This morning I discovered that the domain for Gowanus Lounge had been appropriated by a commercial site. I learned this afternoon that the domain had been sold.
Gowanus Lounge had been the project of founder Robert Guskind, who died (too soon) in March of 2009. Archived content from Gowanus Lounge is now available at a new, "memorial" domain, bobguskind.com.
I'll be updating my links to the old Gowanus Lounge site to the new domain in his name. It saddens me to have to do this, but I must, since Bob's work is no longer available at the original domain. It's clear to me that the new proprietor of the domain expects to garner hits through links to Bob's old work. I refuse to support that.
Please visit the NEW SITE for Flatbush Gardener
2009-12-26
2009-12-21
Standing Still, Looking Ahead
Illumination of Earth by Sun at the southern solstice.
This season's Solstice (Winter in the Northern hemisphere, Summer in the Southern), occurs at 17:47pm UTC on December 21, 2008. That's 12:47 PM where I am, in the Eastern Time zone.
This season's Solstice (Winter in the Northern hemisphere, Summer in the Southern), occurs at 17:47pm UTC on December 21, 2008. That's 12:47 PM where I am, in the Eastern Time zone.
The name is derived from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), because at the solstices, the Sun stands still in declination; that is, its apparent movement north or south comes to a standstill.We got about 10" of snow over the weekend, and it's not going anywhere soon. So it's definitely wintery here. Here's another of my neighbors' illuminary displays.
- Solstice, Wikipedia
2009-12-05
It Begins
Update, 2009-12-26: Holiday Lights 2009
The Wizard of Slocum Place does it again, with help from his next-door neighbor.
For best effect, view this photo on a black background.
I took this snapshot last night with my little Nikon P&S while walking home from dinner at Mimi's Hummus on Cortelyou Road with Blog Widow. Tonight's snow will create an ideal wintery photo-op.
The Wizard of Slocum Place does it again, with help from his next-door neighbor.
For best effect, view this photo on a black background.
I took this snapshot last night with my little Nikon P&S while walking home from dinner at Mimi's Hummus on Cortelyou Road with Blog Widow. Tonight's snow will create an ideal wintery photo-op.
2009-12-01
Names, World AIDS Day (Off-Topic)
2021-12-01: See Names, 2021-12-01
In observance of World AIDS Day, I thought I would re-publish this list of names from my old (neglected and needing to be retired) Web site. These are some of the people, all men, I lost, nearly all to AIDS. I stopped actively maintaining this list in 1994. In alphabetical order.
In observance of World AIDS Day, I thought I would re-publish this list of names from my old (neglected and needing to be retired) Web site. These are some of the people, all men, I lost, nearly all to AIDS. I stopped actively maintaining this list in 1994. In alphabetical order.
- William "Wolf" Agress, a lover, died in 1990
- Andre, a bartender at the Tunnel Bar in the East Village, now defunct
- Vincent Barnes
- Jerry Bihm
- Bobby
- Colin Curran
- Erez Dror, co-owner and -founder of the Black Hound Bakery in the East Village, New York City, now defunct
- Jeff Glidden, a lover
- Paul "Griff" Griffin
- Martin Noel Jorda
- David Kirschenbaum, community organizer with the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project
- Art Kohn, founder of the BackRoom BBS in New York City, now defunct
- Jim Lewis
- Luis
- John Mangano
- Jeffrey Martin
- Morris Matthews
- Karl Michalak
- Mark Melvin
- Norm
- Tony Panico, my first lover in New York City
- Charles Pope, barfly extraordinaire
- Gordon Provencher, 1955-1992
- Tom Raleigh
- Craig Rodwell, founder of the Oscar Wilde Bookstore in Greenwich Village, NYC
- Tony Rostron
- Jurgen Schmitt
- Giulio Sorrentino
- Buddy Volani
- Jeremy Wells
- David Joseph Wilcox, 1957-1996
2009-11-18
Ginkgo Gone Wild
The Ginkgo Walk at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, November 2008.
Another Brooklyn blogger reports:
Ginkgo biloba is a dioecious species, with male and female flowers on different plants (usually). The fruit of Ginkgos, which arise only from the flowers of female plants, is notoriously messy and smelly, hence the co-op's concern. We had a close encounter with some on the Sustainable Flatbush Street Tree Walking Tour a few weeks ago.
The gender of dioecious flowering plants can't be determined until they flower; male and female plants must be selected and copied through vegetative propagation techniques as cultivars, i.e.: clones. Hollies, Ilex, are also dioecious, and gardeners who want berries on their Hollies must purchase known-female cultivars and ensure that compatible males are close enough for pollination.
Flowers on the female cultivar of Ilex verticillata, Winterberry, in my backyard native plant garden. The sticky stigma, which receives the pollen from the flowers of the nearby male plant, is clearly visible in the center of the flower.
