Lentol Garden

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2009-07-20T17:49:00.000-07:00

Steeping sun illuminates the last of our shed amendments for this Sunday. We slap the padlock on and quench our parched summer throats at the local watering hole: the R.
So as it turns out, that foundation we were so proud of make-shift leveling was exactly that; shifty. The doors didn't quite fit at the end (whoops!). But thanks to the skill of our local furniture craftsman and his router, our shed now has perfectly fitting "custom" doors, and a reason to omit its pre-fab pre-fix.

More new volunteers and compost bins!
Lots of raking and shoveling of mulch required dust masks - you never know what's in the Brooklyn soil...

First BBQ of the Season!

2009-07-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

This Sunday was the first BBQ of the season and it was an enormous success! Everyone brought a little something and we ended up with a lot of everything. After a long afternoon of hard work building compost bins, weeding, and painting the shed, we delved in like wild gluttons and celebrated our day's achievements!

Summer Time Happening Here

2009-07-01T15:47:00.000-07:00

A project to be manifest Thursday July 9th - we will continue this lovely passage through to the Graham side by clearing out some of the weeds, and lining the path with branches and stones.
Wrapped in plastic, but what a beauty. A computer rendering from our local hardware chain becomes reality under the supervision of expert art installers Jen and Seth, as well as Todd, a fantastic new mechanically inclined volunteer. Finishing touches will polish off this project, due to take place this holiday weekend. Our choice of placement was influenced by Jane Jacobs- the great- more visibility, more "eyes" keep things safe and secure when properly applied.

Shed Update

2009-05-24T14:52:00.001-07:00

This is our shed foundation, constructed today by Fernando and myself. We leveled the ground, then sunk these materials into the dirt. It was made from bricks and cinder blocks we salvaged from one of our neighboring house's demolition. It was quite hot. NEXT weekend, we hope to construct the actual shed!

Also notice the shed pic from the catalog that will go up, the very last of the lilac, the yellow roses, and the hydrangea that is climbing up alongside a neighboring building and blooming for the first time since planted.

May Update

2009-05-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

A plentiful bloom of daffodils and tulips brought us out of hibernation and into the spring. With several weeks of growth behind us, we are currently battling mugwort once more, Brooklyn's most invasive weed. Spreading mulch and weeding will be the key in controlling the epidemic. This will be made all the more easy by the gardening tools that will occupy our new shed! The shed will be installed next Sunday, and coated with a fresh spring color. Otherwise, we have much enthusiasm for project ideas including movie nights, art in the park, and more!

HIBERNATION

2008-12-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

Lentol Garden will be asleep until early March 2009. In the mean time, Friends of Lentol Garden will continue working on a few long-term projects. Over the winter, we plan to build several raised beds for vegetable gardening, construct a new path to better connect the Graham and Bayard portions and construct a compost/mulch station. Please email us for information on these projects or to find out how you can help: lentolgarden@gmail.com

Thanks!

It's My Park Day! November 8, 2008

2008-11-09T15:32:00.000-08:00

Hello peoples: Despite rain showers and gloomy skies, It's My Park Day! at Lentol Garden this fall was an overwhelming success. We had all kinds of folks come by and help out. At the Bayard Street entrance, we trimmed back many of the rose bushes and perrienials, pulled weeds, picked up trash and planted tulip bulbs. At the Graham Ave. entrance, we raked what seemed like a ton of leaves from our sweet gum tree into a larger pile of leaves that will transform into leaf mulch in the coming months. We also trimmed our holly trees, picked up garbage, cleaned up outside the gates, pulled weeds and put in a little stone wakway around our compost piles.

We want to thank all the folks who showed up to make this event a success, including State Assemblyman Joe Lentol, who brought a small army of helpers. We were actually surprised at how many young folks from the neighborhood showed up and at one point had as many as 20 people working!

