West 104th St Community Garden.
Monthly Meeting Saturday 5/12/12
Minutes
Meeting started at 10:21 am
1) ART WORK in the garden
SC: Morse code – current art installation
Vote: To be kept, or to be removed?
Remove: 9 votes
Keep: 9 votes
Opinions:
Jean: Said that in 2011 the garden voted the art to be kept as a permanent installation.
Ann: Proposed it to be revisited.
Flamingo Parade – installation on east building wall of the East Garden.
Concern about the vine. Was the art going to cover it? Was it going to affect its growth?
SC: Proposed an online vote for approval of graphic.
Garden Members approved suggestion.
On-line vote to be sent with picture attached and more details about the art size and way of attachment.
Vote: If it is to be a temporary installation, will the garden agree to host it?
Yes: 23 votes
No: 3 votes
Opinions:
Mary K: Said that the art installation was accepted in 2011 as a temporary piece. However, it remained unclear if every member had seen the graphic previous to that approval.
SC: Even if garden votes to allow the installation, the building owner/management has not agreed (or not) to the installation and the final decision will remain with them.
2) Request for a volunteer to be chairman for the Special Event committee.
Nobody volunteered.
Current members of the committee will select somebody among themselves.
3) Proposal from SC: Installation/extension of a fence at the back of the east wall end on the West Garden.
Reason: To prevent tenants from building in the middle to use garden as their private backyard.
Vote: whether to install new fence or not?
Yes: 2 votes
No: 18 votes
Opinions:
Walli: Concerned about spending money. Expressed concerns about financial status of garden.
Lou: Added that screws were methodically removed from existing gate that grant access to East Garden.
SC: Could we have somebody from the garden contact the building’s owner?
4) Replacement of crumbling brick path in front of east wall communal bed in East Garden.
Vote: bricks on path
Remove during work day (5/12/12): 7 votes
“Clean up” only during work day: 16 votes
Vote: brick path
Replace with another hard scape material: 14 votes
Replace with sod: 5 votes
Clean up: 6 votes
Extra: Dinorah and Paul to have a final proposal of materials for the meeting to be held in June.
Opinions:
Jean: Bricks to be removed once we have a plan in place.
Nikki: Encouraged plan of brick removal to be done on Saturday May 12th because it is a chore that has to be addressed by all members.
Susan Bernofsky: Offered to write grants if Walli will also join her on the task. Walli declined.
5) SC announced decision to not increase membership fee. Current: $20.00
6) Announcement of MMNY – Make Music New York, Thursday June 21st event.
7) Gazebo
Frank to begin work the week of June 21st.
Opinions:
Jean: to meet with new carpenter to assess scope of work to be done. Meeting to occur not later than Tuesday, May 15th, 2012.
Question to be asked: “What is duration of job?”
Mary K: pointed out that last year, garden members had decided to forgo
putting any gutters on the gazebo for rainwater gathering; and that the garden
tried to give the barrels and other water collection materials away.
8) Fire Hydrant.
Should all members call 311?
It was reiterated water should be used moderately due to lack of water access and plenty of rain. Tank in West Garden is full. It will provide enough water to irrigate plants on both sides.
9) Lids for water barrels.
Request for new flat lids that don’t hold water to discourage mosquito breeding.
Jean suggested drilling a small hole in the middle to drain accumulated water into barrel.
Garden approved suggestion. Experiment to be applied.
Concern: Wouldn’t this hole encourage mosquito breeding?
Jean thought small hole size might not encourage breeding.
Answer not completely satisfactory.
10) Removal of plants in communal beds. Main issue: East Garden removal of butterfly bushes and smoke bush.
Kim requested clearer rules regarding communal bed management to avoid future misunderstanding.
Mary K explained that each person in charge of a communal bed has the liberty to rearrange plants (add or remove) on their own behalf.
SC agreed with this remark.
SC representative (Kate) suggested:
a) Email or note has to be sent to all members in the garden before (NOT AFTER) removing any plant of considerable importance, size, aesthetic qualities, or sentiment attached to another member. This step aims to give enough time to the community to ponder the possibility of using the planting material.
- Rules for Communal beds should be written down from now on, and be posted somewhere where people can refer to. It could be in the website or a copy posted inside the sheds.
11) Ants on peach tree.
Suggestion: Use of ant traps or mix potions suggested by Jean.
