Fresh off the puckered and pungent “Pickle Me!” events that took place in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden over the last few weeks, we join Assistant Manager Annie Novak to catch up with our long-time adventure in multinational growing, the Global Gardens! Because native is all well and good, but when it comes down to exploring edibles, our Family Garden keeps an open mind to unique fruits and vegetables from around the world. And what better place to celebrate multinationalism than in the Bronx, one of–if not the–most diverse communities in the United States?
This week’s highlights come to us from Shirley, caretaker of the Chinese garden, and Mr. Mota, who keeps the Caribbean garden thriving. From bitter melon to plantains, they’ve cultivated a lengthy menu of traditional fruits and vegetables to represent their national cuisines. And it’s a welcome catch-up course, just in time for this weekend’s Summer Harvest Celebration! Make sure the kids are tagging along for this one; they’ll have the chance to meet some of our knowledgeable Global Gardeners, play a few garden games, make crafts, learn an Irish jig, and even sample garden-grown vegetables for themselves.
The Family Garden is changing gears for the foodie crowd, jumping from Sweet and Stinky to an equally (and pungently) delightful delicacy. You’ve probably been there: the corner deli clerk plucks a zeppelin-sized pickle from that greenish jug of brine on the counter, you set into it with a crunch, and your pastrami sandwich is suddenly transcendent. You’re likely thinking it would take a family history in the pickling business, not to mention a wealth of time, to make something so delicious. But, with a little practice, you’ll prove yourself wrong!
Putting together the perfect balance of spices and other flavoring blends is where time and imagination come into play. Otherwise, the brining process is about as easy as packing up leftovers! A few clean jars, a selection of fresh cucumbers, and a handful of other easily-attainable ingredients. It’s so simple you can pick it up during an afternoon “Pickle Me!” session, now running through August 17 in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, from 1:30 to 5:30* p.m. daily. You won’t even need your grandmother’s chilly cellar to let your pickles prepare; with our recipe, the refrigerator will suit just fine.
Skip your morning affair with the everything bagel and get to the root of summer’s freshest garlic and onions! As Assistant Manager of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, Annie Novak’s got a direct line to the most basic of foodie cravings–a knack for not only raising all things allium, but putting them through their paces in the kitchen. So if you happen to catch a whiff of this pungent pair as you wander the NYBG between now and the end of the month, simply “follow your nose” to our Sweet and Stinky events.
That’s just what we were doing when we found Annie hard at work in the Family Garden yesterday, tending to the herbs and alliums that star in this flavorful summertime activity. But she can explain the fun of Sweet and Stinky far better than I can, as you’ll see below. Just think of it as a double whammy: you’ll have something to engage your kids while they’re out of school, and they’ll be trying new things in our one-acre vegetable garden to boot.
A herd of us, myself included, skipped out on our desks yesterday to spend the morning in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, picking our way through the planted rows and soaking up the spring weather. We’re not truants so much as curious and hungry, really. After a few minutes chatting with the Family Garden’s Assistant Manager, Annie Novak, we can’t think of a better place to let loose with your kids over the weekend.
I’m not just saying that because Annie kindly let us pluck a couple of sugarsnap pea pods to munch on, either. (After much whining and pleading on our part, though totally worth the effort considering how crispy-delightful they were).
More than an oasis of everyday New York staples, this foodie bonanza is also the host of Global Gardens, where five international green thumbs are tending plots that represent the home-grown veggies of their countries’ cuisines: Italian, Irish, Korean, Chinese, and Caribbean. And (perfect timing, I know) this weekend marks their Summer Harvest Celebration!
As the founder and director of the Growing Chefs field-to-fork education program, co-founder of the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, and the Assistant Manager of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, Annie Novak knows her way around a vegetable plot. Join her on May 17 for The Art of Cooking in the French Garden, bringing the taste and sophistication of this world-renowned cuisine to the NYBG.