We have big plans for this space in the coming months and it's so encouraging to see how much the community share our enthusiasm. Thanks to Neighbors Allied for Good Growth for blowin' us up on their blog, several neighbors came just from that website alone. We will continue to keep the community updated on our efforts over the winter. We have several projects planned and our ultimate goal is to have the gates at Lentol Garden open to the public much more next season. We simply need a few good gardeners to volunteer a little bit of their time to make it happen! Joining is simple, just email lentolgarden@gmail.com and someone will get in touch with you with the details!

In the mean time, feast your eyes on the photos from our clean up! Cheers!

It's My Park Day! POSTPONED!!!

2008-10-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

Join our volunteers and friends at Lentol Garden ~~from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on October 25, 2008~~ for It's My Park Day!

Shucks! Due to rain and other nasty weather predictions, It's My Park Day! at Lentol Garden has been postponed! The rain date in November 8, 2008 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

In the mean time, feast your eyes on the beautiful flyers designed by Jackie G., our intrepid Friends of Lentol Garden volunteer designer/gardener/multitasking busy-bee. Thanks Jackie!

Becoming a Member of Lentol Garden

2008-10-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

Unless you become a member of Friends of Lentol Garden, the volunteer organization charged with managing the garden, access to the space is limited to when the garden's gates are open. Sadly, New York City Parks and Recreation requires that a volunteer from Friends of Lentol to be present for the public-at-large to gain entrance into this wonderful neighborhood treasure.

Fortunately, it's easy and fun to join Friends of Lentol Garden! Simply shoot an email to: lentolgarden@gmail.com to set up a meeting with one of our current volunteers. From there, we will take you through a few simple steps that will result in your full-fledged membership.

Though the details are still being worked out within our membership committee, it looks like the process will resemble this:
1. An annual $50 membership fee to pay for operating expenses.
2. A monthly time commitment on Sundays from 1-4 p.m., March 1 through November 15, to keep the gates open.
3. Participation in our bi-annual park clean-up event, coinciding with "It's My Park Day," held city-wide during the spring and fall.

What will this get you?
1. A key to the gate! With a key, you can come and enjoy the park at your own leisure.
2. Gardening privileges! A reserved spot on our horticulture team gives you the opportunity to play in the dirt, propose new projects and beautify the space.
3. An invitation to participate in the collective, crowd-sourced administration process of the garden through our GoogleGroups account.
4. Invitations to member events like cocktail parties, pot-lucks and happy hours.
5. The oppurtunity to become part of Lentol Garden's oversight team.

If you would like to simply play in the dirt without actually joining the garden, it's as simple as showing up any Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. to volunteer your labor. A member will provide you tools and directions and you'll be on your way!

We are always exploring new ways of making Lentol Garden an important part of the community. If you have any comments, suggestions, questions or requests, feel free to leave a comment on the blog or email us diectly! Thanks!

Photos and more!

2008-10-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

Hello curious spectators, today we have some spankin' new photos to show off along with our update.

First, the business: Last Sunday a few folks got together and made some wonderful, hand-painted signs to inform neighbors and community members that Lentol Garden is active, thriving and SEEKING VOLUNTEERS!!!! That's right, we're officially starting phase one of our ambitious plan to breath new life into the garden. This first phase, which we will be implementing over the winter months while the garden hibernates, consists of four parts in no particular order:

a. recruiting and organizing volunteers
b. researching and planning a vision for the garden
c. coordinating and facilitating fund raising activities
d. researching and networking community resources

Now the fun stuff:
I walked around the garden yesterday with my camera and made a few photos.

I know, this one is a little too creepy to start with, but there is something hauntingly beautiful about his photo. This poor house fly picked the florets of a broccoli plant to live out his final days, and there he remains, lost to eternity.

Click on the photo to see all the gallery from October 3, 2008!

Milkweed

2008-09-25T05:53:00.000-07:00

This email came to us last week from Myriah, one of our garden volunteers, regarding milkweed (Asclepias L.).

"...It's what monarch butterflies lay their eggs on, then the caterpillars eat and build their chrysalis on the milkweed. We've got a ton of monarchs on the butterfly bush by the gate, so I'm sure if we're patient we can have some baby monarchs flying around. Seeing the butterfly "hatch" from the chrysalis is an awesome thing to observe if you haven't see it before.