The ability of dioecious plants to change gender has been observed before, though it's unusual. The mechanisms by which individual plants "choose" their gender remains unknown; the accelerating capabilities of genetic technology are likely to change this. If any reader has some good references, please share them in a comment below.
Another Brooklyn blogger reports:
One crisis I've been tasked with dealing with [from a co-op board meeting] is one of our ginkgo trees in the front of our building has apparently decided to change its sex - from male to female; or at least one branch of it has done so.
- Thoughts While Looking Up, Ink Lake, 2009-11-17
Ginkgo biloba is a dioecious species, with male and female flowers on different plants (usually). The fruit of Ginkgos, which arise only from the flowers of female plants, is notoriously messy and smelly, hence the co-op's concern. We had a close encounter with some on the Sustainable Flatbush Street Tree Walking Tour a few weeks ago.
The gender of dioecious flowering plants can't be determined until they flower; male and female plants must be selected and copied through vegetative propagation techniques as cultivars, i.e.: clones. Hollies, Ilex, are also dioecious, and gardeners who want berries on their Hollies must purchase known-female cultivars and ensure that compatible males are close enough for pollination.
Flowers on the female cultivar of Ilex verticillata, Winterberry, in my backyard native plant garden. The sticky stigma, which receives the pollen from the flowers of the nearby male plant, is clearly visible in the center of the flower.
The ability of dioecious plants to change gender has been observed before, though it's unusual. The mechanisms by which individual plants "choose" their gender remains unknown; the accelerating capabilities of genetic technology are likely to change this. If any reader has some good references, please share them in a comment below.
2009-11-13
Flatbush Daffodil Project - 11/14 & 11/15
11/14 ONLY - CANCELLED due to rain (remains of Hurricane Ida). Join us Sunday, 11/15, for a beautiful day of Daffodil bulb planting!
Join Sustainable Flatbush and your fellow urban gardeners to beautify neighborhood tree beds by planting daffodil bulbs!
The Daffodil Project was originally created to commemorate September 11th; a Dutch bulb grower donates 500,000 bulbs each year to NYC community groups who plant them in neighborhoods all over the five boroughs. This year, New Yorkers for Parks distributed more than 125,000 Daffodil bulbs for planting throughout the City. Sustainable Flatbush received 500 bulbs for planting in tree beds and other public areas in our neighborhood.
This will be Sustainable Flatbush's second year of co-sponsoring the Daffodil Project locally. If you enjoy gardening, feel like digging in some dirt, or if you just want to delight in the company of your neighbors, join us this weekend!
WHAT: Flatbush Daffodil Project
WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, November 14th and 15th, from 10:00am until 12:00pm
WHERE: Meet in front of Vox Pop Cafe at 9:45, 1022 Cortelyou Road (corner of Stratford Road)
(Please note: rain cancels this event! Call us at 718-208-0575 if in doubt)
Join Sustainable Flatbush and your fellow urban gardeners to beautify neighborhood tree beds by planting daffodil bulbs!
The Daffodil Project was originally created to commemorate September 11th; a Dutch bulb grower donates 500,000 bulbs each year to NYC community groups who plant them in neighborhoods all over the five boroughs. This year, New Yorkers for Parks distributed more than 125,000 Daffodil bulbs for planting throughout the City. Sustainable Flatbush received 500 bulbs for planting in tree beds and other public areas in our neighborhood.
This will be Sustainable Flatbush's second year of co-sponsoring the Daffodil Project locally. If you enjoy gardening, feel like digging in some dirt, or if you just want to delight in the company of your neighbors, join us this weekend!
WHAT: Flatbush Daffodil Project
WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, November 14th and 15th, from 10:00am until 12:00pm
WHERE: Meet in front of Vox Pop Cafe at 9:45, 1022 Cortelyou Road (corner of Stratford Road)
(Please note: rain cancels this event! Call us at 718-208-0575 if in doubt)
2009-11-05
BK DECAY: Brooklyn Community Leaf Composting, 11/7&8, 11/14&15, & 11/21&22
Update 2009-11-21: In just 4 hours over 2 days, the Flatbush CommUNITY Garden diverted 1,740 lbs of leaves from landfill to compost which will enrich the Garden and more of Brooklyn's urban farms and gardens. As Director of the Urban Gardens and Farms Initiative of Sustainable Flatbush, I want to thank everyone who participated, whether by planning, volunteering, or dropping off leaves.
Cherry Leaves, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, November 2008
Until 2007, NYC collected and composted residential leaves. For the second year, 20,000 tons of leaves will be treated like household garbage, added to the City’s already-overburdened waste stream. Sign the petition to restore leaf composting to NYC.
