Community Gardens of New York City.
Some of New York City's community gardens have been around nearly 30 years. They're stunningly verdant, in the midst of skyscrapers and sidewalks, with the sound of cars and sirens clanging around between the buildings. Within the gates of the gardens you're embraced by the misty, fragrant atmosphere of a forest, and can safely peer out between the bars at the buzzing jungle of the metropolis on the other side. The juxtaposition is enough to make you dizzy.

Both of these images are from Liz Christy Garden, one of the first projects of the Green Guerillas. The shiny building behind the greenery is brand new. The developers were planning to destroy the garden, but the Guerillas and gardeners resisted successfully.








  ¶ 10:35 AM 0 Comments

Next up: Shed! And....a greenhouse gas inventory! Thanks again to everyone who helped out at our chaordic and sweaty but still lovely and successful Community Cubed Festival.

Next on our to-do list is one of the most exciting parts of the garden project: the sustainable, rainwater-catching, seedling starting, SHADE providing (aaaaah too good to be true!), event hosting shed! This small structure will be made of as much reclaimed and recycled material as possible, and will make a lot of our work in the garden easier and more comfortable. I'm not kidding about the shade thing. It's downright brutal up there in the hot sun right now. The shed will also give us secure storage capacity for seeds, tools, records and books; space to keep sensitive seedlings out of the wind and sun, and out of the cold in winter.

How can you help? Quite simply: stay tuned for info about work days, and find us some 2x6 pieces of wood, 10 feet or longer. That's your scavenger hunt list. Go!

In other news, Jacksonville is getting closer to starting a comprehensive baseline greenhouse gas inventory, using the best software available, licensed by ICLEI.

I can't divulge many more details yet, but we seem to be past the point of scheduling meetings to discuss scheduling more meetings, and down to the point of getting the funds to license the software, pick up a used filing cabinet, sit an intern down in front of a phone and get. it. done!  ¶ 2:46 PM 1 Comments

Stop Planting Grass?!?! I recently came across some interesting ideas.

Stop planting grass in your lawns and plant some local wildlife 'cause we're in a drought. (Xeriscaping)

Wouldn't it be great to see green roofs downtown? You know, right next to those solar panels that run buildings or supply enegry for our new forms of transit.

On a side note, someone should start a restaurant in Jacksonville that serves local produce straight from their roof top garden.  ¶ 10:39 AM 1 Comments

Celebrate with us! Sunday May 25th.














The Springfield Community Garden, before and after.

Working for something you believe in is essential. But almost as important as discovering just how hard you can work is learning to celebrate along the way. If you don't stop to reflect, praise, and say thanks you'll never fully understand why you're fighting in the first place.

We have been working very hard since October, and now it's time to party! For that reason, primarily, but also to introduce the garden to the community formally, and to raise some money for nails and concrete, we are hosting the Community Community Community Festival (a notion so important we have to say it thrice!).

On Sunday, May 25th, from noon 'til late, we will celebrate with garden tours, workshops, our environmental allies, free food and live music. The evening show, held inside the Pearl, will be a benefit to raise cash for the garden, and to collect food for Ultimate Picnic. $5 or 5 cans of food gets you in the door. Outdoor events are all free. Also, if you've got good condition, second-hand garden tools to get rid of, we'll gladly take them. We've been breaking rakes and shovels left and right!

Activities:
making seed bombs (to surreptitiously spread flowers in empty lots!)
making moss graffiti (to tag walls with living greenery)
recycled crafts (necklaces, fairy lights, and seedling pots)
free food by Ultimate Picnic

Allies roster:
Sierra Club
Jacksonville's Sustainable Future
Jacksonville Seed Exchange
Riverkeeper
Audubon Society
The Gleaning Network

Band roster:
During the afternoon The Homesteaders, The Naughty Pines String Band and Khalid's Crew will be playing outdoors.

Later, inside the Pearl...
4:00 - Wudun
4:50 - Tuffy
5:40 - Sharing Needles with Jesus
6:30 - Helios Eye
7:20 - Airport Factory
8:10 - Manatella
9:00 - America del Sur
9:50 - Fruit Machine
10:40 - Buffalo Tears
11:30 - Heavy Flow
12:20 - Tough Junkie
1:10 - Lazerstar

Bring seeds to swap, picnic blankets, chairs, frisbees, dogs, and kids. We are looking forward to a beautiful and relaxed event.
  ¶ 3:02 PM 2 Comments

Seed bombs, trial run. Community vs. JSO, trial run.

I was in the garden yesterday putting together materials for the seed bomb workshop we'll be doing this Sunday at the festival. The last source of fill dirt we discovered was largely clay soil, but seed bomb recipes typically call for potter's clay. I wanted to see if we could use what we already had so I decided to do a trial run.

I laid the clay and some compost out to dry for a few days. Then I took a sheet of screen and laid it on a scrap of our bed-lining plastic. I put the clay on top and started crushing it with a rock to sift it into a fine powder. This took a while.

I did the same with the compost, and put the powdered stuff into separate buckets. Then I measured out some of each, added water, and started mixing. It was soupy, so I added more clay and more compost until I could form balls. It was a lot like making bread by hand.

The mix looked great! It was pretty sticky, and the balls held together just fine. I didn't add any seeds, so I'm not sure how that will affect things. I imagine it'll work.

I laid the balls out on the slab to dry.

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Shortly after I finished I noticed a police car stopping a tall black man in the parking lot next door. I have instinctual issues with cops. I can't say I'm correct (in fact I think I'm wrong), but my instinct is to mistrust them, so I was watching this scenario thinking very negative things about the armed party, and sympathetic things about the unarmed and very calm citizen who was having his pockets rifled through.

Another officer showed up, which irked me. Y'all are never where you need to be, but eight of you show up to accost one unarmed black man?! (again, let me disclaim that my feelings about cops are not what I consider wholly rational. I'm sure they had some reason for stopping him. They must have.). Then, a smallish white man in a hawaiian shirt, who had recently walked past, heading north, returned and started mouthing off at the police. He was saying things I couldn't really hear, but probably agreed with. Things like, "F*&$ you, Lieutenant!", and something about false charges. He walked on past the scene, and it was then that the officers yelled, "Hey, come back here!" One officer ran after him (why?!), brought him back (he came along willingly), and then threw him onto the ground (which made my heart drop to my feet). I should have shouted at that point, something like, "I'm watching you." but I just watched, terrified that I would have to watch this crazy but harmless fellow be brutalized.

They put him in the car, and he sat there for a while. Then, inexplicably, they dragged him out of the car and threw him to the sand. His face was in this awful dusty dirt, but he didn't appear to be struggling. The officer was kneeling beside him, subduing him, and kneed him in the side several times. Then the guy started writhing, and his shirt was pulled off one shoulder. He was pretty much crying at this point, acting more pathetic than violent. The black fellow meanwhile, was squatting nearby, waiting to be released, shaking his head.

Then it got good.

Four other cars showed up (again, why?!). And around the same time Philip showed up to get the pickup truck and the grant money to use today. He asked me what was happening and I related what I'd seen. He said, "Alright, I'm going to go talk to them." And walked over.

All Richard saw when he passed the garden on his way to Zombie Bikes was Philip surrounded by five police cars and all the officers.

After Philip finished talking to the police, he returned to the garden and explained to me what had happened, what my rights were as a citizen witness, what the likely motivations were, etc. I was happy to learn this stuff, although it didn't alter my instinctual mistrust of police...at all.

Minutes later, Josh Dunn arrived at the garden. And then I saw Matt Bort biking up. Then Richard arrived, then Chris and Deirdre, and a few others.

I wondered if we were having a meeting about the festival or something. Then Richard explained that he'd seen the police surrounding Philip. He had gone straight to the bike shop, told everyone there, and they all immediately biked over to see what was going on.

I am happy to report that the friend corps' response time was something like three minutes. It was a false alarm, but I was stunned. I've been working with a neighborhood crime watch group in Riverside recently, wondering what to do, how to get it to come together. Yesterday it clicked. All you need is love, a sense of justice, and a willingness to drop everything the second your friend is in trouble.  ¶ 9:24 AM 2 Comments

More From Our Seed Bomb Instructor... Check out this link and watch some more guerrilla gardening.
http://current.com/items/76369942_guerrilla_gardener  ¶ 12:16 PM 3 Comments

Bike to work day, May 16th.

