spOOktacular HALLOWEEN PARTY!
COME ONE, COME ALL to
Bushwick City Farm’s Annual spOOktacular Halloween Party
Bring your friends and family and join us for October festivities!
Where: Stockton Street Farm, corner of Stockton Street & Lewis Avenue
When: October 27th at 2pm
What:
- pumpkins
- candy
- food for share (vegetarian options available!)
- costume contest
- face paint
- decorations
- balloons
- scavenger hunt
- and hula hooping
DONATIONS GREATLY APPRECIATED!
FALL is back in session!
freshly picked beets, basil and lettuce make for a scrumptious salad!
With the leaves turning and the weather a-changing, Bushwick City Farm volunteers have much to harvest! Our Saturday and Sunday hours at our Broadway and ever developing Stockton lot are as busy as ever. Sunday’s at 2pm at the Broadway lot is primetime for the citizens of Bushwick to reap the benefits of our labor.
our handy-dandy volunteers and the families they help feed.
Drop by! Join our oasis in the heart of Bushwick!
Take some time to see what land, when cultivated with love and care, can really offer us.
Girl, Your Roots Are Showing!
Radishes, hombre.
Style magazines are touting this new ombre hair that Rihanna, among others, has been traipsing around in. But in the watch lists of “Who Wore It Best”: The Visible Roots Edition, we’d like to practice a moment of total self-infatuation and nominate ourselves, Bushwick City Farm, for the Un Certain Regard award. We’re rocking our roots and we have been since inception!
Cut it up anyway you want and take it for a night on the town!
Stockton and Broadway are brimming with the fruits (or vegetables, as the case is) of an early harvest. We’ve got carrots, beets, radishes…and, just to make the above-ground vegetables feel included, we’ve got some lettuce too. But let us focus on our roots. We’ll be giving them all out on the regular, until they’re gone, so that you can get a bite of Bushwick, and get in on this newest root flaunting trend. Check out your style predecessors below.
All photos courtesy of Jason Reis.
The Scratch
And finally, without further ado, we offer you our inaugural City Farm profile…where we introduce you to one member of our community. And since we’re big on remembering that animals and plants are part of our system, we also like to include them as part of our community.
Therefore, let us introduce you to Mama.
Portrait of a Lady
Occupation: Senior Ratter, Agent of Symbiosis
Age: 2ish
Languages: Catonese, a little bit of Spanish
Hours: Nocturnal
Aliases: Miss Mama, Gray Cat
Mama hails from the streets of Bushwick. She and her sister were rescued by Masha and Vinny roughly two years ago when they were found in a sorry state hanging around the neighborhood bodegas looking for food. After a full vet check that included neutering services, vaccines and hydration, they were placed in the newly constructed cat house at the back of the Broadway farm. Though her sister went off to live her own life, Mama took to farm living where in exchange for food, shelter and freedom she protects our birds from the large and aggressive rats that roam the streets. Sometimes, the birds let her drink their water. Commensalism at its finest. Many a time we’ve had the pleasure of collecting Mama’s form of rent after an evening on the prowl…usually after tripping over it. Fantastic!
Though feral and much happier outside than in the confines of an apartment, Mama is partial to positive attention and can sometimes be found during work days, balled up in someone’s lap.
Lion King realness in front of the Compost Bin!
Giving it up to nature…giving it up to Julie Taymor.
EARTH DAY CELEBRATION POSTPONED UNTIL APRIL 29
More info to come – but it’s raining outside. Get some rest! We’ll see you next Sunday….!
That’s APRIL 29. 1-4. Stockton.
Oh Beehive!
This past weekend, the Stockton lot welcomed its newest edition…or what looks to bee 400+ of its newest editions…our haute hymenoptera. Check ‘em out.
A formation of Apiformes
These trusty critters come fully equipped with proboscises and electromagnetic charges, courtesy of Beekeeper Jeff Polley, seen posing below with his hive and his assistant.
Beehiving appropriately
Those of you who had planned to eventually use the Stockton lot as a quiet refuge from the hard-knock life of the streets of Bushwick should not be worried that your dreams are being attacked by a cloud of angry bees. These guys are pretty domesticated, and pretty friendly, as bees go, and are mostly interested in our plants and not your company. Refuge away.
This is, of course, a second generation of bees as Bushwick City Farm’s initial foray into taming the buzz was cut short by the mystery plague that has been overtaking so very many bees. (Click HERE for information on Colony Collapse Disorder.)
Here’s to a season of honey and pollination! We’ll be rooting for our new flowerbedfellows, while we’re rooting around our garden beds. Speaking of which…
More props to more volunteers who used the amazing weather as an excuse to promote your mom’s healthy vegetable agenda. In addition to fruit trees, we’ve now got radishes…
…beans…
…and greens. And look at the beautiful end result:
Now just imagine it post-growth with actual leaves…!
So things are abuzz (that’s sort of the last awful pun of this entry) and more is to come. Up next, our first profile and a more in-depth piece on the Egyptian-like wall formation east of Stockton.
A final shout-out to our hard-working bee experts:
Jeff Polley and B Man (Bee Man?)
We will see you all at our Earth Day Celebration on Sunday…April 22…1-4…Stockton Lot! Peace.
All photos courtesy of BCF volunteer Jason Reis.
City Transplants
Ah Spring! Season of Birth…
Also, season of Earth Day. That’s right. In a little over a week (SUNDAY, APRIL 22nd), we’re going to publicly acknowledge our appreciation for Earth. So whether you’re personally planning to worship at the altar of Rachel Carson, or official Earth Day father Senator Gaylord Nelson, or absorb the nature that surrounds you, you should plan to come to our Earth Day celebration. We will be at the Stockton Lot from 1-4, accompanied by these little transplanted newborns:
Those are 21 little cherry tomato seedlings up for (free!) grabs. That’s 21 pots of YES! for you to pick from so that you can start your own little green corner in our concrete jungle. Remember last spring when hanging tomato plants were all the rage? They aren’t out of style yet…
Speaking of mmmeeemmmmorrrriiiieeeessss,
Organic soil-covered meeeemmmmmorrrrriiiieeeeessss….
Remember way back two weeks ago when the earth moved? After a brief asylum on the inside of our gates, our soil has found its permanent home in our fruit tree boxes, thanks to the hard work of neighborhood volunteers. Look at ‘em go!
So(il) VERY impressive!
It now decorates the fruit tree boxes with its earthy goodness:
We are one step closer to getting our garden expansion to a level of actual functionality! Spring is in the air and in the fruit tree boxes!
Check back soon for our first City Farm Profile!
All photos courtesy of volunteer Jason Reis.