Stepping into the void left by the City's abandonment of leaf composting, more than a dozen Brooklyn community gardens, as well as gardens in other boroughs, have banded together in partnership with the GreenBridge Community Garden Alliance of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Council on the Environment of NYC, bk farmyards, Vokashi, and the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition,
Over the next three weekends, from 11am to 1pm, Brooklyn residents can bring leaves, free of trash, twigs and branches, in clear plastic or paper bags to one of the locations marked with a blue pin on this map. Not every garden is participating on all dates, so check the garden nearest you to see when you can drop-off in your neighborhood.
View larger map
Information will be available at many of the participating gardens about how to make compost in your own garden or apartment and about efforts to encourage the City to reinstate its municipal leaf collection and composting program.
The Flatbush CommUNITY Garden is participating on two dates: this Sunday, November 8, and Saturday, November 21. The drop-off will be at 1550 Albemarle Road, near Buckingham Road (East 16th Street). The Garden is a project of Sustainable Flatbush, part of the Urban Gardens & Farms initiative.
Cherry Leaves, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, November 2008
Until 2007, NYC collected and composted residential leaves. For the second year, 20,000 tons of leaves will be treated like household garbage, added to the City’s already-overburdened waste stream. Sign the petition to restore leaf composting to NYC.
Stepping into the void left by the City's abandonment of leaf composting, more than a dozen Brooklyn community gardens, as well as gardens in other boroughs, have banded together in partnership with the GreenBridge Community Garden Alliance of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Council on the Environment of NYC, bk farmyards, Vokashi, and the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition,
Over the next three weekends, from 11am to 1pm, Brooklyn residents can bring leaves, free of trash, twigs and branches, in clear plastic or paper bags to one of the locations marked with a blue pin on this map. Not every garden is participating on all dates, so check the garden nearest you to see when you can drop-off in your neighborhood.
View larger map
Information will be available at many of the participating gardens about how to make compost in your own garden or apartment and about efforts to encourage the City to reinstate its municipal leaf collection and composting program.
The Flatbush CommUNITY Garden is participating on two dates: this Sunday, November 8, and Saturday, November 21. The drop-off will be at 1550 Albemarle Road, near Buckingham Road (East 16th Street). The Garden is a project of Sustainable Flatbush, part of the Urban Gardens & Farms initiative.
2009-11-04
Who Cares About Honeybees, Anyway?
2021-10-26: Scraped and back-dated from an Internet Archive copy of Garden Rant.
Originally published as a Guest Rant on Garden Rant on November 4, 2009. The original is no longer available on their Web site.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been making the news rounds for a few years now. It's old, if still current, news. Dire outcomes from the loss of honeybees have been proffered. For example, PBS recently introduced an online "ask the expert" feature with this:
Since the winter of 2006, millions of bees have vanished, leaving behind empty hives and a damaged ecosystem.Really? The ECOSYSTEM?! Did they not notice that honeybees aren't part of the ecosystem?
- Ask “Silence of the Bees” Expert Dr. Diana Cox-Foster, PBS Blog
Honeybees are livestock. They are animals which we manage for our uses. We provide them with housing and maintenance. We even move them from field to field, just as we let cows into different pastures for grazing.
Perhaps, if CCD can neither be prevented nor cured, disaster would come to pass. However, the underlying cause would not be the loss of the honeybees but our dependence on them as a consequence of unsustainable agricultural practices.
The old ways of farming include hedgerows, uncultivated areas between fields. The biodiversity of these patches provide substantial habitat for native pollinators, as well as other beneficial insects. When even these rough “unproductive” patches of land are cleared, we set the stage for the patterns that have come to dominate agriculture: more herbicides, more pesticides, more machinery. All of these also damage the soil food webs that support both soil fertility and agricultural ecosystems. Although manufactured inputs provide temporary relief, they reduce the ecological functions of the land, requiring more and greater inputs to achieve the same effect. This is the definition of addiction, and it’s a clear sign that this way of doing business is unsustainable.
Why do we need to ship and truck pollinators around? There are plenty of native pollinators to do the job, where we haven't decimated their habitats. There are 4,000 species of bees alone in North America. 226 species are known in New York City. Many of them visit my gardens in Flatbush, Brooklyn; some have even taken up residence. Many native bees are ground-dwellers which need only some open ground in which to dig their nests. When every patch of ground is cultivated, plowed under or paved over, native pollinators disappear. Suddenly, we “need” honeybees for pollination.
I care about the honeybees. I like my honey and beeswax candles. I support efforts to legalize beekeeping in New York City. But not at the expense of the biodiversity that is all around us, even in the city, if only we care enough to look for it, value it, and nurture it.
Related Content
Cellophane Bees Return, 2009-05-02Links
Ask “Silence of the Bees” Expert Dr. Diana Cox-Foster. [http://www.pbs.org/engage/blog/ask-%E2%80%9Csilence-bees%E2%80%9D-expert-dr-diana-cox-foster], PBS BlogSaving [Honey] Bees: What We Know Now [About CCD]
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/saving-bees-what-we-know-now/], NY Times, 2009-09-02
2009-11-01
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)