Boswyck Farms » Events

CDSC Workshop with The Brooklyn Food Coalition

sara — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:39:00 +0000

On November 19, 2011, Boswyck Farms lead a Soda Bottle Workshop and “Intro to Hydroponics” lecture at the Child Development Support Corporation (CDSC) in collaboration with the Brooklyn Food Coalition.

Our very own Lee, Alex M., and Chloe were thrilled to have a full house of community members from the Brooklyn Food Coalition at the CDSC, who were interested in learning the basic principles of hydroponics, and were able to get hands on experience creating their very own mini-hydroponic set up via soda bottle.

The workshop was just a part of Boswyck Farm’s commitment to sharing hydroponics with the community through teaching and example.

The range of community members who attended was truly impressive – from children, to teachers, to food justice activists, to senior citizens and even community members from other neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy and Clinton Hill. We were so happy to see such diversity – reinforcing our belief that hydroponics can be learned and enjoyed by just about anyone.

Boswyck Farm’s work with the CDSC began in February of 2011, when the partnership was formed to provide fresh produce for the food pantry, and give children a unique hands-on learning experience with hydroponics.

Nancy from the Brooklyn Food Coalition provided everyone with a wonderful lunch, including cauliflower-cheddar soup and homemade cornbread. Yum!!

Check out the rest of the photos from the event here!

New season, new news.

heidi — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:24:53 +0000

Happy fall fellow farmers!

Summer is winding down and school is starting up. After collaborating with the folks over at the Academy for Urban Planning in the summer months, construction is nearly finished on hydroponic systems that complement an already impressive soil garden at the school.

With both farming approaches running side by side, students will get to sharpen their math and science skills as they collect and compare data on their produce. Viva hands on learning experiences!

The systems at CDSC are humming along quite nicely these days as well. In fact, the successful partnership between CDSC and Boswyck Farms has earned us a spot in this year’s Seed Grant guidelines as a featured Urban Farming Specialist/Consultant . We are quite grateful that they included us in their documentation and look forward to bringing more greens to the communities that need them!

Any social service providers who are interested in building hydroponic systems to supplement their pantry food supply should check out the grant guidelines here at www.feednyc.org.

And with a new season comes a new face-lift for the loft farm. Over the past few weeks, the Boswyck Farmers have been working on a complete redesign of the systems at Dekalb Ave. While the rooftop farm at the Bushwick Starr has been our summertime pride and joy, we are eagerly looking forward to having the loft looking just as lush and lovely this winter as the Starr has been these past few months. We are reusing our building supplies as always, looking to re-purpose whatever materials we can.

PS. Keep an eye out on Chrissy from Chrissy’s Cooking Club, she is working magic with our produce at the farmers market in Bushwick!

Big Green Theater – 4/22 & 4/23 (Gala)

meghan — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:37:56 +0000

This weekend is the premier of the Big Green Theater at the Bushwick Starr. We will be at the BGT Benefit Event on Saturday, enjoying some great theater! If you haven’t already bought your tickets to the event, we strongly encourage that you buy them in advance. The Benefit Event will have drinks, refreshments and a dj providing some great tunes, and most of all, you can step out onto the roof top for the second season unveiling of the roof top farm! We will be there all day today, working hard to get the system up and running, excited to get growing season off to a great start!

See you this weekend!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE2bSTJzEqk

We’re on Lunch NYC!

Joanna — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:27:16 +0000

October 7, 2010
By Joanna

We’ve been featured on Lunch NYC’s premier episode.

Our segment starts around the 6 minute mark.

Maker Faire–it simply ruled the weekend

Joanna — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:53:54 +0000

September 28, 2010
By Joanna

I’m finally regaining feeling in my legs after working our booth at Maker Faire New York. It was fairly amazing. We met a ton of people, made many, many soda bottle planters (which meant standing many hours) and had a great time showing our NFT, drip and aeroponic systems. I’m bummed I didn’t have time to see all the other cool stuff but on the other hand, I’m happy we were so busy. Our booth location meant we had front row seats for the Chariot Races so I can’t complain tooooo much.

If you made a soda bottle planter and want to enter our “May the Best Bottle Win!” challenge, submit a picture of your fabulously decorated planter to our public Flicker group, Boswyck Farms Soda Bottle Challenge. The winner gets a free Getting Started With Hydroponics workshop!

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P.S. Our Kickstarter campaign is still going! Donate if you can! Thanks!!

This past weekend event: Taste the West Village

Joanna — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 19:23:05 +0000

September 20, 2010
By Joanna

Yesterday P.S. 41 hosted Taste the West Village. The event was a fundraiser for their green rooftop project. We took part in their “Living Classroom.”

It was a gorgeous day and lots of people came out to eat, drink and be merry. Chloë and I were absolutely in love with a corn dish from Market Table. Lots of other local restaurants, farms and bands joined in on the festivities. Free booze was on hand but we, ever the professionals, didn’t partake. What we did was talk about our various systems. The soda bottle workshop was a little different. Rather than using our usual 2-liter guys, Vicky, the events organizer, arranged for us use bottles from Ito En Tea, one of the sponsors.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and chatted with us. We’ll be at Maker Faire this coming weekend!

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Thanks for another fabulous workshop

Joanna — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:16:52 +0000

August 2, 2010

By Joanna

We just wanted to say many thanks to everyone who attended this past Sunday’s workshop, Getting Started With Hydroponics. We had people from all walks of life including teachers, architects and even a lactation specialist. Our participants asked great questions and were pros at building drip systems.

If you were at the workshop (or attended earlier ones), please take pictures of the plants growing in your systems and send them to us!

Bushwick Open Studios a Resounding Success

Joanna — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:21:57 +0000

June 7, 2010

Bushwick Open Studios was this past weekend. Hot and humid as it was we threw open the doors to the farm, inviting people in to see our seven different hydroponic systems. Those who came got to eat a little of our arugula, watercress and lettuce, not to mention Lee’s homemade and perfectly salted popcorn. (Our peppers and tomatoes were not quite ripe enough to sample but should be there momentairly so make arrangements to visit if you want a taste.) The recently planted strawberries have taken to their new vertical system and we were happy so many people admired how pretty they looked. Several people made hydroponic planters out of recycled soda bottles, seeded them with the basil of their choice and took them home to start a windowsill garden.

A tip of our hat to the peeps over at Arts in Bushwick for organizing another fabulous event. We’re looking forward to next year’s open studios!