Join us at Neighborhood Preservation Center (232 East 11th St in Manhattan) on Thursday, February 16, from 6:30 to 8:30pm, for our monthly general meeting of gardeners from across the city. Topics for discussion include: our upcoming trip to Albany to urge Governor Cuomo to support community gardens, the 2012 NYCCGC Board of Directors elections, and the planning of our annual Community Gardeners’ Forum. We value your input on all these agenda items – join us in building a stronger community gardening community!

Interested in taking a more active role in the gardening community? Consider joining NYCCGC’s Board of Directors. Directors serve a two-year term and are the eyes, ears, and legs of the Coalition. Help us be the voice of the gardeners in advocating for long-term legislation to make all NYC community gardens permanent, as well as working toward policies to create more gardens and urban farms. Nominations are due March 1; elections will be held at our annual meeting on April 19. More information here.

NYCCGC’s Communications Committee is seeking geeks new members with writing skills and technical proficiency (social media, WordPress, etc) to join our team. Contact us for details. Note: “Geeks” is a term of endearment: own it!

Just around the corner is perhaps New York’s most magical season: Spring! Heralding its arrival is the annual avalanche of noteworthy events, compiled here.

Just Food Conference 2012: Eat • Work • Grow the Movement
Friday & Saturday, February 24 – 25
Food & Finance High School, Manhattan

Just Food Conference 2012 will bring together local food lovers and advocates, CSA members, community gardeners, urban and rural farmers, food professionals and entrepreneurs for two days of hands-on workshops, discussions, skills-building sessions, and good food. More information, tickets available here.

31st Annual Making Brooklyn Bloom: Think Global, Grow Local: What’s Next for Urban Gardeners?
Saturday, March 10
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Palm House, Brooklyn

Kick off the spring gardening season at Brooklyn Botanic Garden with this daylong conference exploring the many ways we can cultivate and celebrate sustainable innovation in the face of environmental degradation, climate change, and making do with less. This free event features exhibits and workshops on the cutting edge of sustainable urban gardening—from growing food on roofs and windowsills to reducing your garden’s carbon footprint. No preregistration is required, but you must arrive at 10:00am to register for the day’s workshops. Details here.

28th Annual GreenThumb GrowTogether
Saturday, March 31
Hostos Community College, Bronx

Join with a thousand community gardeners and greening professionals from all over New York City for a day of learning, sharing, networking, and greening inspiration! Tickets are $3 in advance and include breakfast, workshops, lunch, and t-shirt. Day-of registration is $5; includes breakfast and workshops. Note: you must pre-register to be guaranteed lunch and a t-shirt! Tickets available here.

Brooklyn Food Conference
Saturday, May 12
Brooklyn Technical HS, Brooklyn

The first Brooklyn Food Conference in 2009 galvanized over 3,000 adults and 500 youth from all five boroughs and New York State! The successful mobilization of so many enthusiastic food activists prompted the birth of the Brooklyn Food Coalition, which now has branches in ten Brooklyn neighborhoods, and active members and committees working on a variety of food- and social justice-related issues. This is a free event. Find out how to attend, participate, or volunteer here.

Join fellow gardeners from across the city at Neighborhood Preservation Center (232 East 11th St in Manhattan) from 6:30 to 8:30pm on Thursday, January 19 for our monthly general meeting as we discuss current news and events in the citywide gardening & greening scene.

Topics for discussion include: our upcoming trip to Albany to urge Governor Cuomo to support community gardens, the 2012 NYCCGC Board of Directors elections, and the planning of our annual Community Gardeners’ Forum (date TBA).

Join us in building a stronger community gardening community… come share what’s going on in your garden!

At its core, New York City Community Garden Coalition is a human rights organization. Therefore, in lieu of our regular monthly meeting, scheduled for Thursday, October 17, we are asking all our members and supporters to join us in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement by participating in the planned International Day of Action. The reasons are many, the time is now.

There is a full day of nonviolent protest planned: see the official OWS website for details on how you can take part.

Occupy Wall Street • Sunday October 16 3:00pm • Chatham Square

Sunday, October 16 is World Food Day – and New York City Community Garden Coalition thinks that the best way for community gardeners to observe World Food Day is to Occupy Wall Street!

Meet up with NYCCGC at 3:00pm at Chatham Square (Bowery @ Worth St*) this Sunday, October 16 (map). From there we’ll proceed together to  join the food justice delegation, who are gathering at Foley Square at 4:00pm (map). (We’re meeting away from the main throng so that we’ll be able to find each other.)

Bring banners, signs, friends – and fruits and vegetables!

Nearest subway stops:

J Train to Chambers Street
B/D to Grand Street
4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge

WHY? As the Official Statement of Occupy Wall Street puts it:

“They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.”

New York City community gardeners are part of the worldwide movement to take back our food supply to grow food that’s healthy, fresh, local – and affordable. No hedge fund trader or corporate chain store is turning a profit from our fresh collards, calaloo, calabaza, cilantro, carrots, and tomatoes!

Our most determined opponent has always been real estate developers seeking to turn our work healing our communities into opportunities for financial gain. Community gardeners have turned bombed-out neighborhoods into healthy, green communities where people want to live – and we get repaid by having our gardens threatened and bulldozed.

