gardening

 by Edwin Yowell, Slow Food NYC

The New York City Department of Education’s SchoolFood serves about 860,000 meals (including about 180,000 breakfasts) to over 1,000,000 students daily.  To achieve this mind-boggling feat, they manage more than 6,000 employees working in about 1,400 schools.

It’s a big job.  The Department of Education welcomes a little help now and then. 

On Friday, October 30, 2009, the Department of Education (DOE) initiated the Culinary Partners Forum, inviting individuals from organizations committed to helping SchoolFood provide healthier and more appetizing school breakfast and lunch.

by Lynn Fredericks, FamilyCook Productions 

Watching a swarm of inner city teens crunch golden delicious apples like they were candy and crowd in front of trays of quesadillas loaded with Swiss chard and apples was, well – pretty darn amazing! 

Introduction by Leslie Boden

Long before Henry Hudson and the crew of his ship, the Half Moon, arrived four hundred years ago on the shores of the river that would eventually bear his name, the Lenape people made their home on the small, lush, and ecologically diverse island they called Mannahatta.

Food Systems Network NYC will be holding a panel to celebrate the tomato and explore the tomato blight crisis and the impact on local farming. Farmers who grow tomatoes will talk about their tomato crops or losses due to late blight. A local agriculture expert and others will also contribute their views at this forum, the Network’s first evening program.  It will take place Thursday, September  24, 2009 at the Ethical Culture Society, 53 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, in the Library, from 6:30 to 8 p.m.  There will even be a few local tomatoes to sample, if available.     Suggested donation: $7. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Please let us know you are coming, as seating is limited. 

RSVP: 646-233-3058 or kristin@foodsystemsnyc.org.  

Posted by Kerry Trueman, Eating Liberally

Cars and fast food are partners in crime when it comes to undermining America's health. Our favorite mode of transportation deprives us of exercise, while our dependence on quick, cheap convenience foods cheats us of nutrients. We reportedly eat nearly a quarter of our meals in our cars, a practice that baffles folks in countries where taking time out to share a real meal with friends and family is still the norm.

But our landscape is changing, literally, and I found evidence of a nascent rebellion against our car-centric cuisine in a rather ironic place: the grounds that surround Automotive High School in Brooklyn. I first noticed squash vines growing outside the auditorium at this vocational high school in Williamsburg back in June when I attended a screening there of No Impact Man hosted by Rooftop Films.

I was intrigued, but had no idea that Automotive High School's edible landscaping was inspired by the school's participation in Slow Food NYC's Harvest Time program, whose mission is to create "a meaningful relationship between young people and their food and the environment by providing hands-on experiences, community engagement, and the enjoyment of good, healthful food."

Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of lending a hand as a volunteer at Rooftop Farms in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The name says it all: it is a 6000 square foot urban vegetable farm on the roof of an industrial building, growing rows inter-cropped with lettuces, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, kale and much more, which they sell directly to restaurants and at a farm stand inside the building every Sunday from 9am – 4pm.

Annie Novak and Ben Flanner are the farming minds behind the project. Both are passionate about how food gets to our table (Novak works with farmer Kira Kenney of Evolutionary Organics at the Greenmarket, and works as the Children’s Gardening Program Coordinator at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Flanner is new to farming but seems to get a kick out of hawking produce). Chris and Lisa Goode of Goode Green, a green roofing company, found the roof and funded Rooftop Farms as a test. With this project, the team hopes to determine what is possible in terms of scale for growing on rooftops in the city.

Posted by Lynn Fredericks, FamilyCook Productions Food gardening is not only becoming popular and practical again-- it's  become at once patriotic, a la our First Lady's White House Garden, and something that separates the real gardeners from the virtual ones who sigh at the photos in gardening magazines.  But for even the most enthusiastic and resourceful first-time urban growers, there can be any number of hurdles and it can be difficult to know where to start. Cerise Mayo, formerly of Slow Food and now Project Director for the New Amsterdam Market, launched her project, Urban Kitchen Garden, to share her knowledge and expertise with NYC dwellers who want to grow even a little of their own food.

After taking a peek at her new site, nyckitchengarden.com, we decided to find out a bit more and share it with our FSNYC readers here.
                 
Lynn Fredericks: How would you summarize the goals of the Urban Kitchen Garden project?

Cerise Mayo: The goal of Urban Kitchen Garden is to teach urban dwellers the fundamental tools to get them growing edible gardens successfully year after year. I often meet people who have tried to garden unsuccessfully and are dubious about trying again. But by learning a few key skills, they can make a lasting impact even in the smallest spaces. Whether it is to save a little on weekly food bills, for a creative outlet, or just to have a new perspective on the urban landscape, we educate our clients on how to create kitchen gardens of any size for themselves, and provide them with all the resources they need to find quality materials (compost, manure, lumber, etc.).

LF: How has the project intersected with education? I understand you are involved with a school garden in Harlem.

Posted by Kerry Trueman, Eating Liberally                                        

Posted By Kerry Trueman, EatingLiberally.org
Gardeners in our community have something new to celebrate this season: locally grown vegetable, herb and flower seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Library. Ken Greene and Doug Muller, a pair of avid upstate gardeners turned seed-obsessed farmers, created the Hudson Valley Seed Library to give urban, suburban and rural home gardeners an accessible, affordable source for heirloom and open-pollinated varieties “rooted in the history and the soils of the northeast”.

The Hudson Valley Seed Library grew out of a seed-lending project that Greene created at the Gardiner Library in Ulster County a few years ago. Greene and Muller, who had no previous agricultural experience, have spent the last four years teaching themselves how to farm and run a homestead-based business at the Hudson Valley Seed Library farm in Accord.

Their current online catalog includes more than twenty varieties of locally grown seeds, some cultivated on their own farm, others from nearby farmers. It also offers home gardeners a membership that gives them the opportunity to become active participants in re-establishing a regional seed network. When you join the Hudson Valley Seed Library, your $20 membership fee is applied to the purchase of seeds at a discounted rate. The membership program also encourages home gardeners to save seeds from the plants they’ve grown to return to the library for credit towards the next year’s membership.