Anyhow, here's a pic of milkweed, so you know what I'm referring to:
http://www.wildernessrhythms.com/rope/milkweed.JPG

when you break the leaves they drip a milky white substance.
And a bit more on the process
http://ed.fnal.gov/entry_exhibits/insect/monarch.html"

Thanks for the heads up, Myriah!

In other news, we are making some new, hand-painted signage this week to reflect our new online presence and volunteer efforts. We've also completed a very large portion of or Graham Ave. entrance clean up. We encourage everyone to take a look at our progress!

September 14, 2008 Garden Update

2008-09-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

Greetings! Here we have some photos of our most recent accomplishment at the garden: a cleared space in the dirt! It may not look like much, but it took two of the stalwart garden volunteers quite a while to clean up this section. As you might be able to deduce, we are pulling all the weeds from from the ground, individually at times, in order to clear some space for beautiful native plant beds! This, the Graham St. entrance, gets quite a bit of foot traffic. We would love to make it look pleasant for our neighbors and the community. Our plans for this section are still nebulous. The parks department has recommended that we "keep it low maintenance" back here, but it is quite tempting to let our botanical imaginations run wild. Hopefully, we can find a pleasant compromise between "weedy lot" and "beloved greenspace."

From this view, you can really see a big difference from the state of this parcel even one week ago! Too bad we don't have a "before" photo to display.

After working today, we took a little walk around the Bayard section of the garden to look at the "problem plants" that are taking over the front beds. Since we're not experts in this sort of thing yet, we haven't identified what this species is called.

As you can see, it's some sort of vine. We haven't seen it flower as of right now.

And finally, to the left here, you can see some strange aphid-like bugs that were slowly killing this plant. We don't quite know what these guys are called, either.

Mission Statement

2008-09-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

So it has been decided that we need to post our plan for little Lentol Garden, or maybe it's better to say our "vision."

First, a brief historical profile. As you might have read in the profile section, Lentol Garden is a memorial to Greenpoint resident Edward S. Lentol (1909-1981): New York State Assemblyman, Democratic senator and State Supreme Court judge. In 1992, Lentol Garden was named into law with the NYC Parks and Recreation and the Bayard Block Association joining forces to transform the site from a "public eyesore" to a beautiful ornamental garden and habitat.

Lentol Garden in it's current state would not exist without community and neighborhood support, and volunteer efforts. In fact, volunteers are Lentol's greatest resource. Since 1992, Lentol has seen various amounts of volunteer support and leadership, that's why the garden can look overgrown and unmaintained one year, then look beautiful and thriving the next.

People often wonder why Lentol's gates are perpetually closed and the answer is simple: According New York City law, a garden volunteer must be present for the gates to be open. And at present, we simply don't have enough volunteers to make that happen most of the time. The nature of volunteer support can be ephemeral without long-term organization and vision. That's something we aim to improve.

Hard-working folks have to sacrifice their time and effort to make anything happen in the garden. To provide incentive, we feel that volunteers need to form a meaningful bond with the space. Whether through digging in the soil, pulling weeds or simply relaxing in the grass, we want to provide our volunteers with a sense of pride, community, and dare we say, ownership. We want people to feel as enthusiastic about the space as we do, and for that to happen, people need to make it their own in their hearts.

Lentol Garden can fulfill our natural urge to form community bonds, while beautifying our streets and educating the public about urban gardening and the importance of sustainability. To make this happen, we must increase our volunteer ranks. As the autumn approaches and the days get shorter, we plan on having standing volunteer hours every Saturday from 1pm to 3pm.

The internet plays a large role in this plan. Sites like this one can provide a rallying point and bulletin board for interested parties, email will connect prospective volunteers with the folks who can get them started. Like a little seedling breaking through the soil, this blog and a new crop of volunteers are trying once again to breath life into this overlooked neighborhood treasure.

Another Garden Update!

