FEEDback Farms

Thanks for the great summer season!

noreply@blogger.com (thallaran) — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:44:00 +0000

Come out Saturday the 29th for the last Feedback Farms market at A Small Green Patch (348 Bergen St.) of the season. We'll have cucumbers (lemon and super- 8s - both are amazing if you haven't tried them yet), cherry tomatoes, basil, and a huge array of peppers.

The market was open for 12 weeks. Thanks for helping us have a great first Summer! If you would like to help out, this Saturday, we will be planting out fall crops. Thanks to all our supporters everywhere and neighbors in Boerum Hill, Gowanus and Park Slope communities that we border. This is our last market but there will be plenty of more opportunities to help out this fall, planting cover crops, doing soil amendments, working on sensors and more. Email info@feedbackfarms.com if you want to get involved.

If you want to get down and dirty, Feedback will be building out our second location at Myrtle Village Green from 10am-3pm Sunday the 30th ( 630 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn). Come out and learn about sub-irrigated planter construction - there will be plenty of tools to go around.

Benefit for 596 Acres. 596 Acres the tremendously effective organizing platform for Brooklyn open space is having a benefit party on October 6th. Come celebrate another growing season ended and support this fantastic ally! Get your Tickets Here!

The Feedback Farm Bees

noreply@blogger.com (Sam) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 16:42:00 +0000

Bees hanging out in their habitat on our farm

Though occupying no more than a thin slice of a Brooklyn lot, Feedback Farms still has some local residents: snails, caterpillars and, inside a stack of drawers looking like a nightstand, a colony of bees.

Fear not! They don't sting if you don't bug 'em. Feedback'er Kellen Henry (@kellenhenry), our own queen of the queens and the brains behind our bee operation, gave us the scoop on what a bee hive is doing on a farm in high-density residential Brooklyn:

Kellen Henry

They're Brooklyn Bees, like you...

Even with six legs, compound eyes, honey-making enzymes and apitoxin stingers, the honey bees of Brooklyn have a lot in common with the rest of us Brooklynites

Honey bees are old-school
Honey bees have been around for about 20 million years and humans have been cultivating bees since pre-historic times. Beekeeping makes an appearance in 8,000-year-old cave paintings, Egyptian tombs and just about every ancient religious text. Old. School.

They’re into group housing
A single hive can house between 30,000 - 50,000 bees at a given time. Bees are superorganisms – they can’t survive as individuals and they have highly specialized division of labor. They communicate through pheromones, rather than passive-aggressive roommate notes.

Bees like to break it down
When pheromones aren’t enough, bees turn to dance. Forager bees perform the figure-8 waggle dance to share information about the direction and distance of good nectar and pollen sources.

Bees like to chill too

They're lookin' to reproducing
A queen bee can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day. Take that, Park Slopers. Virgin queens go out on mating flights only once in their lives, during which they may mate with 12-15 male drone bees in the air. The queen then uses selective sperm release to populate the hive. Fertilized eggs become female worker bees. Unfertilized eggs become male drone bees.

They're total foodies
Bees are the OG of locavorism. They typically forage for nectar in the 2 mile radius of the hive, but can go further. Bees suck nectar out of flowering plants with their straw-like tongues. They turn nectar into honey using enzymes in their mouths and "honey stomachs" and store it in honeycomb, fanning their wings to remove excess moisture. Local plants give honey it's "terroir," including flavor and color. Some find hyperlocal honey innocultes them against local pollen allergies.

They like to keep cool by stoop-sitting
It's called "bearding." (No, not like that.) When it’s hot and humid, bees sometimes cluster on the outside of the hive, fanning their wings to circulate air. If it’s really toasty, the bees may remain on the outside of the hive through the night. Block party!

Want to learn more about bees and beekeeping?

I’m usually at the hive a couple of evenings a week. Get in touch and join me for a hive inspection!

Our bees' home

Time: Keeping bees requires several hours a week per hive, more at busy times of year. Don't bee alone! Sign up for a class that includes an intro to hive management and bee biology, join a meetup group to connect with fellow enthusiasts and do plenty of reading on your own!

