Will place an order for starters with Grow NYC, but also lookin lookg to seed start by members. Please reach out to Victoria or Sam if you’d like to assist with seed starting
New Bench – try and find a second-hand bench or reach out to local groups to see if anyone has one they’re willing to donate. Can also look at freecycle groups. GreenThumb can also help supply this.
T Shirts – please reach out if you want to coordinate or design. We should look to vote on this pretty soon in case there is long lead time before the summer party
Summer Party – 6/15
Contact Ariel if you’d like to get involved
Aiming to raise $2,000
“Vermin No More! 2024” strategy – ridding the garden of rats, mosquitoes and lanternflies
Tranquility Garden used chicken wire and gravel to keep rats at bay UP TO $300 FOR 1/4 IN WIRE MRSH
Vote for Membership coordinator (and possibly other positions?)
Luke voted in as Co-Membership Coordinator
Allyson looking to have a co treasurer. Please reach out if you are interested (need to be with the garden at least 1 year)
Explore interest in growing mushrooms
Mary is taking some initiative here. Please reach out to her if you are interested in learning more or helping
Soil testing
Caroline to look into
Green Thumb Updates
Will order as much woodchips as possible
Picking up equipment on 3/30. Equipment includes… Watering Can, Canvas wheelbarrow, trash bags,
No current need for compost or soil-
Given yesterday’s work around the garden has this changed? It looks like we went through a lot of our supply.
If green thumb does not supply watering cans, we should buy some
Green Thumb only supplying a canvas wheelbarrow so we should buy 2 more.
Looking into getting a bench provided from Green Thumb
Will follow up with Green Thumb about getting water barrels/lids.
Fence contractor coming back after Thanksgiving for more fence work
Move sensitive plants along the fence to pots
Pedestrian gate being installed on the Maspeth side
Need a chain and lock for the new gate – what is access like? Can we open it from both sides? This gate should be strictly used as the hydrant access gate.
Need to think of a better way to waitlist private plots.
Landed on becoming more involved is helpful, but the garden is so much more than private plot access. Can potentially provide little areas throughout the garden that people really desiring a private plot can maintain themselves. Also encourage, as always, to get heavily involve in community beds.
have historically documented involvement, but this can get tricky and “micro manage-y”
Question came up that what if they want to plant something in the community beds that’s personal to them? Need to run by Sam and Victoria – they are both open to planting community desired plants, but want to do so if it makes sense
talk with Sam and Victoria if you have a specific desired plant for the community bed for 2024
Dates
Open garden day – first Saturday of June
Summer party – June 15
Projects for 2024
Rat mitigation. Hire someone to help?
New furniture
Finish compost bins
Raised beds (smaller) throughout the garden. We have some excess wood from the tree guards that may be able to be used
Fix rain collection barrel next to stage
What equipment do we need that green thumb doesn’t provide?
We noted that the community bed cleanup went well, and the remaining plants are still growing, with peppers ripening.
We approved a $300 budget for the Oct. 29 Fall party.
We discussed rats, especially that:
The best way to drive out rats is to find and collapse their burrows continually and to try to make the garden less hospitable to new burrows. During the work day, we placed red flags where that needs to happen. Some burrows go around plant roots and must be addressed in the winter. Corey explained why other strategies, such as traps and poison, won’t be effective in the long term.
The compost bin needs to be rat-proofed, especially having its lids completed.
We approved $200 in rat-proofing materials (meshes, copper and/or foam fill, etc) so we can evaluate how well various options work and how well they fit within the garden.
Voted yes on $300 budget for food and drinks for the event
Still waiting to hear back on pumpkin donation from David for pumpkin painting.
Everyone loves the idea of a pie contest. We can include this on the second batch of flyers.
Travis will promote the times of the contests on IG.
Action Needed:
Alex is changing the flier to say 1-6pm and including the pie contest at 5pm – once we have this updated/printed Travis wanted to get the digital file to post on IG
Need people to hand out thank you cards and put up event flyers this week and next – send a list of donors to the team so we can do this
Need a firm list of volunteers for setup, tear down and a food run. Setup at 12:30, food runs the day of (make a list) and tear down after 6:00 pm. Have two volunteers for setup (Jeff and Alden)
Alden said his sister would be open to donating her time and performing at the event, although she is a solo artist and usually sings acoustic. Her IG is @dania_music_ .If this does not work Jeff may be able to DJ and set up a playlist that works.
If we have t-shirts left over do we want to sell those at the event?