August 9, 2017

FIELD TRIP! Today we had a horticulture field trip. We got to go on a tour of the Javits Center's green roof. It is the largest green roof in New York City and the second largest green roof in the U.S. The green roof was added a few years ago during a massive renovation to make the building more environmentally friendly. The garden on the top is really big and covered in a bunch of different types of sedum, a low growing plant that is very good at absorbing water. This was a bit unexpected, a lot of use were expecting to see a garden like we work on every week, with flowers and plants, but the purpose of this green roof is to absorb water and keep the temperature of the building lower, which sedum is apparently very good at. The roof is also home to lots of birds, and as such, you can see lots of bones from different animals that birds have eaten on the roof. Kinda creepy, but really interesting.

We only saw half of the Javits Center's green roof, the other half is where they keep bees. They are hoping to harvest their first honey this fall, and plan to use it in the building's cafeteria - pretty cool.

After the tour, we got to see a bit more of the building. Workers were getting ready for a big exposition, so there was lots of activity in the main hall. We also got to see the main entrance, which they call the crystal palace.

After the Javits Center, we crossed the street to visit a bit of the High Line and enjoy our lunch. Most of us on the trip had never visited the High Line before, so that was fun. And after lunch, we all got ice pops - mine was raspberry hibiscus - before it was time to go home. 

August 7, 2017

So. Much. Rain. Unfortunately it started raining on Monday morning and didn't really let up. But we hadn't been to Morris is a while, so there was so work that had to get done, rain or shine. There was lots to harvest: squash, kale, mizuna, tomatoes - including our first taxi tomatoes - and malibar spinach. Unfortunately some of the squash wasn't looking so great, probably because of the squash beetles. Removing the two squash plants last time we were at Morris wasn't enough. There were some young squash beetles on the squash plants on the other side of the garden, but we killed those and removed all of the eggs from the leaves. To be extra safe, we sprayed the leaves with soapy water, hopefully that will be enough! The rain eventually got heavier so we went inside to taste the yellow taxi tomato, before calling it an early day.

July 26, 2017

The tomato horn worm hunt continued today in Morris. There was some damage on a few tomato plants, but even with the bounty of one ice cream per horn worm found, we didn't find any worms on the tomato plants. But the hunt will continue next week.

Horn worms aren't the only pest affecting the garden, we are also dealing with squash beetles. We found beetles and their eggs on two plants that were pretty damaged. Since we aren't going to be at Morris next week, we made the decision to remove two plants, hoping that will prevent the bugs from spreading to the other squash plants.

But the rest of the garden is doing really well. We harvested kale, oak leaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes, mizuna, shizo, malibar spinach, cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini.

August 14, 2017

Today was a busy day at 111. Since we weren't in the garden last week there was lots to take care of. We harvested cucumbers, zucchini, malibar spinach, mustard greens and our first tomato. We also cleared two of the raised beds that had the cranberry beans. Those plants had dried up and we had harvest all of the beans last time we worked in the garden. In the same beds, there were also a bunch of sunflowers that unfortunately fell over, so we took those out so that there would be room for us to plant some new seeds. Once everything was cleared we planted brussels sprouts and rainbow carrots, they should be ready to harvest in the fall.

After lunch we had this year's first foray into baking! We made a peach gallette, or free form pie. We had to cut up the peaches, roll out the dough, assemble everything and brush the crust with an egg wash so that it would turn golden and shiny. While the gallette was baking, we picked a few edible flowers from the garden, nasturtium and johnny jump ups, to decorate the finished pie. Which, if I do say so myself, was delicious!