Location: Find a place for your hive that’s easy to access, safe from the elements and out of sight of vandals and curious pets/children. Remember, if you have to climb up a up a rickety latter or go to another borough, you're less likely to put in the time. You'll also miss out on the wonderful experience of just sitting back and watching your bees fly.

Cost: It will run you about $300 to get set up initially with bees, woodenware and tools. You could easily spend much more at the big outfitters, so make sure you've got a good understanding of the essentials before breaking out your credit card. Beekeeping group also often invest in pricy equipment -- like honey extractors -- that members can rent or borrow.

A view of the Farm

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:03:00 +0000

Looking over our website I realized we didn't have an image of what the farm looks like these days! Here are some photos, one looking north, the other south, of our VERY healthy tomato plants. So healthy we are not quite sure how to continue staking them after they have grown over our 6' stakes and now the 8' ones too.

A view to the North

A View to the South

Introducing Feedback Farmer's Market!

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 11:47:00 +0000

After 50 years of lying fallow, 348 Bergen is back. We have overcome the odds! Join us on Saturdays from 11 to 4pm ( or whenever we sell out) for our Farmer's Market! We'll have Peppers, Tomatoes, Kale, Squash -- get 'em while they're hot, and before you spice 'em up.

As always, check us on Twitter.

Extra tomatoes planted at Darling Farm

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:20:00 +0000

We met up with our friends - the caretaker/farmers at Darling Farm in Woodbridge, CT this weekend and put our extra tomato starts in their fresh ground. There is a legacy of technology on the old place: see the lightning rod on the house? Ben Franklin put that up.

Bionic Gardens

noreply@blogger.com (thallaran) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 19:41:00 +0000

Come see Feedback Farms new urban farming technologies at the Flux Factory.
Bionic Gardens Show
Opening: Saturday June 9th 1-4pm and up all season

"Some people like to talk to their plants; now, their plants can (kind of) talk back. With a wireless sensor network, Feedback Farms provides a solution to decentralized gardening/farming by establishing a system wherein the moisture levels of the soil are monitored and communicated via the internet. Feedback Farms is an urban agricultural organization seeking to investigate New York City’s potential to host viable farms on vacant lots and stalled construction sites. Flux Factory will be a pilot site for their newest cohort of crops that trigger a LED notification as they require water, making it easy for even those without green thumbs to know how to respond to the needs of their silent friends. The planters feature sub-irrigation which include specialized reservoirs and valves to prevent over and underwatering. Also featuring heirloom tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, and bok choy."

BEES!

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Sun, 27 May 2012 15:29:00 +0000

348 Bergen is the new home of queen bee Beyonce and her hive. Recently relocated from DC to sunny south Brooklyn, Beekeeper Kellen Henry shown here smoking the bees into a better mood.

We got a truck full of of woodchips

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Thu, 24 May 2012 03:41:00 +0000

The city Parks Dept delivered a truck full ( ~14 cubic yards if anyone is counting) of woodchips to 348 Bergen. The truck did not fit through our gate but we decided to take the chips anyway. We spent the volunteer day spreading the chips and clearing the sidewalk. Thanks to everyone who came out and helped!

This is what 18 tons of soil looks like!

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:46:00 +0000

Our potting soil, topsoil, and compost arrived this week From McEnroe Organic Farm. Many many thanks to Aaron, Donald, Eric, Kathleen, Michelle and Peter who came out on Tuesday to help move (by hand mind you) all ~36,000 lbs of it! We are filling our beds and will start planting them out this weekend.

New uses for architectural piles, Assembled SIPS, another day on the farm

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:47:00 +0000

We had a great day on the Farm on Saturday! Thanks to all the
volunteers for coming out! We put together 70 or so planters - along
the way we found a few new uses for the architectural pile (a 3 inch
wide steel bar that sticks up 2 feet out of the ground in the middle
of our lot). Its a great Flex Drain stretcher and Super Sack Liner
dispenser - who knew? Special thanks to our friends at Brooklyn Grange for
giving us a hundred of their unneeded Super Sacks!

We have an interloper!

