We don’t keep chickens at The New York Botanical Garden. Not yet, anyway. But elsewhere, well, that’s another story. The Bronx is becoming a hub for urban agriculture, and many community gardens around the borough have cleaved not only to edible gardens, but to rooftop beehives, goats, and even chicken coops. You’ll get a taste of the movement when you join us for an Urban Farm Tour, the most recent of which took place on August 18; keep it here for updates on future events.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

The Edible Garden Festival and Garden-to-Table Dinner and Cooking Demonstration with Mario Batali on September 23 is fast approaching! “Mario Batali’s Kitchen Gardens” in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden are bursting with produce. Check it out!

A View of the beds in Mario Batali's Kitchen Gardens

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Thanks to a tweet from the Cooper-Hewitt I learned that August is National Peach Month. And boy, what a summer it has been for peaches! Have you had one yet? If not, I urge you to run out to your closest greenmarket or farmer’s market (a bodega just will not do) and buy two or three right now. Go on … go ahead, I’ll wait.

Got one? Good, now go eat it over the sink. Yep, they’re that juicy this year! And it’s not just peaches, all the stone fruit are having a stellar season; nectarines, plums, cherries, apricots (though their season is over now), they have all been sensationally delicious. And while I cannot vouch for every peach at every greenmarket in New York City, I have been buying mine at our weekly Greenmarket, so I can vouch for those being sold by Red Jacket Orchard and Migliorelli Farm as fantastic!

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Mark you calendars: The Edible Garden Festival is just over a month away; on September 23, The New York Botanical Garden will be home to one big, family-friendly edible festival featuring Garden friend Mario Batali!

Families can spend the day in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden exploring “Mario Batali’s Kitchen Gardens,” watch cooking demonstrations with NYBG staff, participate in a plethora of hands-on gardening activities, and enjoy food sampling. A special ticket is required for the Festival and includes All-Garden Pass access to the Garden. This ticket does not include the Mario Batali cooking demonstration or the Garden-to-Table Dinner with Mario Batali.

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If the grow-at-home herb garden went over with your child about as well as that “educational” video game you got him for his birthday, and dinner salads are essentially your little Superman’s kryptonite, there’s hope yet for any parent: the Urban Farm Tour series. Last time out, we explored the borough that hip-hop built (depending on which generation you speak with, anyway), guiding visitors through a few of the most well-established and promising Bronx farms to support the urban agriculture movement. Now, we’re getting the kids in on the act.

On Saturday, August 18, the Bronx Trolley sets out to celebrate the influence of youth on our gardens. This time, we’ll be featuring two significant community plots, Brook Park and Drew Gardens, along with the school garden of C.S. 211. These are only a handful of the major hubs in our borough for greening, growing, and outdoor summer programming. And there’s more than enough activities during our daytrip to turn your kids into miniature green thumbs, with introductions to vegetable growing, a beekeeping mini-workshop, and time spent learning the ropes as urban chicken farmers.
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It’s tomato time, and that can only mean one thing, that it is also gazpacho time. Gazpacho (or gaspacho) is a cold soup from Spain. It is refreshing, healthy, delicious, and a great way to showcase the intense flavor of summer’s most perfect tomatoes.

Gazpacho generally consists of a few basic ingredients; tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, garlic and olive oil, but as with most “simple” recipes, the variations are endless. We have rounded up a handful of our favorite gazpacho recipes below. Do you have a favorite variation we haven’t mentioned? Feel free to tell us in the comments!

Summertime is also a good time to brush up on your food safety smarts. To that end the Cornell Cooperative Extension will be at the Greenmarket this week 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. to offer tips and answer all your food safety questions.

The weekly NYBG Greenmarket occurs every Wednesday through November 21, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. near Tulip Tree Allée. Admission and parking for the weekly Greenmarket is always free, and EBT, WIC, and FMNP and NYC Health Bucks are accepted.

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As the community outreach arm of The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx Green-Up is invested in the future of our Bronx neighborhoods, providing horticultural advice, technical assistance, and training to the growing urban gardening movement here in the borough. It’s this very program that earned the NYBG the prestigious National Medal for Museum and Library Service in 2010, as given by first lady Michelle Obama. Through workshops and certificate programs, as well as harvest festivals, BGU is still building on that honor, working tirelessly to bring community gardeners together through the sharing of information. And so far, it’s working. Just ask the newly-minted gardeners of the A.C.T.I.O.N. group!

It stands for Activists Coming to Inform Our Neighborhood, and it’s an apt description for an outfit looking to identify and tackle environmental and social justice concerns at home. After four dedicated seasons of tutelage under our BGU horticulturists, these 21 teens returned to their south Bronx neighborhood with useful new tools in hand, ready to paint Hunts Point green. They did it not only through classroom learning, but hands-on activities in the soil, learning the ins and outs of a food system under increased scrutiny in areas such as the Bronx. Now they’re able to look past the supermarket produce aisle, turning to shovels, wheelbarrows, and plenty of elbow grease to tackle the issues in their own garden plots–from seed to harvest.
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It is a bountiful time of year. Just about any fruit or vegetable you can imagine is available and at the peak of flavor. It’s the best time of year for vegetable lovers; tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, peppers, garlic, peaches, nectarines, cherries, they’re all available at the weekly NYBG Greenmarket! Last week we featured recipes for salads that use lots of vegetables and require little or no cooking. This week we’re giving you recipes that involve cooking, but also take full advantage of all of summer’s amazing produce. See our picks below.

Also this week you can also learn how to take your vegetable scraps and turn them into the gardener’s version of black gold–compost! Representatives from the NYC Compost Project will be on hand 11 a.m – 1 p.m. to offer composting tips and tricks and to answer all your questions.

Admission and parking for the weekly Greenmarket is always free, and EBT, WIC, and FMNP and NYC Health Bucks are accepted. The Greenmarket is situated near the Mosholu Gate entrance near Tulip Tree Allée and occurs every Wednesday through November 21, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

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What’s more American than barbecuing on July 4? How about barbecuing locally-sourced, American-grown produce! The Garden, along with the Greenmarket, will be open this Independence Day, Wednesday, July 4 so that you can pickup all your barbecue and picnic needs from the farmers who grow them. Why not celebrate America’s 236th birthday with an all American buckle, grunt, betty, or cobbler featuring Red Jacket Orchard‘s beautiful berries or cherries. Not a baker? Then pickup one of the Little Bake Shop‘s delicious–and already baked–seasonal pies!

And don’t forget that most American of grains, corn, which is delicious boiled or grilled and slathered in butter, or with lime, chile, and cheese. In addition to corn and cherries, I’m hoping for summer squash and green beans from Migliorelli Farm, maybe a tomato or two, and pickles from Millport Dairy and spring onions from Gajeski Produce to serve on top of hamburgers!

From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., stop by the Greenmarket information booth to pot up a plant to take home and grow on your window sill. The weekly NYBG Greenmarket near Tulip Tree Allée happens every Wednesday through November 21, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission and parking are free to shop at the Greenmarket and EBT, WIC, and FMNP are accepted.

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The Bronx’s own New York Yankees wrapped up HOPE Week 2012 (Helping Others Persevere & Excel) today in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden by celebrating the Children’s Alopecia Program (CAP) and the group’s founders, the Woytovich family. The Yankees say that HOPE Week is “rooted in the fundamental belief that acts of goodwill provide hope and encouragement to more than just the recipient of the gesture.” After spending a few hours mingling with the kids affected by this autoimmune disease and the club’s players, my face hurt from smiling, and I left with the opinion that HOPE Week does indeed bring joy to everyone it touches.

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