Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Midwood Pick-Up



I'm reposting Marie's (66sqft fame) post on her efforts to pick up the trash in the woods of Prospect Park. Please read, and consider the chance to meet gardening bloggers in the morning, in the woods, with trash bags and grabbers in hand.




Save the Date - Litter Mob!

Tuesday, 10 May, 9am, Midwood, Prospect Park: corner of Center Drive and East Drive

From Eric Landau, Director of Government and Community Affairs for the Prospect Park Alliance:

"I am pleased to report back to you that we have made arrangements for you and any additional volunteers you can recruit to work with members of our Natural Resources Crew (NRC) in the Midwood.  We would like to schedule this for Tuesdays at 9am and are available to start on Tuesday, May 10th.  Please meet John Jordan from the NRC at the corner of Center Drive and East Drive by the Midwood at 9am.  We will provide trash grabbers, garbage bags and gloves.  Please let me know in advance how many people you expect to join you, so that we can provide enough supplies."

Because it has been scheduled for a Tuesday, I am appealing to all freelancers, trust fund beneficiaries, starving artists, incredibly successful artists, retired persons, and Those with Interesting Schedules to show up on the 10th and pick up, at the end of a nice long stick, used condoms, wet wipes, bottles, chip packets and whatever else we find.

It'll be fun! 

Bloggers -please reblog or put out the word (with my email, see below).


Seriously. Broaching the subject of the nature of some of the litter found in these woods makes people in positions of offialdom jumpy. So I am very pleased that we have this opportunity to go and clean up somebody else's mess.

I am not from a country of deciduous forest. I grew up with grasslands and then moved to fynbos. Each is spectacular and unique, but lacks the Northern romance of the falling leaf, the greening branch, the winter silhouette. I care about these woods in the park, a memory in the enormous city of what this land once was, before the grid. They are beautiful and I would like to help keep them clean. And cannot do it alone.


This is the first time a group has targeted this area, and Vince and I will show up regularly. We are hoping that others who love these woods and care about the park will pitch in and help. We might be able to work out a weekend day if a weekday proves untenable.


Please RSVP for this glorious walk-in-the-woods-with-benefits, so that there will be a nice set of gloves and grabber waiting for you.

marieyviljoen   at   gmail     dot    com

The giveaway (Fine: bribe):

I will be giving away a copy of Stephen Orr's new Tomorrow's Garden (Rodale, 2011), to the third caller, er, emailer who RSVPs (and shows up!). The book is worth it for the beautiful photographs alone (I confess I go for pictures, rather than text when looking for garden inspiration). Which is good in this case because the text in the book is preternaturally small, with some sidebar exceptions - perhaps a budget consideration? Smaller text, smaller book, but it is a pity. That notwithstanding there are some wonderful gardens and fresh ideas in it, including the Gowanus Garden! I told Stephen about it two years ago when we helped judge the Greenest Block. Seems he visited...Also in the pages, vegetables, raspberries, lawnless lawns, the real story behind gravel, chickens (of course) and some good ideas.  He writes very well. Just invest in a magnifying glass.

For more about the Prospect Park (and its litter) here are some previous posts:



2 comments:

  1. Thanks, Frank! And if I may, excellent title.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm trying to put together a clean up in Fort Greene Park also. If we get enough volunteers (need at least three), we'll meet May 15th at two o'clock to clean up some of the broken glass in the park and then send it for recycling. There's a place in New Jersey that Brooklyn Icestone uses as a supplier for their recycled glass countertops. Also, we're giving away free seeds from John Sceepers Kitchen Garden Seeds from their Bumblebee Habitat Collection. Feel free to email me at bklynbrokenwindow at gmail com for info on everything.

    ReplyDelete

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