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:22:00 +0000

Our on Farm timelapse camera doubles as a squirrel motion detection
device. Looks like we had a small furry interloper messing with our
peppers early in the morning. Let the research on appropriate
countermeasures begin!

Feedback Farms in the NYT x2

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:31:00 +0000

In the New York Times metro section article on 596 Acres, Feedback
Farms appears AGAIN..... Two mentions in the NYT in one month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/nyregion/a-plan-to-turn-brooklyns-unused-acres-green.html

This article is a bit more in depth than the last mention:

"Feedback Farms is an experiment in movable urban gardening. Because
the soil was considered contaminated, all the gardening is done in
containers. And to get the land, Ms. Johnson stressed that the garden
was temporary, and the city or a private owner could reclaim it at any
time. (They) designed a vegetable garden that could be moved on short
notice, using forklift pallets. In Our Back Yard provided a grant of
$4,484 for the garden."

Well - we are farming not gardening, but other than that we are pretty
stoked to be getting attention. Lots of work ahead!

We Won a FEAST Grant!

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:46:00 +0000

Thanks to all who came out to FEAST, enjoyed a night of conviviality and voted for us. We all had a great time checking out the other projects, meeting new people, and talking about the future of urban agriculture in NYC. If you weren't there, you can read all about it: http://feastinbklyn.org/?p=768 . We'll be putting the funds we received to good use on materials for our sub irrigated planters.

noreply@blogger.com (thallaran) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:17:00 +0000

Feedback Farms will be FEAST - Tomorrow / April 14th 5-8pm

We were just selected to participate in the upcoming FEAST (Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics). This is a recurring public dinner designed to use community-driven financial support to democratically fund new and emerging projects (artist, community, or apparently gardening!). At each FEAST, patrons give a $20 donation for which they receive a delicious supper and a ballot. Diners spend the evening reviewing a series of project proposals and conversing with the people behind each idea. Attendees cast a vote for their favorite proposal, and by the end of the night, the artist who garners the most votes is awarded a grant comprised of that evening’s door money. There are lots of good projects this time (http://feastinbklyn.org/?tag=upcoming); We are biased, but we think Feedback farms deserves to win!

Come, eat dinner, have a drink and vote! And please pass this around, invite your friends!

Details: Where: Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Chruch of the Messiah, 129 Russell St When: 5-8 pm, first come first serve at the door What: $20 donation, to be pooled and awarded to the winner

First Mention in the NYTimes

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 14:08:00 +0000

Congratulations to our Neighbors at the 348 Bergen St Garden! The Textile Arts Center was featured, on Thursday, in a NY Times article titled: Colors of The Caldron, in which the rise of making ones own textile dyes with local plants, foraged or grown is highlighted with a multi page spread in the Home and Garden section. Isa Rodriguez, the coordinator of the centers "Sewing Seeds" Program, and a familiar face on the Bergen lots is quoted discussing the natural dye plants, and a shoutout to Feedback Farms can be found (if you look hard), as well as a beautiful photograph of our first volunteer day.

Check out the Article HERE!

The Textile Arts Center is using the lots on Bergen for a Natural Dye CSA in which members will receive dyes, grown in the garden, as well as classes from the Center.

Volunteer day starts at 2:30 PM today

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:48:00 +0000

Hey Gardeners/Neighbors/Everyone,

We are pushing back our open hours today (Tuesday 4/3) to 2:30 PM and we'll be open until 6PM. Hope to see some of you there - we have hoop house to build, dirt to move, plans to make, seedlings to transport, etc.

See you then!

Snakes found during cleanup day identified!

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:22:00 +0000

We found 8 snakes under the rocks and pilings on the lot during cleanup day. Many folks including myself believed the species of the snakes to be garter snakes. However, after a bit of investigation and some help from users of www.quora.com the snakes have been identified as Northern Brown Snakes:

http://www.quora.com/Snakes/What-type-of-snake-is-this

http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/44726.html

http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Wildlife/Nongame/snakes/profile_brown_snake.htm

Volunteer Day 03.24.12 Digging in!

noreply@blogger.com (Tami Johnson) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:23:00 +0000

Thanks Neighbors for making our first volunteer day a huge success! Over 40 people stopped by to lend a hand. Some of the highlights, We: filled up 53 Contractor sized garbage bags with trash and debris remediated countless ditches and potholes with soil from the parks department found a long lost kungfu trophy, door knobs, speaker, I-beam, and a whole lot of cinderblocks - we were wondering where those went, now we know captured ( and released) 8 snakes.We'll be out on the lot again tomorrow (Tuesday) and again on Saturday. Please stop by and pitch in!

