Urban Garden Symposium

On October 14th 2015 the, "GROW: Urban Garden Symposium," was held at The Museum of Natural History co-sponsored by The Manhattan Borough President's Office.

Our Executive Director, David Gillcrist, spoke on the first panel sharing project Project FIND's experiences with Hydroponic Farming. 

"Symposium Talk

A few years back I would never imagine myself being part of a panel like this.  I like to eat and cook; growing was out of the picture entirely.  At home cactus die from neglect in my hands.  Luckily for the hydroponic farm we established on the roof of one of Project FIND’s buildings, my contribution was merely to sense and opportunity and to seize it.  I have been invited to speak at this panel to share that experience in the hope that it will encourage others to take a shot at it.  

So who we are and how did we get involved in urban gardening?  The short answer is that we needed to and we had the wherewithal to do it given the proper catalyst.

-         PF emerged in the late 1960’s from a study of the life conditions of elderly hotel dwellers living in the mid-town area.    What this study revealed was the critical need for quality affordable housing and centers where older adults could access key services indispensable to their continued independence in the community.

-         With great imagination, fortune and patience, Project FIND put together a combination of age and income targeted housing with in house social services, as well as co-located senior centers. We now have 584 apartments in three buildings as well as 4 centers funded by the department for the aging. 

-         These centers offer meals and a wide variety of activities.    Less than six blocks away from here is our very special Hamilton House program, one of only 12 designated innovative senior centers in the entire city.  This program is used by around 200 people each day and is open 6 days-a-week and has a truly rich load of arts/culture, exercise, performance and health promotional activities to go along with a lunch and evening meal program that prepares over 60,000 meals annually.

-         Key to what follows is that the Hamilton program also had a very active and established therapeutic gardening group led by Gwenn Fried, a highly skilled and dedicated horticultural therapist.  The group’s activities were confined mostly to the indoors but they also landscaped and maintained an open patio space connected to the Center. 

-         On a separate plane and for quite some time we have thought about the centrality of food to people’s lives and how we mine its universality to create interesting and relevant programs.  Our center members come from many cultures, with their different culinary traditions and many are very skillful cooks in their own rights with secrets to share.  So in 2013 we started the What’s Cooking series on our website, which highlighted some of the favorite dishes of a few community seniors.

-         So in a nut shell we have a meal program that prepares 60,000 meals a year, a flourishing gardening group and an emergent program around culinary skill building and sharing.   We also controlled two buildings in close proximity and their roof space.   Free land in Manhattan is gold

-         It made total sense from an agency perspective to integrate and intensify these programmatic strands.  Why not produce food grown by center members that could be used in our center meals, and connected to a cooking class?  The answer became, how about a roof top garden?  Great idea Einstein, but how?

-         We filled this void by hiring a third party with the expertise we were lacking.   Through a former colleague we were introduced to a hydroponic farming technical assistance agency called Boswyck Farms. For us a hydroponic system was attractive because it requires significantly less tending, no weeds, fewer pests and diseases and is lighter weight than comparable soil based systems.   

What did we build, how is it organized, and what does it produce?

The equipment:

-         Our roof garden is comprised of 12 nutrient film technique hydroponic grow beds (roughly 3 feet by 7 feet), each of which contain 36 to 60 slots depending upon the number of rails.  There are also 12 coco slab drip hydroponic modules for climbing vegetables.  The grow beds and modules receive a continuous flow of nutrient rich water via a separate reservoir and pump systems linked an automated nutrient feed.   In total, the system is spread out over approximately 2,000 square feet.

-         The seedling germination station is located in the ground floor Hamilton Annex.  The system includes grow lights and a reservoir linked to a set of timers.  

-         During the first year the water supply was fed from a large container that itself was filled manually.  Despite the tank’s large size, evaporation rates on a roof during periods of high heat periodically compromised the continuous flow the system requires, affecting crop yields.  So in the summer of 2015 we changed to a direct feed from the building’s water supply.

The Labor Power:

-         The horticultural therapist is the key to the entire enterprise.  She oversees the selection of seedlings to be germinated, the timing of their transplant to the roof garden, maintenance requirements and harvesting schedule.   She also keeps the logs of all farming activities from seeds germinated to plants harvested.  Her group meets once a week for about an hour and is comprised of around 7-10 core volunteers.    Because of security and liability concerns, class participants are not allowed on the roof without a staff escort.  Thus on-going maintenance must be provided by paid staff. 

-         Help in this regard came via the Department for the Aging and its competitive Innovative Senior Center program in 2014.   Central to our application was the inclusion of this hydroponic farm and some of the staff time to run it.  Specifically a program coordinator who, amongst many other tasks, would receive hydroponic training so to back stop the garden maintenance and logistics on a permanent basis.  Further support came from the building superintendent to check on the system daily and over weekends. 

-         Depending upon the crop it takes roughly 2 weeks to germinate and another 4 to 6 weeks to harvest.  Our go to crop is butter lettuce which grows beautifully and abundantly.   We have also grown herbs, basil, kale, spinach, cilantro, and several varieties of lettuce, tomatoes, chilies, string beans, green peppers and snap beans.  When firing on all cylinders we harvest approximately 75 pounds of food per week.   The growing season – weather permitting - extends from April to the end of October.

-         Class participants are allowed to take home small samples of the day’s harvest, but the majority of the produce is delivered to the Hamilton Senior Center kitchen to be incorporated into the menu, principally the salad bar.

-         The food for thought cooking class also takes a direct interest in the farm.  The class, which meets 3 times a month, is led by a professional chef who monitors the harvest schedule and incorporates it in her class plan for that week.  The class also makes periodic visits to the roof to learn more about the food they soon will be enjoying.

What we have learned.

-         This is a great activity.  The garden group is a delight to watch and the experience of playing a role in the transformation of a seed to a delicious edible is really meaningful to the participants.  It is a source of deserved pride.  The gardeners are learning a great deal about farming and hydroponics and socially they have become a very close group, with a ripple effect outside of this activity.

-         The reliance on technology is both a blessing and a curse.  It reduces labor, but can encourage complacency.  Pumps malfunction, self-regulating nutrient systems are not full proof, drip lines clog and weather – heat, cold, intensity of sun light, still exerts its determinative role. Constant human observation is required. 

-         The constant human observation must be orchestrated by professional staff; farming demands accountability; someone must be in charge and on top of all major considerations – when and what to harvest, techniques for harvesting, PH testing, equipment maintenance, etc.  Our system, while it relies heavily on volunteer labor, it cannot depend exclusively upon it.  Our horticulturalist is the indispensable element.

I will stop here for now, but encourage anyone who wishes to get involved or to learn more about our program to visit our exhibit table or to speak to me afterwards."

Also check out the brief recap video here: