Morris-Jumel Community Garden

Community Art and Compost Open House Saturday October 8

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 16:27:51 +0000

On Saturday October 8th at noon, the garden will be presenting our Community Composting systems as well as art created by garden and community members.

Please stop by to see art and compost created by the community and learn how to make some yourself at home, backyard and garden. Artists & Master Composters will be available to answer your art and compost questions.

Please bring your bags of leaves and other compostables to contribute to our outdoor 3 bin, Bokashi and worm composting systems.

Everyone is welcome – please feel free to bring food & drink and your love of Art and/or Compost to share,

free refreshments (bring food to share). Raindate: Sunday October 9.

Garden’s Feral Cats Featured in the Daily News!

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 16:23:00 +0000

From the Daily News

Haven for feral cats: Washington Heights garden rolls out red carpet for roaming felines

Harley, a feral cat, eyes dinner at the Morris-Jumel Community Garden in Washington Heights.

BY Amy Sacks
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

Saturday, August 6th 2011, 10:23

Though their presence is widespread, feral cats are largely unwelcome in the city’s gardens.

That’s not the case at the Morris-Jumel Community Garden in Washington Heights, where the welcome mat is always rolled out for the neighborhood’s colony of free-roaming cats.

The bucolic garden, located on W. 162nd St. across from the historic Morris-Jumel Mansion — Manhattan’s oldest house — boasts two dozen plots where members grow vegetables and flowers and host neighborhood parties around the barbecue pit.

It is also home base for Coco Bean, Betty and Grady Tate, three of the 11 feral cats that make up the Monte Calvario Colony, named for the church next door that allows them to be fed in its parking lot.

In winter, the cats take shelter in Styrofoam boxes that are filled with straw and hidden beneath a tarp ~~in the back of the garden.~~ [in the vacant lot next to the garden.]

The cats earn their keep by steering the rats away.

“The greatest thing is that you can be a cat advocate and a people advocate at the same time,” said Sheila Massey, a local resident and member of the NYC Feral Cat Initiative who has been managing the street’s cat colony for the past three years. “By spaying and neutering the cats, they become good citizens.”

Under trap-neuter-return (TNR), rescuers can trap feral cats, have them spayed or neutered and return them to the same areas.

Once neutered, the cats protect the community against rats but no longer display nuisance behaviors such as fighting over mates, yowling in heat, rummaging through trash cans, spraying urine and producing multiple litters. Well fed, there is no need for them to scavenge for food.

For the first time, the city plans to issue regulations for TNR programs, which could help reduce the number of ~~feral~~ [stray] cats that roam the streets.

Still, maintaining the colony takes dedication. Every night, Massey leaves her apartment armed with a bucket of dry cat food, cans of wet food tucked into her fanny pack and a jug of water.

Her first stop is the Morris-Jumel Mansion wall, where Ralph and Harley, and sometimes Boris, await her arrival. Then she’s off to the garden and the nearby church parking lot.

A handful of the garden members help feed the cats, dispel fears about diseases like toxoplasmosis and work hard to deter the cats from soiling the plants and veggies.

That includes keeping the soil very wet and covering it with branches before the plants sprout, Massey said.

Knowing the amount of food to put down and not leaving empty cans behind are also key to keeping the rats away.

Meanwhile, a positive outcome requires cooperation, and the Morris-Jumel Garden is an exception to the rule, says Susan Richmond, executive director of the NYC Feral Cat Initiative.

“Without a cooperative effort, the situation becomes an ongoing conflict as the two sides disagree, cats are evicted and, inevitably replaced by other cats,” she said.

Last year, two of the cats, Samson and McGee, were adopted after the colony was featured on Animal Planet.

In recent years, even the cat haters have come around.

“We’ve found a way to use the free-roaming cats as our allies,” Massey said.

To learn more, go to www.morrisjumelcommunitygarden.wordpress.com.

To become a volunteer, go to www.nycferalcatinitiative.org [or email morrisjumelcats[AT] gmail.com]

amy.sacks2@gmail.co

There’s also another blog post on the Morris-Jumel Cats here.

Harlem Green – Garden Tour Saturday, July 30th 10AM-4PM

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:18:46 +0000

Join us for a Tour of Central/West Harlem Community Gardens
Harlem Community Gardens are pleased to announce that “HARLEM GREEN,” the 6th Annual Harlem Community Gardens Tour, will take place on Saturday, July 30th 10AM-4PM (Raindate: Sunday, July 31st). The Tour will begin with a breakfast in the Joseph Daniel Wilson Community Garden at 219 West 122ndStreet, and the last stop will be at the William A. Harris Garden on 153rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, where Tourists will experience a home-style traditional Harlem Barbecue.
The Harlem gardens, all managed by community volunteers, are among New York City’s most extraordinary and best–kept secrets. Tourists will discover an enormous variety of vegetables, herbs and flowers as well as ponds, gazebos, grape vines and fruit trees, rain-water harvesting & soaker hose systems, solar energized equipment, innovative composting methods, vertical gardens and more. The gardens are host to people of all ages. Some are shade gardens where folks can come to relax or cook a meal. The gardens run programs for toddlers, young mothers, youths and seniors; there are tutoring programs, environmental studies workshops, art and music events for teens and the community at large, as well as canning and preserving (including food fermentation) workshops. Some gardens also host Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSA).

(Raindate: Sunday, July 31st).
For more information call 212.662. 2878
This Tour is being made possible by Greenthumb (Parks and Recreation of NYC); The Green Guerillas; NYCCGC (NYC Community Garden Coalition); The Willim H. Harris Gardeners; Project Harmony, Inc.

