REduce REuse and Recycle Autumn Compost Fair (Vernon Cases Community Garden)

Garden members at Vernon Cases Community Garden invite you to a fun, experiential, and educational REduce REuse and REcycle Fair at Vernon Cases Community Garden on Saturday, September 30 from 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. The garden group wants to empower the community to participate in the exciting new changes that are being implemented in New York City to clean up our city and environment. Additionally, with fall approaching they want to help everyone stay healthy and strong by providing education on four medicinal herbs and ending the day with arts and crafts.

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Curbside Composting Coming to Brooklyn! We will provide important information to Community Residents of curbside composting coming to Brooklyn on October 2nd. Residents have until October 13, 2023 to order FREE Brown Bins (link below). This plan was first implemented in Queens. Brooklyn will be next, followed by the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan in 2024. If you need assistance ordering a bin we will have volunteers onsite who can assist you with completing and submitting the online form.

https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/contact/curbside-composting

We will provide clear information on what to expect and how you can contribute to cleaning up our city and improving our environment. We will present practical ways in which “waste” can be viewed (REthink) as a resource that can be REused and reintegrated (REimagined). Let’s do it!!!!! We will have Spanish translation.

With autumn approaching we want to help everyone stay healthy and strong in an optimal environment. It’s time to REimagine a new, clean, abundant earth. Every workshop, information booth, and activity were designed to be in harmony with REduce, REuse, REcycle, REthink & REimagine. We will provide hands-on education on composting, 4 medicinal herbs, explain ways to extend the growing season/use of cover crops, and end the day with Big Reuse will be onsite to distribute FREE goodies. Itinerary and descriptions below.

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1:00 pm – 1:45 pm: Composting Carnival Workshop – Learn the basics of composting and the benefits it provides at the “Composting Carnival” workshop. Discover how to compost with a hands-on sorting game and explore worm composting as an indoor option. Gain the practical knowledge to start composting at home.

1:45 pm – 2:45 pm: Medicinal Herb Series – This is part one of a series on medicinal herbs. The focus will be on 4 herbs – Lobelia, Mullein, Echinacea and Marshmallow Root. These herbs are often classified as “respiratory herbs” but they do much more than support one system. This will be an experiential and interactive workshop where you will be able to sample the herbs, and even collect seeds from the plant/flower. By the end, you will learn their names, how they can be used for common symptoms, what part(s) of the plant to use, select the best menstruum and how to grow them in your garden/container.

1:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Season Extension/Cover Crops Information Booth – We will have a booth that will provide information on ways you can extend the growing season and the use of cover crops to improve your soil, slow erosion, help control pests and diseases, increase biodiversity and much more.

Big Reuse Information Booth – A representative and volunteers will be onsite to answer your composting and NEW composting regulation questions. They will distribute FREE 1 gallon kitchen containers, 2 lb bags of compounds, and grocery carryout bags.

Red Wiggler Station – Meet the hardworking composting red wigglers and discover ways they can be utilized in your home and/garden to efficiently compost organic waste.

2:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Arts and Crafts **(while supplies last) – It’s time to get creative! We will provide a variety of fun Halloween/ autumn inspired arts and crafts activities. Kids/parents can make a custom Halloween trick or treat bag. We will have air dry clay, acrylic paint, watercolor paint and paper, rainbow scratch paper, and more!

Photo Booths – Bring your cameras because it’s picture time!

Paper Plant Pots – Learn how to make a paper plant pot that you can use to grow your seedlings in and then transfer directly to a bigger pot or your garden bed. This drastically cuts down on transplant shock, and waste.

Seed Collection – Learn how to collect seeds from plants.

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Location: Vernon Cases Community Garden, 48 Vernon Ave., Brooklyn. Directions to this location

Cost: FREE

Event Organizer: Vernon Cases Community Garden