Coq au vin, Quiche Lorraine, and vichyssoise—nowhere in the world have culinary artists developed such a reputation for precision, passion and talent as in the French kitchen. From perfectly crusty baguettes to finely flavored vinaigrettes, the art of French cooking seems at first glance like an unachievable alchemy of herbs, creams, and knife skills. But as a green thumb enamored with the precise and beautiful public parks throughout Paris (and a compulsive Googler of Versailles’ vegetable gardens), I became obsessed with the idea that French food could be done well, yet with ease.
Ed. Note: The beekeeping craze that’s sweeping New York City isn’t just for rooftops in Brooklyn! Annie Novak, Assistant Manager of the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden, was kind enough to explain her most recent adventure giving bees a home at the NYBG.
We installed the beehives on top of our garden shed space, so the bees have a clear flight path over the Garden site. As the hives’ populations grow, so do our vegetables. Thanks to the bees, we have higher rates of fruiting on our apple trees and pepper plants.
The bees spend the first part of the spring season building up wax combs to lay eggs in, as well as store honey later in the year. As the Family Garden grows, and the cherries and lilacs just outside the Family Garden bloom, we start to see our bees venture further afield. They’ll fly up to five miles from the hive to gather nectar and pollen, but with a campus as lush as the New York Botanical Garden, they don’t have to go that far to get food.
Annie Novak at the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm (Photo courtesy of The Selby)
Annie Novak–urban farm evangelist, owner of Roof Top Services, children’s gardening advocate, and rooftop farmer–will “Raise the Roof!” tomorrow at the Garden at 10 a.m.
Novak, the Director of The New York Botanical Garden’s Children’s Gardening Program, the founder and director of Growing Chefs field-to-fork education program, and the co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint, Brooklyn will discuss the challenges, successes, and lessons learned from farming the skyline.
From Tanzania to the Bronx, Novak is a local farmer with a global perspective. Having farmed in nine different countries and co-founded the nation’s first rooftop farm, Novak has amassed a wealth of experience gardening in any environment. She’ll share these experiences and lessons on Thursday, March 17 in NYBG’s Ross Lecture Hall for the final installment of the 11th Annual Winter Lecture Series. Buy tickets now at nybg.org/AdultEd.
A good lecture can serve as a catalyst for change, and this year’s 11th Annual Winter Lecture Series at The New York Botanical Garden should send you away with a lot to think about, and some serious tools for precipitating change in your own community, city, or just our own backyard.
On Thursday, February 17, garden designer, award-winning author, photographer, naturalist, and teacher C. Colston Burrell will talking about ”Native Plants and Ecological Design.” Burrell will explore what actually makes a plant ”native,” the definition of ecological gardening, and the issues surrounding sustainable landscape design.
Last, but certainly not least, Annie Novak, urban farming evangelist and director of The New York Botanical Garden’s Children’s Gardening Program will ”Raise The Roof!” on Thursday, March 17. Novak is the founder and director of Growing Chefs field-to-fork education program, and the co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and will discuss the challenges, successes, and lessons learned from farming the skyline.
And while you’re at the Garden, why not make a full day of it? Visit Caribbean Garden for a mini-vacation in the historic Enid A. Haupt Conservatory; snap a few pictures to enter into our photography contest; grab a bite from one of our two cafes dedicated to sustainable, local, tasty cuisine; and shop the Winter Sale at the Shop in the Garden.
Annie Novak is coordinator of the Children’s Gardening Program in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden. Click here to see a Today show segment about the program.
A few weeks ago, during one of many rainstorms in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden this summer, I took refuge with a few students from our Children’s Gardening Program in the wigwam tucked in the side corner of the garden’s Meadow. While the kids played giddy musical chairs on the stumps inside, I sat quietly with my back against the bark wall. It’s a cozy space. Although the kids were acting loud and giggly, the small wigwam felt peaceful. The rain fell near-noiselessly on the dome of birch saplings. Through the wigwam’s single window, daylilies and tall zebra grass shone orange and green against the gray.
