Cold, Dark and Dead

Spring seems so far away. The only things of note in my pit are the garbage and cigarette butts. Still I got this note from Christine Quinn's office and thought a few of you might still be interested in things like mulch. In the meantime, stay warm. Think green thoughts.

MulchFest 2013

Please join the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the New York City Department of Sanitation, and GreeNYC in recycling your Christmas trees into wood chips.  Bringing your tree to a designated city park to be recycled into mulch will nourish plantings across the city!  You can also take home your very own bag of free mulch to use in your backyard or to make a winter bed for a street tree.

MulchFest 2013 is happening this Saturday and Sunday, January 12 and 13 from 10:00AM to 2:00PM.  

There are chipping locations, where you can drop off your tree and pick up a bag of mulch and drop off only locations all over the City.  To find one closest to you please visit http://www.nycgovparks.org/highlights/festivals/mulchfest.   

You can bring your tree to a drop-off site from Wednesday, January 9 through Sunday, January 13.  Leave your tree with the Parks Department and they will recycle it.

Free Daffodils for our Pits

Mark your calendars: Daffodil bulbs are coming! Free from the Daffodil Project. I have ordered 1,100 and they arrive October 21. We should also be getting mulch, hopefully around the same time.

A Grand Proclamation

Everyone had a terrific time at the Proclamation last week and Sen. Tom Duane made time in his busy schedule to stand with us. Melanie in Speaker Quinn's office is making copies of the Proclamation so every gardener can have one and the large framed version is currently with Paul. If you would like to have it for a week, it can circulate. Just send me an email request.

There are lots of pictures and I will post them on the Facebook page. But here is one from Lisa at 20th & 8th. (Note our signature cosmos and Dennis's vase of pit flowers which he presented to Speaker Quinn)
A golden cosmo to Sen. Duane, Speaker Quinn and all our gardeners. Flower Power!

Our Proclamation

A proclamation honoring the all the hard work of the club's gardeners will be read Wednesday, August 22 at City Hall at 1:30pm. Congratulations to gardeners and supporters alike.
Flower power!

Rotten tomatoes and other lovely things

Frederick Fleming House on 22nd has been making their own compost for a while now and has generously offered to provide the Garden Club gardeners with some of their extra compost.  I think if gardeners sign up for it then we can have each person pick it up as it become available. Send me an email that you would like to be on the list for compost and when your name comes up, I will let you know. (cgc.nyc@gmail.com)
Also our own compost bin at 22nd and 8th still could use some coffee grounds, fruit & veggies, brown napkins, leaves and plant matter. Remember when you clean out your pits, to save the stems, leaves etc. and put them in the bin. The sooner we fill it, the sooner we'll have compost!

Pit destruction and its aftermath...

Jared in Tom Duane's office did us a solid this week:
Several pits around 12th Street and Eight Avenue (our formerly unknown southern district) that Robert (17th & 8th) had also gardened, were ripped up without notice and all of the plants there destroyed. Christine Quinn's office helped find out who committed this dastardly deed and Tom Duane (and Jared) penned a terrific letter so that this does not happen to any other adopted pits without appropriate advance notice.
The letter is below.
A giant "thank you" to our guardian angels!

A Disturbance in the Force

So Eric caught a woman rifling through the plants in his pit this week and a nearby crossing guard told him she had taken plants out of his pit before (and possibly Paul's pit as well)along Ninth Avenue. Eric snapped a pix so if you see this woman (from behind) at a pit, tell her nicely to look but don't touch!