Annie Novak is the Manager of the Edible Academy at The New York Botanical Garden.
We introduced our first pair of beehives to the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden in 2010, the year beekeeping was re-legalized in New York City. We sited the apiaries—Langstroth hives—atop the single flat rooftop on our garden site, a one-story brick and concrete building home to both gardening and office equipment fondly called “the tool shed.” This gave our foraging worker bees zipping in and out of the hive a clear flight path above our vegetable plots, above and away from our visitors.
With the opening of the Edible Academy campus in the spring of 2018, our beehives moved to a much better location: the Kate Solomon Family Apiary, a flat, staff-accessible platform adjacent to the Gossett Overlook Pavilion. Now at eye-level (at a safe distance), visitors can observe the honeybees more readily. Unsurprisingly, a frequent query is what we do with their honey.
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
The Rooftop Growing Guide comes from NYBG’s own Annie Novak, the Manager of the Edible Academy. Novak writes clearly, with accessible prose and an eye to the practical. Yes, we should think big…. and look up! However, while it may seem that the sky is the limit when it comes to rooftop growing, Novak continuously reminds the reader of real-world concerns and offers detailed and practical advice to would-be rooftop gardeners.
Chapter titles include “Why Rooftops?,” “Assessing Your Rooftop,” “Containers, Greenhouses, Green Roofs, and Irrigation Methods,” “The Dirt on Rooftop Soil,” and several other sections that carry the reader through a successful rooftop garden. Simple graphic guides are included to lead the reader through activities such as assessing one’s roof or understanding seed viability and germination rates. Supplemental content is arranged carefully in sections that include technical how-tos and profiles of rooftop gardens and gardening activities.
It’s a tiny industry of flitting and buzzing that calls the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden home late in summer, and you know we never miss out on a chance to celebrate something. Plus, pollinators are important! At some point, most of the fruits and vegetables that land on your plate benefit from the busy activities of these nectar-nursing bugs. That goes just as well for the edibles growing in the Family Garden.
Bring the kids along and join us through October 11 to learn about these important insects, such as the honeybees coming and going from our rooftop apiaries, and the monarch butterflies making pitstops in the Garden on their way to Mexico for the winter. Our experts—often the same people who don those odd bee suits to retrieve our homegrown honey—will show you the inner workings of a beehive and offer samples from different nectar sources. In the meadow, you’ll find monarchs fueling up on nectar before taking to the skies for their marathon flight. And even if bugs aren’t your bag, there’s always a hands-on activity to dive into.
In any case, maybe our Family Garden queen bee, Annie Novak, can give you a better idea of what the pollinators are up to these days.
This week we’re diving headlong into the Family Garden harvest with Sweet & Stinky, our celebration of all things, shall we say, “superlatively aromatic.” But fear not: it’s the best kind of smelly! With garlic and onions coming into their own in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, and the summer not yet here, it’s the perfect time to have a little fun in the vegetable beds, get your hands dirty, and pick up a few handy new recipes to try at home.
Of course, we wouldn’t leave you hanging when it comes to new learning experiences—that’s why Annie Novak is on board.
We caught up with the Edible Academy Manager as she was poking around the onion beds, and picked up the gist of what’s taking place in the Family Garden over the coming weeks. Have a look and take note: the schedule’s full!
Sweet & Stinky takes place in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, June 11 – July 19 from 1:30 – 5:30 p.m. daily.
They really do laugh uncontrollably and without cause while working in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden. Well, all right, Ivo was probably telling a patently terrible joke at the time this photo was taken. Here’s a big thanks and hello to Annie Novak and Toby Adams, whose tireless efforts have kept us knee-deep in vegetables all through the summer and into fall. They’re buttoning up the Family Garden’s edible options until spring, but we’ll be waiting patiently for the next harvest!
A blush in the leaves, a crunch underfoot, and as good a reason as any to pluck your wool fashions out of the closet: fall is here with cool weather in tow! And while the savvy of our horticulturists means we have an exceedingly long growing window in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, it’s time for the harvest to end and our green geniuses to make their way into planning for the future. In the meantime, we’re bidding a cheerful adieu to our one-acre vegetable garden as the area’s native tribes did before us, with knowledgeable preparation that almost anyone can take part in.