Part of the Three Sisters display garden, the wigwam was built in 2006 to re-create the lifestyle of the Lenni-Lenape, the first New York natives. When teaching, I often ask my students to imagine what it would be like to live as the Lenape did 400 years ago. I ask the children to think about everything they do inside their homes—cook, read, watch TV, play with toys, take refuge in air conditioning when the summer hits—and think of what the Lenape would be doing instead. With seven-year-olds, of course, a reflective discussion like this leads to hilarity pretty quickly.
But after some groans and giggles about sharing a bedroom with your whole family, comparing lifestyles leads to an epiphany as well. The wigwam only seems small in comparison to today’s houses when you think about it as an equal living environment. But it isn’t. In those early, pre-hustle-and-bustle New York years, an entire world around the home provided the space for cooking, playing, harvesting. (Who needs air conditioning with the Bronx River running so close by?) What I like about the wigwam is its clear definition of necessity. It’s a space of shelter and sleep. Imagination provides the rest.
Gardening and Crafts Welcome the New Season Annie Novak is coordinator of the Children’s Gardening Program in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden.
Spring is a waking season. Several days ago the staff and volunteers of the Howell Family Garden gathered for breakfast to welcome the start of 2009 and swap stories of our winters. Our true “new year” starts in March. Fueled by a little food and conversation, we set to work hauling compost, trimming back leaves, and assisting Dave Vetter, our head gardener, in his mighty task of starting several hundred vegetable seedlings.
Although in nature it’s usually the fall we think of as a time of great transformation, spring surprised us this year by giving the Family Garden a bit of a facelift. Three years ago we built a Lenape wigwam, last year we built a green-roofed rabbit hutch, and this year Dave Vetter, Family Garden Assistant, and Han Yu Hung, Children’s Gardening Program Garden Coordinator, are humming happily inside our new greenhouse. The Family Garden’s newly built “hoop house” was designed over the winter by Toby Adams, Family Garden Manager. Admiring it for the first time, staff and volunteers ooh’d and aah’d and promised not to accidentally tear open its double-plastic sidewalls with a careless pass of a garden fork. As the day grew cooler with sharp winds, we huddled inside, where the air was warm and soil-scented. Maybe next spring our new building will be an apiary, where thousands of friendly bees can pollinate our vegetables, as they do all over the cities of Chicago, Toronto, and Seattle.
Watching the garden awaken is, to me, the best part of a temperate climate. I admire the flourish of a season like the fall, which gives way to winter with dramatic color. But I’m happier in the springtime when the warmth sneaks up on you, with delicate splashes of color in our green garlic shoots or the swollen buds of tulips and magnolia trees. We have robins all over the garden now, too, as the worms begin to move again through the gradually warming soil. And hurrah: Last Saturday, our visitors and families were back! The Children’s Gardening Program begins with new lessons on green living and healthy eating and old favorites celebrating the harvest and learning more about springtime birds and bulbs. Our afternoon programming, Family Garden Adventures, begins tomorrow, April 4, with the aptly named theme “Wake up, Garden!” Families are welcome to join us for gardening and craft activities from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Recently, we read that the White House is building an organic vegetable garden on its South Lawn. Several of our staff and volunteers had clipped the article from the newspaper, and over our breakfast at our garden cleanup, we studied the garden plans. Would it be possible, I asked, to dedicate one of the children’s plots to mirror that of the Obama family’s? Toby agreed. (Although wouldn’t it be great if Michelle Obama’s plans emulated ours?) But truthfully, the best part of the Family Garden is how many hands go into helping us grow. Even a full White House staff can’t hope to compete with that!
Fresh off the puckered and pungent “Pickle Me!” events that took place in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden over the last few weeks, we join Assistant Manager Annie Novak to catch up with our long-time adventure in multinational growing, the Global Gardens! Because native is all well and good, but when it comes down to exploring edibles, our Family Garden keeps an open mind to unique fruits and vegetables from around the world. And what better place to celebrate multinationalism than in the Bronx, one of–if not the–most diverse communities in the United States?
A good lecture can serve as a catalyst for change, and this year’s 
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The lectures are being held at the Garden in the 