Volunteer Days!

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:28:00 +0000

Farmers and Friends!

We are pleased to announce our upcoming volunteer days: March 24th and
every Tuesday & Saturday through the end of Summer.

Gather at: 348 Bergen St, Brooklyn @ 9 am

Please bring your hands, shovels, rakes to help level out the lots
with the gorgeous soil that was delivered this week.

We suggest you wear boots, clothes you don't mind getting dirty, work
gloves, a hat, sunscreen, water and a snack or two to keep your energy
up!

Do you have a car? We need help delivering materials to the lots.

Call 917.676.7819 for more details or email us at info@feedbackfarms.com

We look forward to working with you!
Clare, Kallie, Tom, Gregory and Tami

Soil delivery from the NYC Parks Department

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:49:00 +0000

Thank you - a very generous delivery of two dump trucks filled with beautiful topsoil arrived this morning from the Parks Department. Since our gates are too small to fit their tractor, they even went the extra mile and did some hand-shoveling for us. Getting this soil into place should keep everyone busy at our first volunteer day - come by from 9am - 2pm this Saturday, March 24th to talk about the project and help out.

Xbee radio configuration

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:29:00 +0000

Initial configuration underway for one of the xbee radios that will be used on the farm.

Our Sungolds, basking in the sunlight.

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:50:00 +0000

My mouth waters as I think about when I will be able to pluck the sweet, juicy, candy like fruit off of these plants come August!

Our tomatoes are sprouting strong!

First Seedling Germinates

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:18:00 +0000

Scott Stringer Addresses Urban Farmers

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to be involve with a conversation about urban agriculture in NYC with Scott Stringer, the Manhattan Borough President. It's exciting and inspiring to see not only politicians caring about this important part of our local food system an it's connection to the larger local doodads but also to see so many inspiring faces in the crowd. Check out some of these great ag projects happening right here in NYC:

http://rooftopfarms.org/

http://www.brooklyngrangefarm.com/

added-value.org

esyny.org/

http://www.thebattery.org/projects/urban-farm/

Starting Our Nightshades, and Our Farm.

noreply@blogger.com (Feedback Farms) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:08:00 +0000

There have been many different aspects of starting this project. Acquiring land, designing a logo, making our website, building & testing raised beds, getting to know each other as we all work collaboratively to build something new. All of these parts, along with many more, are essential to the creation of a successful season, however they are flexible (mostly). Do we need a logo in order to grow vegetables? What about a state of the art planter design? Will things still run if we wait 1 more week to get together and talk about marketing?

There is, however, one thing that won't wait-- or in our case 1,500-- and those are our solanaceae seeds-- commonly known as nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants) need time to grow flower and fruit. Seeds (along with worms) are some of the most amazing things to me! They come in so many different shapes and sizes, all storing, inside of them, the nutrients needed to grow and survive. Our pepper and tomato seeds are bred to be coddled, but left up their own devices, plants want to grow, seeds want to sprout. That is what they are designed to do.

My mom composts by digging holes in her backyard, filling them with her food scraps and covering them over again leaving patches of fertile soil throughout her gardens. Every year in at least one of these soil oasis we attempt to identify, from seedling state, which seed it was that is now sprouting from the soil. Cucumber, acorn squash, pumpkin, tomato?

I could go on about seeds for much longer, but I will leave that for another post. For now I will close with reflection upon the stresses, excitements, surprises and disappointments the upcoming season, our seeds, and our ( no longer flexible) schedules are sure to bring us. Whether we are aware or not, our lives and success as human beings are tied inextricably to the schedule of mother nature and every year I feel humbled by how much power these little seeds have over the pattern of my existence from March through the fall.