Even with temperatures dropping, the fun is only just getting into its swing. Our latest program goes by “Goodnight Garden,” and through October 28 it offers an opportunity to see off the last of our garden edibles with activities to suit autumn’s colorful changes. For that, we look to the Lenape people who once lived in this area year round. We’ll be hosting tried and true seed saving activities to help you prepare for the next planting, as well as cooking demonstrations to send off your late season harvest with a bang.
Walking around the NYBG on this misty Wednesday afternoon, you can already make out hints of Halloween creeping into the Garden. The jack o’ lanterns peeking out from atop the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden archway are a dead giveaway. And this weekend, Annie Novak and the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden do them one better by welcoming an age-old tradition back to our vegetable plots. Leave the chicken wire at home, skip the raised beds, and grab a burlap sack: the scarecrows are slinking in!
As of Saturday and Sunday, the Family Garden’s vegetables see the silhouettes of autumn’s most iconic bird-shooing bodyguards, and we need your kids to help put them together. We’ll supply the poles, twine, floppy hats and straw, just so long as they bring their creativity. And that imagination easily carries over to our other activities for the weekend, like making corn husk dolls and exploring the nine restaurant kitchen gardens of Mario Batali’s Edible Garden.
This week in the Ruth Rea Howell Garden, Assistant Manager Annie Novak and her team of gardeners fire up the kitchen for some hearty recipes that celebrate the last of the summer harvest. “Grillin’ Summer Fruits,” as we like to call it, is set to take over our one-acre vegetable garden on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday of this week, at both 2 and 4 p.m. each afternoon. But while the name may suggest otherwise, we’re not talking about peaches and watermelons here!
Each demonstration focuses not on the sweeter fruits, but on the savory ones–those like tomatoes, which are so often mistaken for vegetables. And also making an appearance among the veggie-leaning fruits, a couple that you might not be aware of: zucchini and eggplant. Despite public opinion, these aren’t actually vegetables because their seeds are on the inside! So don’t let your warm-season produce languish in the crisper drawer when you could be throwing a cook-out instead. If there’s one way to celebrate what remains of this picturesque weather, it’s with food.
We’re back in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden this week to check in with Assistant Manager Annie Novak and the busy cast of pollinators keeping our flowers in business!
As one of the experienced caretakers behind the success of our beehives, she’s our go-to source for all things buzzing (and fluttering, for that matter; we’d never think to leave out the monarch butterflies). It doesn’t hurt that she rocks a beekeeping suit like no other. And while we like to leave the actual hands-on apiculture duties to our Family Garden staff, you’re welcome to join them for “Pollinator Pals,” running now through October 5 from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. daily.
Another bright spot on our radar: Mario Batali’s Edible Gardening Festival! If you think of “food” as one of your action words, and a day spent cavorting around Mario’s Kitchen Gardens is your idea of a Sunday well-spent (it’s definitely ours), be here September 23 for cooking demonstrations, a packed schedule of garden fun, and–best of all–a four-course meal prepared and served by the great chef himself. There are different tickets for different events during the festival, all of them going quickly, so be sure to see what’s available beforehand.
So you don’t have a back yard, a rooftop apartment in Brooklyn, or even a couple of bee suits and a smoking can. Not a problem! For kids (or parents!) who are bursting with questions over the city’s biggest agricultural excitement since fire escapes first met tomato plants, you won’t need any of the above to pick up the basics.
While the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden is home to two active beehives, Assistant Manager Annie Novak and her team have put together the full beekeeping kit–sans bugs–for those who’d rather go to the open house without the tenants in attendance, so to speak. Apiculture at its easiest! And we won’t be sparing with the sweets, either; if you’ve ever wondered how flower choice affects what goes into the jar, we’ll be offering tastes of the many different types of honey that a healthy hive can produce.
We introduced our first pair of beehives to the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden in 2010, the year beekeeping was re-legalized in New York City. We sited the apiaries—Langstroth hives—atop the single flat rooftop on our garden site, a one-story brick and concrete building home to both gardening and office equipment fondly called “the tool shed.” This gave our foraging worker bees zipping in and out of the hive a clear flight path above our vegetable plots, above and away from our visitors. 
So you don’t have a back yard, a rooftop apartment in Brooklyn, or even a couple of bee suits and a smoking can. Not a problem! For kids (or parents!) who are bursting with questions over the city’s biggest agricultural excitement since fire escapes first met tomato plants, you won’t need any of the above to pick up the basics.