Posts categorized as Gardening

The Beach 91st Street Community Garden has teamed up with Rockaway Art Room for drawing meet-ups at the garden! I can’t explain how wonderful it felt to spend an hour and a half outside on a beautiful evening, sitting with a mix of conversation and concentration. People were scattered around the picnic table under the pergola, where the wisteria had finally taken off! Garden members, friends, and their little ones stretched out on a blanket, drawing the plants that surrounded them. My neighbor Anne created lovely black and white pen sketches of those […]

For a long while, I’ve been annoyed that my backyard is shaded. The condo on 91st and Shorefront blocks almost all the sun. So much space to garden back there, but what can I really do with almost all shade? Around 9 or 10 years old, when you begin to realize that. How your body looks in the world matters (unfortunately). I noticed the size of my nose. It was so big. And I was so small and pale, and I had freckles, of course, only on my nose. The […]

Join the Beach 91st Street Community Garden crew for our annual plant sale this Sunday, May 17, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Please say a while! The weather looks perfect. Bring snacks or a full feast picnic and spend a fun, relaxed afternoon in the garden. There will be garden books to inspire your spring planting. We’ll have paper and colored pencils for the kids to draw flowers. Bring a camera and take some photographs of the growing garden. A guitar will be present!  And there will be plants for sale. Proceeds from Bellas’ […]

Back in May, I wrote in my column, “I’m Growing Peanuts!” – about the peanut plant a squirrel stored in my garden. I was so excited! I’d never grown peanuts before, and I learned they’re actually legumes, not nuts, and they grow underground; there’s no such thing as a peanut tree! Then summer rolled on, and something funny happened: I started noticing peanut plants all over 91st Street. Once I knew the look of the leaves, they were suddenly everywhere. I thought I was going nuts! Then it registered… There’s a guy […]

In May, I discovered the most wonderful surprise in my garden —a peanut sitting right on top of the soil! It was split open, and a tiny sprout was starting to grow. I tucked it into the soil with my fingers and thought, imagine? It must have come from the pile of peanuts someone leaves for the pigeons and squirrels outside the Beach 91st Street Community Garden gate, almost every morning. At our last monthly garden meeting, I went looking for the peanut plant but wasn’t exactly sure what I […]

I’m so excited to share that the old potato I had sitting on my kitchen counter—the one that started sprouting—has actually started growing in my garden! Honestly, I didn’t have high hopes for it. I just threw it on the ground for fun. If you remember, I wrote about this a few weeks back: How To Grow A Potato From A Potato. One month and a week later, the leaves are a vibrant green, sturdy, and healthy. The plant is about 4 inches tall, and at maturity, it can be […]

Over the past few weeks in the community garden, I’ve heard many people say some version of, “I’m so happy to have my hands back in the soil.” Gardening is good for wellness. It reconnects us to the earth, to nature, and to our natural state as human beings. All the sensory experiences associated with gardening or just being outdoors are calming—the scent of the soil, the texture of the plants to our touch, the warmth of the sun on our skin,  the colors of the flowers focused in your […]

After my stamping art project with compostable foods, including the potato, I started to wonder… How do you grow a potato from a potato? I’m a gardener, and I’ve never grown potatoes. Embarrassing to admit, but here we are. I checked in with fellow Beach 91st Street Community Garden members last Sunday during our second meeting of the season. Kilee and Dan have both grown potatoes from sprouting spuds found right in their kitchens. They confirm it’s totally easy. Store-bought potatoes (Red Bliss) like this aren’t as disease-resistant as certified seed potatoes since […]

Earthworms work slowly, deeper in the soil, and help structure and enrich soil over time. Let’s talk about worms. I know, I know—maybe not the most loved creature, but bear with me—because they are the unsung heroes of healthy soil and your garden. There are 30 species of worms in New York State, and only five are native. I’d like to focus on the few you’re most likely to see in your garden here in Rockaway Beach. There are the everyday earthworms —the kind you find chilling in the garden […]

April is staying true to its word, showering our land with the right amount of skywater to encourage vibrant greens and the early bloom of summer color. This weekend, the Beach 91st Street Community Garden held its season kick-off meeting, and I finally had the chance to touch the earth. Free compost from the Queens Botanical Garden (Queens Rep! Thank you!) was the afternoon task. I shoveled out the top three inches of soil from my garden plot and replaced it with rich compost. The scent of pure earth! I was amazed by how […]