Next Composting Workshop -Worm Composting Indoors/Outdoors & Bokashi Followup

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:48:53 +0000

Saturday June 18th – 12 noon in the Garden

Raindate: Sunday June 19th.

Learn how to compost with worms in your backyard, garden, kitchen or classroom. master composter and garden member Ellen Belcher will teach you how to build and maintain indoor and outdoor worm composting bins.

This is a great composting method for kids!

We will also be making another batch of Bokashi bran for fermenting our foodwaste with Vandra Thornburn of Vokashi, Inc.

If there’s interest, we can examine and turn the garden’s compost piles.

Participants can bring home:

Fermented bran & tops for your bokashi buckets
Plans and instructions for making and maintaining indoor worm bins and outdoor worm bins
Composting worms (Eisenia fetida)
New knowledge on new ways to compost your food, garden and yard waste.

BBQ Lunch will be provided.

Upcoming Free Composting Workshops

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Tue, 17 May 2011 22:12:31 +0000

As part of a series of Composting Workshops funded by a grant from the Boro President Scott Stringer’s office, the Morris Jumel Community Garden invites everyone to the following workshop.

Bokashi Food Waste Fermentation in Your Home & Garden

This workshop will cover the basics of how to ferment your food waste at home and in the garden. Unlike traditional composting, this system breaks down dairy, grains and meat in addition to all other food waste.

At this workshop Vandra Thorburn, of Vokashi, inc. will teach us how to prepare fermented wheat bran and how to set up your own system in your kitchen and/or garden. Different stages of bokashi fermented food waste and bins will be on display. Vokashi products will be for sale, including finished fermented bran for half price – $5 (in case you want to get started right away).

BBQ lunch will be provided (including vegan/vegetarian options)

This workshop is on Sunday May 22, 1pm, the Morris-Jumel Community Garden, 545-547 west 160th st (E of Amsterdam/St Nicholas aves) subway = C to 163rd or A to 168th.

Next workshop, Worm Composting, Saturday June 18th 1pm.

Community Composting Events in the Garden

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 01:26:04 +0000

The garden received a grant from Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer’s Community Composting Program. From this generous support we will be offering a series of community composting workshops and workdays. Everyone is invited to attend.

Saturday April 16th 11am-1pm Community Composting Open House with Master Composters from the LESEC on hand to answer your questions about composting.

Join the NYC Compost Project in Manhattan as we visit a Compost Demonstration Site and see composting in action. Compost Demo Sites are formally recognized by the NYC Compost Project as exemplary composting operations at community gardens, parks, schools, and institutions that are committed to teaching New Yorkers about the benefits of composting. Compost experts will be on hand to answer any tricky questions you have about your home composting system. Also see an example of an indoor worm composting bin. Beginners and advanced composters welcome! Breakfast will be provided.

TBA [April or May] Rainwater Catchment System Repair Workday

Come help repair and expand our rainwater collection system, which provides water for our compost bins and garden. Lunch will be provided.

Sunday May 22, 12pm – 3pm Bokashi Food Fermentation Workshop

with Vandra Thorburn of Vokashi Kitchen Waste Solutions.

Learn how to ferment your food waste in a bucket in your kitchen and in a barrel in your garden or backyard with no smell & no mess. This method works for meat and dairy waste too since it is a closed anaerobic system. Lunch will be provided.

To follow two weeks after this workshop [when the fermented bran is ready to use] will be a workday to set up our in-garden and at-home Bokashi composting systems.

TBA[in June] Worm Composting indoors and outdoors.

Learn how to compost with worms in your backyard, kitchen or classroom. Learn to build indoor and outdoor worm composting bins. This is a great composting method for kids!

Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner will be provided (depending on the time of day).

Upcoming Events

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:09:57 +0000

March 16, 2011, 10:30am – 6:30pm Green Thumb Seed Giveaway

Saturday April 2, 2011 Green Thumb Grow Together Conference, Hostos Community College, Bronx

Friday April 8, 2011 Deadline for ordering plants at the GrowNYC’s annual plant sale. This year they are accepting EBT as payment for Herb and Vegetable starts!

Saturday April 9, 2011, noon First Monthly Garden Meeting in garden (or at rain location posted here and on the garden gate)

Saturday April 16, 2011, 11am – 1pm Composting Open House and Q & A in the Garden with the Lower East Side Ecology Center

Garden promise of Spring

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:39:15 +0000

In the last days, the garden has shown encouraging signs of spring. Chives and other early herbs have started to send out light green shoots (such as the lambs ears in the lower right of this photo).

The tips of irises (pictured), tulips and other early flowers are peeking out of the just-thawed soil.

Small signs of life that show many plants, bushes and trees survived this very harsh winter, and Spring is in the air.

The growing season will start soon in the garden, and the Green Thumb GrowTogether conference for all NYC gardeners is scheduled for April 2, 2011.

Garden in Deep Freeze

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 05:45:19 +0000

In the last weeks we have had many freezing days and nights. Here’s a picture of the garden from above in Winter. As you can see, even in mid December, there’s still vegetables and herbs growing in the garden.

Photo by Carolina P.

History of the Garden

morrisjumelcommunitygarden — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:11:16 +0000

This Sunday we met a woman who’s great grandmother was a maid to Dr. Nye, who lived in the very large house which sat on 2 of the lots that the garden now grows on.

NYPL’s digital gallery has 2 pictures of this house, taken in 1934 and 1935:

Now the great granddaughter lives just down 162nd street from where her great grandmother worked, years ago.

She was a recent immigrant from Sweden. According to a recommendation letter written by Dr. Nye, she was a good and sober worker.

Here’s an undated picture of the corner of 162nd and Amsterdam “before reconstruction” also from the NYPL Digital Library