Where do those developers get their financing? Through corporate banks whose stocks are traded on Wall Street with one motive: to make even more money for the 1% of the people who own 42% of this country’s wealth.

We are the 99%! Join us on Sunday, and make our voice heard!

* Chatham Square actually lies at the confluence of seven streets: Bowery, East Broadway, St. James Place, Mott Street, Oliver Street, Worth Street, and Park Row.

For more information, visit www.BlackFarmersConf.org

The second annual Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference will “connect growers, eaters, and organizations across the country to nurture the health and well-being of Black America and the environment as a whole.”

Attendees will explore issues of race, class, health, and food through panel discussions, workshops, films, and conversations. Resources will be shared. Ideas will be pollinated. Solutions will be born.

A kickoff networking fundraiser, “An Evening with Our Leaders in the Field,” will be held Friday, October 14th at Kiosk Restaurant (80 East 116th St) in Harlem; seating is limited.

The keynote and all workshops will be held on Saturday, October 15th, at Hostos Community College in Bronx, New York (map).

Presenting keynote addresses will be Audrey Rowe, Administrator for the Food and Nutrition Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Rashid Nuri, Founder and Chief Executive of Atlanta GA’s Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture.

On Sunday, October 16th, the conference continues with Farm and Garden Tours in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Newark. (Note: a Bronx farm tour will take place during Saturday’s lunch break)

The Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference is organized by Black Urban Growers (BUGs), an organization committed to building networks and community support for growers in both urban and rural settings. Through education and advocacy around food and farm issues, BUGs is working to nurture collective black leadership to ensure a seat at the table.

Click here to register for Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference.

New York City Community Garden Coalition is proud to be returning as a supporter and sponsor of this event.

Dunton Community Garden
Thursday, September 15
6:30 – 8:30pm
143 – 01 Shore Avenue
Jamaica, Queens • map
rain or shine 

Join NYCCGC and gardeners from across New York City for the final general meeting of the season (all good gardeners know that summer does not end on Labor Day!). This summer’s al fresco sessions have taken us to Harlem, South Bronx, Central Brooklyn, and now, Queens. We have had the opportunity to meet new faces, see new (and old) spaces, and share stories with our fellow gardeners.

About Dunton Community Garden: This community hub was founded in  1984, and is an active member of the Brooklyn-Queens Land Trust. For community garden newbies, the Brooklyn-Queens Land Trust is a nonprofit organization formed by The Trust for Public Land after they rescued 63 gardens from Mayor Giuliani’s auction block in 1999, an historic event. New York Restoration Project also stepped up the the plate, purchasing 51 gardens for preservation.

“TPL’s 1999 acquisition of 62 (sic) community gardens slated for destruction was the single largest nonprofit initiative in America to preserve urban gardens” (to quote Urban Habitat’s excellent Race Poverty and the Environment site). You can read more about TPL & BQLT here.

The garden’s caretakers, Dunton Block and Civic Association, was founded in the late 1970s, oversees several green spaces in the area.

Come share stories of how you and your garden weathered the earthquake and hurricane of Summer 2011!

New York City Community Garden Coalition will convene its monthly meeting of gardeners from across the city on Thursday August 18, 6:30 – 8:30pm, at Prospect Heights Community Farm, located at 252-256 Saint Marks Avenue between Vanderbilt and Underhill Avenues (map).

NYCCGC’s monthly “third Thursday” meeting of gardeners has been rescheduled this month in deference to the arrival of Will Allen, hero and inspiration to so many community gardeners and urban farmers. He will be coming to New York on what would have been our regular meeting date: we’ll be there to listen and learn (and support the great work of Brooklyn Rescue Mission!), and you should be too! Details about his three-day visit to Bedford-Stuyvesant, (Brooklyn), which includes a public talk at Boys & Girls High School, a dinner-fundraiser, and special two-day workshop here.

NYCCGC Gardeners’ Meeting: Thursday, July 28, 6:30 – 8:30pm

Padre Plaza Success Community Garden
St. Ann’s Ave & E 139th Street [map] - Mass transit: 6 Train to Brook Avenue

Rain Location (2 blocks away): Brook Park (under the circus tent)
Brook Avenue & 141st Street [map]

Many thanks to the good folks at Padre Plaza and Brook Park!

July 12 to 18, New York City Community Garden Coalition is sending fifteen lucky participants to Center for Whole Communities at Knoll Farm, in Vermont. For one cellphone and laptop-free week, the group will engage in a retreat to “capture and harness the energy and commitment of NYCCGC’s new and long-time members.”

From the Center for Whole Communities website:

“This retreat will convene members of the New York City Community Garden Coalition to assist them in developing and inspiring the next generation (young and old) of the gardening communities leadership- from those working in their own neighborhoods, to those ready to step up to city-wide challenges. NYCCGC is the voice of urban gardeners throughout the five boroughs. As the grassroots convener of the people, the Coalition is a necessary player in the highly evolved politics of urban gardening in New York City. By invitation, and with the support of the Jesse and Betsy Fink Foundation. The retreat will be facilitated by Center staff Steve Glazer, Mistinguette Smith, and Wendy Johnson.”

The group includes NYCCGC’s president, Karen Washington, and other members of the current Board of Directors, joined by emerging community leaders. The retreat is part of the Coalition’s continuing leadership development efforts.