Apr 01 2007
Gowanus Nursery No Longer in Gowanus
>> and other musings. But first the plant porn.
So Gowanus Nursery is no longer in Gowanus; it is now in Red Hook on Summit Street. (For reference: 1st Place turns into Summit Street when you cross the BQE.) I hit up the new location on opening day in need of some early season garden inspiration. As a result of the nursery being in a bit of disarray (truthfully, it felt like they were still moving in) and my lack of imagination when it comes to pots with only green sprouts poking from them, I left without much inspiration. I’m sure once settled in, the new space will be lovely, but I worry that it’s a bit out of the way and won’t work well for people without cars (for the record, we don’t have a car, but from time to time we do borrow one from friends). Will also be interesting to see what happens when the Chelsea Garden Center’s new location opens next to Fairway in Red Hook on April 23–as a Brooklyn Record commenter mentioned.
A trip to Lowe’s provided little more inspiration, although we did manage to rack up $160 in an attempt to make our dirt healthier and more nutritious with minimal use of fertilizer products. The booty: grass seed, sand, lime, peat moss, top soil, two seed germination blankets, and something called the "twist tiller," which is probably better translated as "back killer." Also, almost all the organic lawn and garden food was out of stock, but we did get two small bags of Plant-Tone’s garden all-natural, organic fertilizer. Why Lowe’s just doesn’t stock compost is beyond me.
Which brings me to our next project: making our own compost. Dennis was kind enough to get me a compost bin, and so yesterday we started collecting kitchen waste, which we plan to mix in with some pine wood chips we also purchased at Lowe’s–not having any "brown" to add to our compost mix at the moment, wood chips seemed the best option. Wish us luck.
6 Responses to “Gowanus Nursery No Longer in Gowanus”
Looks like you got there right after I was there. I can see two gaps in the flats from where I bought some plants in the first photo!
You can get all the compost you can carry away for free at one of the Compost Givebacks. Most convenient for Brooklyn is the Spring Creek site, which will have givebacks the second and thrid weekends in May.
Tracey is composting in our little back yard. She made hers out of 2 milk cartons and some “garden fabric” (that black stuff you put down under bricks to keep the weeds from poking up).
So, yes, we do the kitchen scrap thing… and she just covered her garden with fresh compost that was left over from last summer. We’ve got 5 trays of those little pods sprouting flowers and herbs that we have to keep shooing the cats away since they consider it “salad” LOL
My sister came over and almost ate our “salad” (it was sitting in a tupperware container). Many giggles ensued.
Can you please report on how the fascists at Coco Roco are cutting down perfectly healthy trees in the back of their building? I’m not sure what is going on, but they have their busboys(!) climbing these trees and chopping them down. As a residnet taht faces that backyard (which primarily belongs to Excelsior and Sakura), I enjoyed having those trees outside my window. Now the whole area is clear, and I can see into all the windows that those tree branches were covering. This is bullshit – there are not very many trees in this city, and this piece-of-shit restaurant is cutting down a few for no reason and no regrad to the buildings in the area or the safety of its own staff!
Oscar and Petunia especially liked the Blue Salvia that tracey had planted. It must be tasty.
(by salad I meant her sprouts for the garden out back not the compost scraps… but the tupperware story is funny too)
summit street begins before the bqe