Boswyck Farms » Bushwick hydroponics

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!!

Farm Report: The Death of a Sunflower

Joanna — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 11:50:22 +0000

September 4, 2010
By Joanna

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.

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Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

Swing by for a visit

Joanna — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:25:03 +0000

Summer is here and we know you’re looking for a fun morning or afternoon trip. We’re open for visits year-round but why not schedule one now? You can see our indoor R&D lab and we’ll also take you to our rooftop installation at the Bushwick Starr. Email lee@boswyckfarms.org to set up a time. Hope to see you soon!

For your listening pleasure, our interview with The Naturalist has been posted

Joanna — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:03:15 +0000

In case you were stuck on the train or stuffed in your cubicle or trapped somewhere else far from your computer, the interview Lee and Chloë did with Bernie Wides from The Naturalist radio show has been posted on Heritage Radio Network.

Boswyck Farms Rocks NYC Grows

Joanna — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:40:04 +0000

We like to give a big thanks to NYC Grows for inviting us to participate in this year’s festival. A huge event that marked the end of Earth Week celebrations in the city, it drew urban farmers, community gardeners, eco-crafters, sustainable technology creators, chickens(!) and more.

The day dawned with a torrential downpour–the gutters ran with deep streams of water, Union Square was a giant puddle. Nevertheless, Lee and Chloë packed up the clown car with our mobile kitchen cart, tubes, buckets, pumps and plants. With a table strapped to the roof they drove from Bushwick to meet Joanna for what turned out to be a great day, despite the deluge.

To be honest, the weather about killed our excitement. With rain pouring off the roof of our tent, we wondered–with the slightest hint of irony–if it was necessary to find water to fill our hydroponic systems. We decided it was and as Joanna went off with buckets she heard it remarked more than once, “Why is that woman looking for water?”

Late morning brought a surprising twist of fate. The sky became less ominous and the rains let up. By noon we had people swinging by our tent to see what was happening. We had several homemade demo systems on display. We set up our large NFT system in the front of the tent. Our aeroponics system was going strong and a huge, hot pepper plant was growing in our drip system. (We grow all our plants from heirloom seeds.) People were psyched as Lee and Chloë explained the beauty and relative simplicity of home hydroponics. We’re pretty confident we won some converts.

The other big seller was our free “build your own passive hydroponic system” workshops run by Joanna. Made from recycled soda bottles, gaffers tape and cotton rope these systems are a perfect way to introduce hydroponics. (We often use them in our school programs.) We originally envisioned the workshop to be for kids but it turned out that lots of adults wanted in on the action. Approximately 30 soda bottle systems were built and planted with basil. People also left with a package of nutrients and Chloë’s Boswyck Farms pesto recipe.

The only downside of the day was that we weren’t able to break out our one-of-a-kind mobile kitchen cart. It was just too wet to have people kneeling on the ground to make farm fresh pesto.

All in all we had a fabulous time. We hope to get the chance to participate in next year’s NYC Grows. In the meantime, keep checking back to see what we’re up to.