Boswyck Farms » lettuce

Building a grow room at the CDSC

lee — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 04:50:15 +0000

We’re excited to announce our new grow room at the Child Development Support Corporation in Bed-Stuy. CDSC has asked us to design and install a 250 square foot grow room designed to supply their food pantry with fresh produce year-round. We’re excited for our first Bed-Stuy partnership, and look forward to expanding to other neighborhoods that are perceived “food deserts” throughout New York City.

Lee and our team of dedicated volunteers and interns have been hard at work. As usual, we’re trying to use the construction process as a way to teach people the basics of hydroponic installation — if you spend time with us, you’ll quickly find yourself with a hammer in your hand, as you’ll see in the following video. This is a stop-motion animation of one construction day. It was a great opportunity for us to test out our brand new video camera, as well as to show you our project in process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Ju5Mqdrf4

First Harvest at Fountain House

lee — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:14:25 +0000

We planted the first bed with lettuce seeds in November and 5 weeks later the first harvest took place. It is very exciting to see the members harvesting the lettuce. It was then used for salads in the cafeteria.

The rest of the beds planted will be planted and in full production by the end of the year. We hope to be harvesting around 40 heads of lettuce each week by the middle of February. The members at Fountain House will be planting, monitoring and harvesting. We are also teaching carpentry skills along the way. It has been a lot of fun working on the project and the help from members, especially Vincent and Gary, has helped make it all possible. We all have been nibbling along the way and I hope to eat some of the salad this week. I have learned as much as I have taught. Three of our interns (Chris, Victor and Logan) have pitched in with the construction work. We will keep you up to date and give more details of how the systems work in future posts.

Here is a slide show of the harvest

[[Show as slideshow] click on an image to watch in the dark using arrow keys]

Boswyck Farms Partners with Fountain House to Build a Grow Room

Joanna — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 13:06:10 +0000

November 10, 2010
By Joanna

It’s been quite a blast building the grow room at Fountain House, a NYC non-profit dedicated to helping adults with mental illnesses. We’re hoping that this room will supply most–if not all–the greens they need for their cafeteria. The size of the room we have to work in is 165 square feet. To date Lee, our volunteer carpenter Chris and some of the folks at Fountain House have built 4 flood & drain grow beds for greens. They’ve been seeded and we’re looking forward to the first sprouting!

All in all 16 tiered flood & drain systems will be built with a total of 128 square feet of growing space.

[[Show as slideshow] click on an image to watch in the dark using arrow keys]

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!

WCBS swings by for a visit

Joanna — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:47:32 +0000

June 2, 2010

We had another great visit from a local news outlet. This time WCBS stopped by the farm to check out what we’re growing. They also took a visit to our rooftop installation over at The Bushwick Starr (which is coming along quite nicely despite the secret lettuce nibblers). Many thanks to Mary for the interview. Click here to watch.

P.S. We’ve just updated our photo gallery.

Seedlings at Roberta’s alive and kicking

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:30:32 +0000

Everything made it through the cold fine. The seeds planted on Tuesday are starting to sprout. Here are some photos of their older siblings.

the first lettuce sprouts

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:45:44 +0000

lettuce seeds

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:31:57 +0000

Robert and I planted half the bed. We will see how they get through this cold spell. We are going to plant the rest of it on Tuesday. As soon as seedlings come up we will work on getting the second bed on line.