A re-post from Matt at Bikejax.

Even though our esteemed Governor decreed March as Bike Month in Florida. The rest of the nation celebrates bike month in May. And May 16th is the holy day of Bike Month. It's known as National Bike To Work Day.

  ¶ 9:55 PM 0 Comments

Fred Phillips' children's gardens.
This weekend we had the pleasure of meeting Fred Phillips (in the straw hat), who started an organization that builds Children's gardens in Charleston, South Carolina. His son Dylan lives here in Jacksonville, and is a new friend of the Springfield Garden.

Fred worked with us on Saturday, and when we were finished he sat down and explained some of the ways he works with the children in his gardens. They have only a few rules, that he insists they follow. Things like, no hitting, no throwing things, and listen to instructions. He spoke of how we must keep the promises we make to children, because adults don't always do this. I think the gardens are his promise.

He told us of a garden in a public housing project, which was vandalized repeatedly. After each incident they replaced the cinder blocks and the bulletin board, eventually using concrete to secure them. And after the third or fourth repair the vandalism stopped. They had succeeded in making it clear that this space would not be destroyed. He described it almost like a conversation, in which one party spoke the language of destruction, and the other spoke the language of repair. In the end, repair was convincing enough to win the day.

One thing we wanted to do with our exchange student visitors, Fred's organization seems to do very well. They use the garden itself as a tool for teaching about a vast range of topics. He explained how signs and labels in the garden can be tools for talking about the development of language and communication. He made maps showing where the various plants originated in the world, with stickers for the children to match the country with the vegetable. He gave us a long and detailed list of conversation topics, paced throughout a season, for teaching in the garden. They use the growth of seedlings to discuss various ways of measuring time. They use the need for laying out beds to discuss different methods of measuring space and distance. It's a 20 week list of activities that tie in all kinds of knowledge, and weave them into the space itself, with hands-on activities. If anyone wants a copy of these lists please ask. They're so incredibly rich.

Fred also showed us a few toys, made of wood, that came from the Appalachian tradition. "These moms and dads didn't have any money for toys. All they had were pieces of wood, and a knife to whittle, and they loved their kids. So that's what you get." He demonstrated a "sky hook", and showed us this completely mind-blowing carved toy: a complete set of doll furniture made from a small cube of wood. That probably sounds dull, but the fact that this toy was originally made with hand tools and no calculators, from a single block of wood, is impressive. All the pieces interlock to compose the cube. If you ever get the chance to see one you'll understand.

We fell in love with Fred. He gave us such a lovely vision of the potential our project has.

Also this Saturday we were helped by some industrious neighbors with tools. They built one of the last few beds in the front of the site! We are getting close to finishing this phase of the project. Now we just need dirt. Truckloads and truckloads of it.

If anyone has either clean fill dirt or a pickup truck they'd like to give us, please do not hesitate to let us know.  ¶ 1:41 PM 1 Comments

Soap Nuts There is a tree commonly called a soap berry tree. The tree produces a fruit. The outer casing of the fruit can be used to clean in your washing machine, and dishwasher. You can also use it to clean yourself in place of shampoo and soap. Here is a link to a google search for "soap nuts".

Apparently these are popular in Europe. . . but they seem to call them "Soap Pods"

I did some looking and there is a variety that is native to Florida. . .but I do not know if it has the same cleaning power.

More research into that is being done.

I did ask "he who knows these things" if there were any growing around Duval . . . "he" was not aware of any. . . so that pretty much means there are not. BUT good news. . . it is non-invasive!

I am planting a soap nut tree very soon. Have Fun!  ¶ 9:45 PM 2 Comments

Seed-bombing... Here's a video of how to make seed bombs, just one of the many fun things we'll be doing on May 25th in the Springfield Community Garden. Come join us!

Richard Reynolds making seed bombs.  ¶ 8:58 AM 4 Comments