Composting: An easy solution to a big problem

When starting adding to the composting bin at the farm I had little idea about the potential that composting has to improve the environment. Humans produce so much garbage, that could be put to better use than just putting in landfills. Worse is that many places (New York included) transport their garbage to landfills to other states, so not only is the methane from these plants hurting the planet, but the emissions from the trains and trucks carrying the waste creates a great impact on the planet. We need better methods of dealing with waste that won't hurt us in the long run.

Compost materials make over 25% of our waste. Taking away all of the compost would reduce a good portion of the emissions. Not only that but the material itself is extremely beneficial to nature. Composting is better than artificial fertilizers, because of its ridiculous amounts of micro-nutrients and macro-nutrients. The compost buffers the soil to neutralize both acidic and base qualities it may have. This allows much easier digestion for plant life. A 5% increase in compost allows plants to quadruple the amount of water that they can hold. The list goes on! Even better is that composting is a topic that is not very well researched compared to other areas of science, so in the classroom, testing is much more purposeful. Not only will it give students a sense of purpose but they develop a much more intimate relationship with nature. A system for composting needs to be instated, perhaps in a similar way to the system for recycling bottles and plastic.

Pests and Diseases

One of the more common diseases in plants that we had to and continue to battle at the farm is most commonly referred to as rust. Rust is a fungal infection that spreads on a plants leaves. It is named rust due to it's brownish coloration. The way to best remove rust from a plant is to remove the leaves infected with rust, or tear off parts of leaves that have the rust on them(that is to say if the leave isn't completely taken yet). We had a bunch of little green bugs with wings that would hang around the tomatoes, so to battle that we planted good bug blooms which are apparently beneficial to good bugs. These bugs are "good" because they eat the bugs that would otherwise be eating our crops.

Companion Planting

My group planted our carrots and chives next to one another because of a very helpful aspect of planting called companion planting. Companion planting is when plants benefit from surrounding plants. For example in the case of our carrots and chives, the chives repel aphids, beetles, cabbage worms, Japanese beetles and slugs from the carrots. Having them both next to one another also confuses carrot flies and onion flies. Growth of carrots and the carrots' flavor improves with chives growing next to them. Carrots definitely benefit more from chives than vice-versa, nonetheless they make wonderful companions!

Origins of the Farm

The farming at battery park was first an idea by millennium high school students who wanted to grow food in the area. After the parks department caught wind of the proposal, they decided to make it a much larger project involving more than just one school. After a large amount of bamboo was donated to the project a designer by the name of Scott Dougan created what he envisioned as the fence of the farm. Inspired by the turkey Zelda who lives and wanders battery park, he shaped the fence of the farm to her shape. The farm was officially launched April 11th and has been incredibly successful since then.