The Riverside-Inwood Neighborhood URBAN Garden, NYC

Översikt

This is a wonderful community garden! Open Hours are currently:

* Saturdays, 10am to Noon (gardening supervision and instruction provided)
* a few evenings a week, 6:30pm to dusk (gardening supervision provided)
Garden Sitting Teams are now forming for other times.
To be on a team you coordinate to cover the time slot with a few other neighbors. Teams are forming for:

* Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays 6:30 pm to dusk
* Saturday afternoons, Noon to 6 (in 2 hour increments)
* Saturdays 6:30pm to dusk

Riverside-Inwood Neighborhood Gardens (RING) was established in 1984 and is affiliated with the Inwood-Heights Parks Alliance (IHPA, a 501(c)(3) organization, and RING's fiscal agent). By 1985 neighborhood volunteers turned a rubble-strewn lot at 1815 Riverside in the Inwood Section of Upper Manhattan, New York City, into an award-winning flower and ornamentals garden. RING won Mollie Parnis "Dress Up Your Neighborhood" contests in 1985 and 1987, and won numerous awards for flower arrangements in New York Horticultural Society competitions. After three years the property was sold, and in 1990, with the help of NYC Parks Department, Councilmember Michels, Assemblymember Murtaugh, and an endowment from the Trust for Public Land, the RING garden was reestablished at the triangle at the confluence of Riverside Dr., Dyckman St., Broadway, and Seaman Ave in the Inwood section of upper Manhattan. RING was incorporated in 1990, when it began its second community garden in Inwood. The new garden, based on the same design principles as the original, has continued to win awards for beauty, including city-wide Mollie Parnis Contests in 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1997, and 1998 and the National Gardening Association award in 1992.
Overall Purposes
Now that the triangle garden is established, RING's objectives are:

* to educate neighborhood adults and children in the arts and science of horticulture, aquaculture, butterfly habitat, and composting, and enhance their appreciation of the environment with hands-on experience,

* to increase our role as a focus for community involvement by including more members of the community. Enjoyment of the garden, care and cultivation of plants by volunteers, both in the garden and elsewhere in the community are some of the vehicles for achieving this.

* to improve the quality of life for neighborhood residents and businesses by maintaining and enhancing the garden and its immediate surroundings.

General Activities
Community volunteers of all ages and interests participate in a variety of activities. These include planting of annuals and spring bulbs, dividing perennials, pruning shrubs and trees, erosion control, landscaping, weeding, mulching, watering, vermin control, fertilizing, lawn care, and pond care among others. With our compost bins, we have been producing new organic-rich soil using our own yard waste and residential food waste. Recent special projects in the garden have included a fish pond ecosystem with a solar-powered waterfall and self-contained stream. Students from Our Lady Queen of Martyrs School help us plant and maintain beds of annual flowers. Well over 100 in the school's science classes also assist in keeping the garden well maintained, removing spent annuals, and planting many daffodils and other bulbs in the fall.

Nongardening volunteers plan events, garden tours, and plant sales, write and distribute newsletters and volunteer alerts, coordinate volunteering, make signage for the garden, maintain a database of volunteers and members, procure supplies, and raise funds. Garden sitters volunteer simply by opening the gates and minding the garden.

TECHNIQUES: URBAN FARMING

RING is nestled between Ft. Tryon Park to the south, Inwood Park to the north, and centrally located in Inwood, in northernmost Manhattan, New York City.

Northeast Permaculture and Eco/Urban Agriculture Map
updated 03/2012 by Northeast Permaculture