Seedball Making at LaGuardia Community College!

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Erik Baard

Seedballs. Photo by Maureen Regan, president and founder of Green Earth Urban Gardens.

Hurricane Sandy, pollution, and development have stripped away much of our dune and coastal meadow habitats, so HarborLAB is joining the effort to restore them! To this end, HarborLAB and other conservationists are following Permaculture farmers in adopting an ancient Japanese and North American no-till agriculture tool that mimics the natural dung distribution of seeds (called endozoochory). It’s simple: make a ball of clay, compost, and seeds and toss them over the area to be revived. The warmth and rains of spring and summer then signal the seeds to germinate. Before long we’ll green the shores of NYC by bombarding them with seed love from our armada of kayaks and canoes! 😉

HarborLAB volunteers learned the art from SeedBall NYC‘s Co-founder and President Anne Apparu in a room made available to us by Dr. Sarah Durand of the Natural Sciences department at CUNY LaGuardia Community College. We made several hundred seed balls, and will make thousands more! The trick is to get the proportions right so that the balls hold together firmly but dry out before the seeds germinate. In terms of consistency, think cookie dough.

Another great instruction resource comes from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

HarborLAB used seeds we gathered with Hunters Point Community Middle School and Dr. Stephen Grosnell‘s Baruch College conservation biology students from Gantry Plaza State Park, Hunters Point Park, and our own GreenLaunch, along with seeds provided by SeedBall NYC and Briermere Farms. Hunters Point Parks Conservancy Vice President Mark Christie kindly help guide us in our seed gathering. Species included aster, milkweed, beach plum, beach pea, goldenrod, viburnum, pine, switchgrass, pokeberry, and the humorously named panicgrass (gallery below). These salt-tolerant species support endangered monarch butterflies and other pollinators, and feed birds. They also stabilize the shoreline, allowing complex ecosystems to develop while also protecting property from surges and erosion. We also gathered beach rose from Hunters Point South Park but must be very careful about where to use them, if at all, for biological productivity without enabling invasion.

See Newtown Creek Alliance historian Mitch Waxman‘s great write up of one of our outings at Queens Brownstoner.

We’re also grateful to Maureen Regan, president and founder of Green Earth Urban Gardens for participating and to Gil Lopez, president and co-founder of Smiling Hogshead Ranch Urban Farm, for inviting a naturalist to join us. We also thank the New York State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation for permission to gather seeds. An especially welcome newcomer was Philip Anthony Borbon, a sailor who moors on the Queens waterfront of the Newtown Creek.

Our next step is to go into classrooms to make seedballs with kids, and to then bring the balls with us when we paddle to areas in need of habitat restoration! If you’d like a classroom talk and seedball making activity with HarborLAB, please email us at edu@harborlab.org!

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: The HarborLAB launch, soon to be the GreenLaunch. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Goldenrod seeds ready to be gathered. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Beach rose hips and seeds. Photo by Maureen Regan, president and founder of Green Earth Urban Gardens.

: Pokeberry seeds and fruits. Photo by Maureen Regan, president and founder of Green Earth Urban Gardens.

: Goldenrod seeds. Photo by Maureen Regan, president and founder of Green Earth Urban Gardens.

: Seedballs. Photo by Maureen Regan, president and founder of Green Earth Urban Gardens.

: Seedballs. Photo by Maureen Regan, president and founder of Green Earth Urban Gardens.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Facilities Manager Patricia Erickson.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Facilities Manager Patricia Erickson.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Pokeberry seeds ready to be gathered. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: The HarborLAB launch, soon to be the GreenLaunch! Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Goldenrod seeds ready to be gathered. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Mark Christie of Hunters Point Parks Conservancy guiding. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students and staff out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Mark Christie of Hunters Point Parks Conservancy and Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Hunters Point Community Middle School students out gathering seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Pokeberry seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Phillip Borbon with milkweed seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Naturalist Nancy with pokeberry seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: HarborLAB Facilities Manager Patricia Erickson extracts pine nuts. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Manny Steier with goldenrod seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Beach rose seeds. Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Making the seedballs! Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Making the seedballs! Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

: Making the seedballs! Photo by HarborLAB Founder and Executive Director Erik Baard.

Seed Gathering Day!

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Erik Baard

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Mark Christie, HarborLAB volunteer and Vice President of Hunters Point Parks Conservancy, with bouquets of goldenrod seeds. Hunters Point Community Middle School student in the background. (Photo by Erik Baard)

HarborLAB had a fantastic winter day of gathering goldenrod and beach rose seeds with Hunters Point Community Middle School students! Many thanks to biology teacher Mary Matthai and Principle Sarah Goodman, and to the students! Thanks also to Vice President Mark Christie of the Hunters Point Parks Conservancy and to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.

Through this exercise the students learned about bioremediation, shore ecology, evolved means of seed propagation, combined sewer overflows, and genetic diversity. We asked that the school choose only five students for each round of work to avoid trampling habitats.

