Tag: summer

Rooftop Reopens in September

We’re working hard to turn our spring and summer’s work into a delicious fall harvest.  Here’s a shot of what we’re busy with: delicious hot peppers that have made their way from seeds in Santa Fe to seedlings in New Paltz and now fruiting plants in Brooklyn, New York.

Our staff work this time of year includes keeping up on their health (so far, so good!) with organic care and nutrients.  We’re proud to say these beauties have been holding their own so far in flavor, color and heat.  We’re looking forward (in about 10 days-2 weeks) to the full color-change and explosion of harvest that we’ve been waiting for since our eyes first set sight on them in our seed catalogues.

Learn to Cook Local!

Download this image and poster it all over town! This month and next, to celebrate the amazing abundance of the end of the summer, we’re growin’ and cookin’ with some of our food heroes.  This week it’s Van Leeuwen Ice Cream’s own Laura and Ben.  Besides making some of the creamiest, finest quality, interestingly flavored and well-sourced hot weather delights, they also have spunky kitchen skills.  Where better to hone your use of produce than in Bali (as they did, those sly cats), where the fruits and spices seem celestial in their deliciousness? This carrot-eater can’t wait to see what those two are going to teach us to make, Balinese-style, with local produce.  Moreover, we CANNOT WAIT to have the little Van Leeuwen ice cream push-cart appear like a deus ex machina at the hot rooftop farm to serve fine flavors around noontime.  Yum!

Summer Markets Begin

Peppers turning red, greens refreshed after rain, and glorious onions coming out of the ground with the sharp, sweet juice of a good long spring: we’re back to market at the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm! Join us this Sunday from 10am-4pm as we pull carrots, radishes, turnips from the ground; mix spicy mustard salads, harvest basil of multiple types, and begin to celebrate the fruits of summertime!

So Hot Right Now

In our second week of tremendously hot weather and false promises from shallow, short rainstorms, the Rooftop Farm is certainly feeling the heat! Last year’s solid rains have never seemed further away.

New York City has some of the cleanest, tastiest drinking water in the country, so we’re doing our darndest here on the Farm to not use much of it to hose off our plants.  The priorities are the newly sown seeds, the recent transplants, and our root crops–which need water to swell their tap roots and not instead go to seed.  Crops on their own include the deep-rooted nightshades and cole crops, which, even as their leaves droop morosely, we’re hoping will draw upon the green roof membrane’s water reserves to make it through the next hot day.

As for your farmers? Annie & Co are wearing SPF 50, trying to keep the red neck from the rooftop at bay.