NYC Parks' GreenThumb to Host 2014 Summer Festival in Marcus Garvey Park, 6/21

NYC Park's GreenThumb celebrates community volunteer gardeners throughout NYC at their annual Summer Festival. The event will feature live music and dance, gardening workshops, children activities, food demonstrations, and prizes. It all takes place on Saturday, June 21, 2014 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Marcus Garvey Park in Manhattan.

Urban gardeners can come meet GreenThumb's many partner organizations and learn about the resources we offer to help New Yorkers grow successful urban gardens. Live entertainment throughout the day includes Equinox Drum Group, St. Mary's Dance Team, Santos and the Romantics Plus 4 Salsa Orchestra, Faber's Angels Dance Group, Michelle Marie Jazz Trio, and Stan's Pepper Steppers Double Dutch.

Workshops offered throughout the day include:

Bird House Building Workshop
11:00am to 12:00pm

Children of all ages can come to the Children Zone and learn how to build a birdhouse with pre-cut wood and basic tools for their garden birds.

Straw Bale Gardening for Small Spaces, School Gardens and Patio
11:30am to 12:30pm

Straw bales are an ideal vehicle for growing in small spaces and are an excellent alternative for traditional raised beds. Plant summer vegetables and tomatoes, greens in the spring and fall. Completely biodegradable, after a season or two they break down into compost. Learn how to prep and plant straw bale garden. Community Gardeners can sign up at this workshop to receive free bales at the end of the festival.

Canning Workshop
12:30pm to 1:30pm

Enjoy the bounty of the growing season and learn to preserve your harvest! Join Classie Parker as she demonstrates how to preserve your harvest all year long.

School Food's Garden to Cafe Demo
1:15pm to 2:15pm

The Garden to Cafe Program plans to demonstrate several salad vinaigrette recipes they use in the program as a way to show people that good, tasty, healthy food isn't that complicated to make. They plan to use produce available at most local farmers markets and have audience members join us in the preparation.

Window Gardening
1:45pm to 2:45pm
Learn how urban gardeners can make the most out of every inch of available space by using window boxes and containers to grow edibles or ornamentals. Topics include creating the right design, finding the best soil mixture, year-round maintenance, and tips for planting. Community Gardeners are elidgible to win a raffle prize at the end of the workshop.

You are what You EAT!
2:15pm to 3:15pm

Chefs create a dish while discussing food. Together they will explore our relationship with food and how we support one another to think about what we put into our bodies.

Special thanks to our partners Whole Foods, Heritage Roses, Utz Pretzels, Cabot Cheese, Urban Garden Center, Bohemia Realty Group, Duggal Visual Solutions and Jamba Juice.

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