HarborLAB is creating a marine-to-uplands habitat restoration on the Newtown Creek. We call this project the “GreenLaunch.” Citizens Committee for NYC gave us funds for initial work, which HarborLAB Facilities Manager Patricia Erickson oversees. We’ve applied to the Hudson River Foundation for a larger Newtown Creek Fund grant. We hope our City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer and State Assembly Representative Catherine Nolan will also partner with us as a wonderful (and only) Queens environmental group based on the creek, and support our work.

Central to the GreenLaunch, conceived by HarborLAB Founder Erik Baard, is a living shoreline stabilized using methods recommended by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. We’re applying for fresh earth from the NYC Soil Bank. Roots from native, saltwater tolerant plantings will hold soil down. We’re gathering seeds from milkweed, pokeberry, goldenrod, beach plums, and beach rose to start. We have MillionTreesNYC shadbush (service berry), hackberry, sassafras, and other native saplings to further strengthen this slope. Milkweed and goldenrod sustain endangered monarch butterflies and other pollinators. Our berry bushes and trees, and rose hips, have deep root systems and feed birds. Below this slope, in the intertidal zone, we’ll grow cordgrass and mussels.

May 18: Tree Giveaway and Algonquin Talk!

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Erik Baard

Come down to the HarborLAB launch on May 18 for FREE TREES (register HERE) and a paddling event! We started with Eastern Redbud, Tulip tree, Sassafras, and Hackberry, but they’re going fast!

Our canoe tour of the Newtown Creek will feature an Algonquin lecture and blessing of our boats! Our speaker will be Evan Pritchard, founder of the Center for Algonquin Culture.

“Jane’s Walk” to Our Reawakening Waterfront!

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Erik Baard

Mitch Waxman, crouching, and MAS Jane’s Walk participants in front of the HarborLAB gate and boats. Newtown Creek Alliance board member Laura Risi Hofmann towards the left, in bright blue shirt. Photo by Erik Baard.

HarborLAB was honored to be a featured stop on the Greenpoint-to-Long Island City “DUPBO” 2014 Jane’s Walk. Newtown Creek Alliance historian Mitch Waxman guided the tour, a walking conversation, sharing insights about development, preservation, sustainability, resilience, and cultural vitality. In NYC, the prestigious Municipal Art Society organizes the annual, free urban planning walks honoring Jane Jacob‘s spirit of criticism and query.

Erik Baard, who interviewed Jane Jacobs in the 9/11 aftermath, greeted the crowd that arrived at the end of Vernon Boulevard, where a bridge once spanned the Newtown Creek to Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn.

What made our site so interesting? It’s that we’re creating the greatest length of green, soft shoreline on the Newtown Creek!

Many thanks to Citizens Committee for NYC for our seed grant (more on that to come) to begin transforming our 125′ waterfront, kindly provided to us by Schumann Properties. Rather than rebuilding our crumbling bulkhead, we’ll follow New York State Department of Environmental Conservation guidelines for using salt tolerant native plantings to stabilize shorelines. We’ll also restore wetlands in the intertidal zone with spartina, mussels, oysters, and other indigenous life. Upland we’ll grow edibles in planters, including hardy kiwi and grape for shade. To maximize the service learning value of this project, we’ll invite college students to participate and follow the advice and directives of biologists Dr. Holly Porter-Morgan and Dr. Sarah Durand of LaGuardia Community College.

HarborLAB Facilities Manager Patricia Erickson will oversee safety stairs, platforms, the dock, and other improvements, aided by Mairo Notton and other skilled volunteers. Our space has been too crowded with bricks on pallets since occupation to do much work, but that’s scheduled to change over the next few weeks.

HarborLAB has also begun a campaign to create a bioswale and rain garden at the dead end of Vernon Boulevard. In some sense, this revives a decade-old effort that New Yorkers for Parks ushered into a design in 2006. With our launch site reworked and a green pocket park, Vernon Boulevard will end in a beautiful long stretch of green that improves Newtown Creek water quality by reducing combined sewage overflows.

The Newtown Creek Superfund designation, however, is based on carcinogenic sediments that line its bed and can sometimes rise through the water column when disturbed. Advocacy for dredging is our chief activity on that front. Our vital ally there is the Newtown Creek Alliance. We were happy that this Jane’s Walk included Newtown Creek Alliance Board Member Laura Risi Hofmann, a greenpoint health and green spaces activist, among its saunterers.

Because of the sometimes high sewage bacteria levels (common to all of western Queens’ waterfronts) and industrial pollutants (exceedingly high also in Anable Basin and Steinway Creek), HarborLAB has two blanket policies: 1) We bring boats to cleaner, safer waters in the region for children to enjoy. The Newtown Creek launch is for adults only. 2) We use canoes for venturing East of the Pulaski Bridge, and sit-on-top kayaks for paddling west, where water quality is much better.

HarborLAB boats and the raw 125′ shoreline, facing East to the Pulaski Bridge. Photo by Erik Baard.

The HarborLAB “boat ladder,” a launch system used by cultures around the world. Note the crumbling shoreline that we’ll slope and stabilize with plantings.

Intertidal area that will be planted with spartina or other native species. Photo by Erik Baard.