My cuttings are ready for trading! Interested? Bring cuttings of healthy, pest-free houseplants to the children’s play area at 2pm on Sat April 30th. (Please do not bring plants seeking a new home.) The free swap is part of Earth Day Fest, sponsored by CV’s Recycling & Sustainability Committee. From 12 noon to 3pm there will be eco-themed games and outdoor family-friendly activities.
Before the swap, at 1230pm, we will transplant flowers, adding finished compost as fertilizer, to illustrate the end product of food-waste collection. The activity ends at 130pm, but you’ll find lots more going on around the CV grounds. See the posters in your lobby for more details. Thank you! -Denise
As part of Saturday’s Earth Day Fest, there will be a CV plant swap.
Come to theHouseplant Swap!
Join the Recycling and Sustainability Committee and your neighbors this Saturday to celebrate our home planet and learn more about upcycling opportunities at CV !
How a Plant Swap Works
Bring a plant cutting, take a plant cutting. This swap is for residents looking to exchange or give away healthy, pest-free cuttings or houseplant starts. Please no donations of unwanted plants or planters that need a new home. Bring your plant cuttings, preferably labeled, in a container that you do not need back, to the children’s play area behind 195 Adams St at 2pm.
Share ’em if you have ’em!
Particpants are welcome to swap or just donate (healthy) plant cuttings. If there are extras, they will be given away at 2:30pm on a first come, first served basis.
There will be other plant-friendly activities during Earth Day Fest, including
Make an upcycled plant hanger Bring a medium sized pot to make a decorative hanging for it! Or just yourself and a willingness to learn! We will have a limited supply to share.
Plant Spring Flowers with GrowNYC Compost! Ever wonder where the food scraps go? We will use finished compost materials to help fertilize flower seedlings as we transplant them into CVEarthlan.com’s sidewalk planters and window boxes.
Earth Day Fest is happening on Saturday, April 30 from 12pm-3pm outdoors, in multiple locations on CV grounds. The Shredding Truck will be onsite, behind 215 Adams Street, from 12noon until 4pm.
Earth Day Fest is happening on Saturday, April 30 from 12pm-3pm outside over a couple of locations at Concord Village (map will be shared next week, rain date May 1). There are a couple of ways you can get involved:
Houseplant Swap Bring a plant cutting, take a plant cutting. This swap is for residents looking to trade or give away healthy, pest-free cuttings or houseplant starts. Please no donations of unwanted plants or planters that need a new home. Bring your plant cuttings, preferably labeled, in a container that you do not need back, to the children’s play area behind 195 Adams St at 2pm.
Make an upcycled plant hanger Bring a medium sized pot to make a decorative hanging for it! Or just yourself and a willingness to learn! We will have a limited supply to share. In addition, you can bring your clean plastic “produce bags” and other shopping or food bags (like the bag that bread comes in) to the office for reuse or recycling this week only, collection closes on Friday April 29 at 4pm!
Volunteers needed for Earth Day Fest We are looking for one or two people to help out at the event on April 30 from about 11:45am to 3:15pm. Email Shari Rueckl [misssha76@gmail.com] if you are interested and available to help, it is much appreciated!
Onsite shredding [12pm-4pm behind 215 Adams St]Any documents or files can be shredded, including CD’s. Please remember to separate CD’s from all paper documents. Please remove paper clips, binder clips, and all other binds, except for staples, from your documents to avoid overcrowding.
I hope everyone is seeing success with their plantings… There are sprouts in my shishito peppers and my tomato (or ground cherry) planters. Nothing happening yet with the sweet peppers…
Here are some tips for home care of your sub-irrigated planters.
1. (At home) Remove and fill the bottom reservoir cup with about 2-3 inches of water. For one time only, water plant from the top to allow soil and wick to settle. Wick should dangle into liquid to allow soil to “suck up” the water while plant “self water” itself.
2. Place in full sun or sunny windowsill.
3. Add water to bottom cup every 2-3 days. It is OK to spritz soil from the top, but “watering” should be done via the reservoir in the bottom of the planter.
4. If you need to add soil, use organic potting soil. Most of the plants won’t be ready for transplant until late May or June.
5. Ask questions if you have any! Post a message here or send a note to cvearthlab@gmail.com
Thanks to all who came out to help till and prep the beds Saturday afternoon. Attendance included six adults, five enthusiastic kids, and three+ worms. The kids also helped spread mulch around the border fence exterior to help protect the hosta, day lilly, bee balm and other perennial plants pushing up from underground. Grownups uncovered and cleaned up the standing herb bed outside the fence. Oregano and some other herbs are back and ready to be picked!
We hold to hold more activities this week in the evenings. Dates and times depend on volunteers’ availability and weather, and are sometimes announced last minute. Follow the CVEarthlab.com blog (via email notifications) to get the most possible notice about happenings. Friday April 29th and Sunday April 30th, after we pick up flats from the GrowNYC sale, there will be opportunities to transplant marigolds, portulaca, and other annual flowers. All residents, including those with and without small children, are most welcome to participate.
Gardeners will be outside in the garden today prepping the raised beds for spring planting.
We grow cover crops, aka green mulch, during the winter months to help preserve and nourish the soil. In Spring, we till the soil and turn under the green growth.
This is a great job for kids who like to dig! And an opportunity to flex gross motor skills and learn about nitrogen replenishment. We welcome diggers of all sizes to join us between 4:30 and 5pm today. Thank you.
Today was a wash out, but we’ll be outside in the children’s play area tomorrow, Sunday, April 10th, at 11am! We will plant cherry tomato and zinnia flower seeds in self-watering planters.
If you’ve already registered/paid, and cannot make it, please let us know before 12noon Sunday so we can save materials for you. Even better: let us know what you’d like to grow! Options include jalapeno pepper, sweet bell pepper, cherry tomatoes as well as flowers: zinnia, calendula, and marigold.
If you have not RSVP’d but want to join us to plant seeds between 11am and 12:30pm on Sunday, please send an email message to CVEarthlab@gmail.com and we will do our best to accommodate you!
Forecast calls for rain Saturday morning so we are postponing the seed starting workshop until Sunday at 11am.
If you are interested in planting Sunday between 11am and 1230pm, you can still register by sending an RSVP by sending a message to CVEarthlab@gmail.com.
If you RSVP’d for Saturday and cannot make Sunday, let us know your choice of flowers and/or fruit and we will pack up your materials.
We have jalapeno pepper seeds, sweet bell pepper seeds, cherry tomato seeds, and seeds for zinnia, calendula, and marigold flowers. See photos here:
To donate, you can leave checks, made out to CVOI, with CVEarthlab in the memo line, at the CV office. Or, you can arrange for a garden member to pick up an envelope from your doorman by sending a note to cvearthlab@gmail.com . We also accept donations via Venmo electronic payment service. To donate via Venmo app, use Shari’s Rueckl’s username: @misssha
Concord Village EarthLab 