2008-09-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Lentol volunteer squad was out again yesterday, braving the gigantic, swarming Brooklyn mosquitoes in the continuing push to clean up the Graham Ave. portion of the garden. There's no doubt about it, the work is dirty, sweaty manual labor. But it's a labor of love! Here's how it goes down:

First, We simply use a large, flat head shovel to literally scrape the weeds from the ground. Technically speaking, it's not the best method for weed removal but the sheer density of plant life (and the lack of strong backs to manually pull the little plants out by the roots) requires drastic action! Next, we use a rake to separate the plants from the top soil. Finally, we put the dispatched organic matter into the compost pile and redistribute the topsoil to its original location. Sounds fun, right?

September 9, 2008 Update

2008-09-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

It sure has been busy in Lentol Garden this week! Many folks in the neighborhood may have noticed that the Graham Street entrance has been closed and neglected for quite a while now, so this week we decided to start or revitalization efforts there. We have a couple of reasons for doing this. First, it was just plain unsightly. Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), the wonderful native vine, has taken over this back area, choking off many of the other perennials that grow in the shade. Second, we needed a large amount of organic matter to form our new compost pile. The decaying "green" plant matter will provide our burgeoning pile with plenty of nitrogen rich material to offset the rather large amount of "brown," carbon-rich material generated my all the decaying brush and leaves. Third, with autumn coming, we simply had to clear away these vines in order to rake the soon-to-be-falling leaves from under the sweet gum tree. These leaves will eventually be used in our mulching efforts. Clearing the back lot will be our primary focus in the coming weeks, stay tuned to see this fun transformation take place!

Photos

2008-09-08T20:28:00.000-07:00

These are some photos I took in the garden over the past few weeks. As you can see, the garden is quite wild this time of year!

So Much To Be Done

2008-09-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

So this has been quite an eventful week for little Lentol Garden. I opened the gates for three hours on Monday (Labor Day) and Wednesday. I spent most of Monday cleaning out the plastic shed and assessing our tool situation. Unfortunately, the situation is not so great. We have plenty of shovels and one hoe, but no rakes, no pitch fork, no cart, no buckets, no hand tools (like weeders, cultivators, etc.), and our wheel barrow is totally out of commission. I did, however, find a compost bin in the back lot on the Graham Street side and set it up on Monday with some brush and yard waste. I also brought some vermicompost with some red wigglers in to help get it started.

Wednesday was much more productive. I started by picking up all the trash and pulling a ton of weeds from the front beds. I also edged the granite walkway and started pulling the vines from all the front rose bushes (until I realized how silly that was with my wimpy gloves). I swept the front walk completely and pulled most weeds from between the granite cracks. And as I was winding this down, I realized that we didn't even have a decent brush pile! So many weeds with no where to put them! The composter is the obvious answer, but it's much too small for the large amount of "brown" material resultant from my weeding session. Also, I have a vision for that little composter: I think it would make a great worm composter and would allow garden volunteers a place to bring their kitchen scaps. A brush pile is the only answer! I staked out the perfect spot near the Graham Street entrance and shoveled several small piles of Sweet Gum Balls (the fruit of Liquidambar styraciflua or the American Sweet Gum) into one large pile. Now we have the makings of a large and potentially productive compost pile.

And that's that! I plan on returning today to continue the long road to recuperation for Lentol Garden! Just to keep my mind full of little goals, I've scribbled down some of the first few tasks that would greatly benefit the garden:

1. Weed all the front beds, detangle and prune the roses.
2. Edge all the granite
3. Repair the front bed boarders.
4. Make a wide trail from the front beds to the rear garden (Graham Street entrance) for carts to haul organic matter to the brush pile.

Until next time!

Our First Post!

2008-08-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

Hi there! Welcome to the shiny, new Lentol Garden information page! Lentol Garden is beautiful patch of nature buried just below the BQE at the intersections of Graham Ave., Bayard St. and McGuinness Blvd. in beautiful Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. Click here to see the garden's geographical location represented in Google Maps.

As it stands right now, Lentol Garden is a very small collection of volunteers with big dreams! Our goal is to create a bonafide commuinty green space with a robust pool of gardeners. Please send an email to lentolgarden@gmail.com if you're interested in getting involved.