Thursday, October 6, 2011

Bushwick Campus Farm: Dinner Time!

September 16th was a big night for the Bushwick Campus Farm. The local online news site BUSHWICKBK was kind enough to cover it here. It was only a few months earlier that students from the school were constructing soil beds and planting the first seeds. Thanks to the work of Farm Managers Joe Chavez and Maggie Cheney along with green team students and volunteers, the garden has become lush and quite dense! So to celebrate, we invited allies of the farm like Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and the principals of the Bushwick Campus, volunteers, and Bushwick High students to a delicious dinner.
Sungold cherry tomatoes garnished the salad's freshly harvested greens and radishes. Sean-Michael Fleming cooked eggplant a la Bushwick which Chrissy's Cooking Club served alongside kale and potato samosas, mushrooms and green beans, peach crisp, and lemon-basil ice cream.

A lot of the food was donated by outside groups and businesses like Boswyck Farms and Verde, but much of it was grown at Bushwick Campus Farm, and speaking as a long-time volunteer it was humbling to see the product we at the farm had worked so hard on turned into such delicious and satisfying dishes. This, in many ways, is the epitome of the movement back to local food: knowing where your food is coming from and where it's been every step of the way. In this case it went from Maggie and Joe's hands to Sean's hands. Then we ate. No trucks, airplanes, pesticides, etc. needed. Neat, right?

Of course this is only the very beginning. Tomorrow we'll be spending time setting up the hydroponic "farm in the sky" at Fireproof East, and we may be expanding the campus farm down the line as well. But right now we're making food our community can enjoy every day. Enjoy!

Saturday, August 20, 2011

A Great Farm Summer in Bushwick!



Its been an amazing first summer at the Bushwick Campus Farm, with a bumper crop of farm fresh produce for the local farmer's market. This was the work of Green Guerillas, which hired a group of Bushwick students to maintain the farm under farm manager Joe Chavez. And there's EcoStationNY, which runs the Bushwick Farmer's Market, where our greens, tomatoes, eggplants, and flowers are sold to local residents. Financial incentives for EBT users make sure that fresh greens are affordable to all.
Beyond the market, we are starting to supply to local restaurants, like Cafe Ghia. As we expand our base, its important to remember that all net income is reinvested, to keep our Campus Farm growing.

With our economic approach, the only way to grow is up!

Stay tuned for just that, our planned hydroponic fence project with Boswyck Farms, coming in September!

Till then, take a look at some wonderful galleries of farm photos!

Adam J Schwartz--Schwartzy's Photo Gallery (Close ups)




Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Thanks for the Pom Wonderful Workday!





Many thanks go out to the fine folks at Pom Wonderful, who had a very productive service day at the Bushwick Campus Farm. In addition, they donated $2,000 towards building up infrastructure in the farm.

Green Thumb worked with EcoStationNY to make this all a reality. Pom brought in 20 energized employees, to get the work done. And a lot got done indeed.





3 compost bins






















6 raised beds









and Moving lots of dirt!











Andrew Barnett from Grow to Learn did some weeding and planting with a group of student volunteers, taking some time at the end of regents to learn about horticulture.









After the work day, the Pom Wonderful crew had lunch at Woodbine Garden, prepared brilliantly by the EcoStationNY crew.

Pom Wonderful is a division of Roll Global, one of the largest private farming companies in the world, growing almonds, pistachios, and citrus. We on the Bushwick Green Team are thankful for the intro, and hope to work with them again on other projects.






Saturday, June 25, 2011

Grown in Bushwick

thanks Stevenson Catul for making this great film that documents our first few months of building up the garden.

We have a long way towards building building a sustainable garden, but look how far we have come!


Sunday, June 12, 2011

farm day!

Last Friday was Field Day at Bushwick Campus, but we decided what better day to get more students involved with the farm?!?!

So all day students came over to the farm to help move dirt, plant plants, and learn about the farm.


moving dirt!!






















planting plants!






















we even have a video!



look at what is already planted!!















































more pictures to come!




Thursday, June 9, 2011

more dirt!

In preparation for farm day Dragonetti Brothers brought over some more dirt!!

 

 



And here are some volunteers from Grow to Learn and Green Guerillas!

Monday, June 6, 2011

compost time!

After we got our raised beds filled with dirt and planted with plants it was time to focus on being able to make more dirt. Or compost to be exact.

Compost is important because it reduces the amount of waste we send to landfills. Also, adding compost to soil makes it richer and more delicious to the plants. So, of course, the Bushwick Campus Farm needs compost bins.


AUP students were on the job to help get us started!

Here they are sifting the compost!








Here they are harvesting vermicompost - 
or worm poop.


(eww!)