The title pretty much says it all so I’ll start off this report with the obvious: our last sunflower has died. I’m sort of sad as I love sunflowers. At least we’ve learned that 2 giant sunflowers in one pot on a very hot roof = a bad ending. On to happy news.

Round 2 of radishes has begun. We had a great harvest 2 weeks ago and are excited to taste this batch (except for me because I don’t like radishes).

Out with the old, in with the new. Bye to our tomatoes in the aeroponic system. We’ve replaced that whole system with a bucket flood and drain. Lee planted a new batch of tomatoes, which I am very excited to eat.

Our outdoor NFT system is looking fabulous with sage, Swiss chard, kale and more. Lee snapped some very pretty pictures of them after a rainfall.

Thanks to LunchNYC for shooting at the farm last week. We’ll be on an upcoming show. Details to follow.

Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

By Joanna

Who doesn’t love a good radish? (Actually I don’t but that’s a whole other story.) We’ve had our first radish harvest! Some are sweet, some pungent and some right in the middle. Planted a little over a month ago, they grew up to be quite healthy and happy in our flood & drain system. Lee decided the radishes are so good that he’s done another round of planting. These new ones are slated to be part of our hydroponic systems demonstrations and will make their premiere Sunday, September 12, 2010 at Farm City Fair.

By Joanna

We’ve had some ups and downs on the roof this week. Let’s get the downs out of the way first. Sadly the sunflowers look like they’re to become the latest victims of high winds. They fell over several times and aren’t looking so hot. Lee just added some sturdy stakes to keep them up but I’m a little worried about them. They are pretty hardy so maybe they’ll be able to recover. The high winds also snapped off some of the beautiful Fine Verde basil.

Now for the ups: the sudden snapping of the basil=Chloë’s delicious pesto. We have butterflies visiting the roof pollinating our cucumbers and long beans which have pretty purple flowers and a brand new bud. (A recent article on urban farming counted 24 different species of butterflies in gardens across Harlem and the Bronx.) There’s an apiary on a neighboring roof and we hope we’re getting some bees from there. We’ve been dodging yellow jackets. They don’t have brushes or baskets to carry pollen but their presence is helpful in keeping harmful insects away. So to sum it up…each new event up on the roof helps us learn what to do and not to do.

Indoors Lee planted carrots to replace the chocolate peppers and the radishes in the flood and drain system are thriving.

About a month ago Lee built a vertical system which we planted with strawberries. They are happy in their new home and about 2 weeks ago began to flower. Even though they aren’t quite ready we did a small tasting this past Tuesday. The result? A little tart but a lot delicious. Our Caribbean Red Cabanero peppers have ripened and they are…hot. We’re looking forward to pickling! Our Red Zebra tomatoes were harvested and are pretty and delicious.

The presentations will be held Friday, July 31st at 5 p.m. and Saturday August 1st at 4 p.m.

The Waterpod is docked at 125th Street, Riverside (Parks). It is convenient to the 125th street stop on the 1, A, B, C, D subway stops
map

Chloë chopping and blending

Boswyck the sheep supervises

mixing

And best of all the tasting

Boswyck Farms is pleased to announce a hydroponic workshop

When: Sunday July 26th, 2 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Where: Bug Labs, 598 Broadway, 4th floor (the corner of Broadway and Houston)

The workshop will include

1. A brief history or hydroponics
2. An overview of many hydroponic techniques including examples of many of the hardware needed to construct them
3. The hands on portion will be building you own self contained hydroponic system to take home. The system is a basic drip system and will support one large plant such as tomatoes and peppers.

You can see photos from the last workshop at http://fishbabel.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=9741

You can register for the workshop at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/351309777. The cost of the workshop is $30. The cost of the kit for the hydroponic system is $50.

Please feel free to send an email to info@boswyckfarms.org if you have any questions about the workshop. ]]> http://www.boswyckfarms.org/archives/96/feed 0 http://www.boswyckfarms.org/archives/83 http://www.boswyckfarms.org/archives/83#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:24:17 +0000 admin http://www.boswyckfarms.org/?p=83 The weekend was very exciting and a bit exhausting. Dozens and dozens of people came by to see the farm. A lot of curiosity about urban farming, hydroponics and growing year round. We will be posting some photos from the event in the next few days. There were many questions and a lot of sharing of information. People saw three different type of hydroponic setups with a fourth in the works.

1. There are cucumbers that are doing so well that they are trying to take over some of the other systems. They are growing in a simple drip system.
   

   Cucumbers 6/9/09

2. The basil is growing in a deep water culture system built from pvc pipe and an 18 gal storage bin.
   
3. A grow room with a hybrid aeroponic/deep water culture system. There are tomatoes, eggplant and peppers growing in this system.
   

I will be posting more details about these systems in the near future.

There were problems with the system in the grow room over the weekend. The roots of the tomatoes have been so tenatious that they are clogging the return tubes causing the buckets to overflow. The system will need to be redesigned with larger return pipes. Probably increasing the size from 1/2″ to 1″.

We are open noon – 7 p.m. today June 7th. Come by and see the farm.

1609 Dekalb Avenue, 1D. At the Dekalb stop on the L train.

If you can’t make it the farm is open for visits by appointment. Send an email to lee@boswyckfarms.org