess
>

[Jessica Katz]

Hi Beth,

I hope you've been having an exciting and creative summer at East New York Farms.

I think we are all on the same wavelength.

I spoke with Karla at BBG yesterday and had a chance to touch base with Zach Schulman of Green Guerillas yesterday evening.

I coordinated a very enthusiastic and successful leaf collection project at 6/15 Green garden last fall.  We collected over a ton and a half of leaves over the course of four weekends.  We got a lot of good feedback from a few of the other larger gardens about expanding/coordinating the project this year.

Karla is very enthusiastic about helping move this project forward and offered to work with us to get a brainstorming session going, so we can coordinate our project, outreach, press, etc.

I'm cc'ing this note to a few of the folks who expressed interest in working on this project, as well as the garden leaders at 6/15 Green.

I'll follow up with a few phone calls this week and, hopefully, we can start connecting with eachother to make this season's leaf collection project a really successful one.

We should reach out to the Brooklyn Community Garden Group and the NYC Community Gardening Coalition, the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust, NYRP, etc and see if they want to participate, too.

If the determination and interest that we saw last season is any indication of the public wilingness to put their leaves to good use, this season will be great.

I love the idea of pursuing this situation with the City Council and perhaps resurrecting a site to do leaf composting.

Thanks so much for getting in touch!

:-)

Jess

[Rasheed Hislop]

GreenThumb still provides compost and takes orders every season.  Deliveries take place in Spring and Fall.  There have been shortages in supply due to the cancellation of the givebacks program and the leaf collection program but GreenThumb has been successful in honing alternative sources of compost, namely horse manure and "zoo doo" from the Bronx. 

Rasheed Hislop, Outreach Coordinator -- GT

--
Paz amor y jardines,

Rasheed Hislop
rash...@gmail.com

[Jessica Katz]

That's really good to know, Rashid.

6/15 Green received a great delivery of compost this summer and we put it to very good use in the garden.  It's great to know that you've been able to find some alternative sources for other gardens.  The question about whether or not GreenThumb could continue that vital service has been floating around for a while.

Zoo doo.....Who knew?!  LOL

Thanks!

Jess

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:07 AM, Rasheed Hislop <rash...@gmail.com> wrote:

GreenThumb still provides compost and takes orders every season.  Deliveries take place in Spring and Fall.  There have been shortages in supply due to the cancellation of the givebacks program and the leaf collection program but GreenThumb has been successful in honing alternative sources of compost, namely horse manure and "zoo doo" from the Bronx. 

Rasheed Hislop, Outreach Coordinator -- GT

[Julia Corwin]

I am not sure if GT does deliveries to non-GT gardens, but if you are not a GreenThumb garden you can still try to get permission to get compost from the Dept of Sanitation, it just means picking it up from their sites (in either SI or the south Bronx) with a truck.  If anyone is interested, I can put you in touch with Sanitation.

 

As for leaf collection, I think it's fantastic that so many gardens are working towards having their own leaf collections.  Sadly I don't currently know of any gardens in Queens doing this, although we have less community gardens.  However, I would like to keep in touch with those of you who are working on the larger issue of city leaf collection/composting--while it's great that community gardens can deal with leaves, I do think it's a city service that should not be dropped so easily by the city.  I'm now also working with the MillionTrees initiative (as is Karla) and have brought up the issue of composting leaves at Roundtable discussions (as well as for 30 seconds with Bloomberg at a BBQ), so I'd love to discuss how to work on it from the MillionTrees angle.

 

Julia Corwin

Queens Compost Project

Queens Botanical Garden

43-50 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

718.886.3800 ext. 221

jco...@queensbotanical.org

 

---

From: compos...@googlegroups.com [compos...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jessica Katz [bklyn.n...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 7:10 AM
To: compos...@googlegroups.com; Rasheed Hislop
Subject: CompostingNYC Re: Community Compost