Stay Warm This Winter!

Come to the Coat Giveaway!

When: December 2, 2017

Location: Brower Park, Kingston Avenue and Park Place

Time: 1–4 PM

Coats Contributed & Distributed by the Mosaic Baptist Church of Crown Heights

Fourth Annual Leaf Crunch

Build a Mountain of Leaves and Jump In!

Break the leaves down!

Now put them into Brower Park’s new Leaf Bin.

Mix the leaves to make nutritious leaf-mold.

Feed our trees and garden plants to

Keep them healthy through our time of climate change.

Donate finished material to other local greening projects lacking a tree canopy.

And make Brower Park’s Worms Happy and Healthy.

Date: November 18, 2017

Location: Park Place & Kingston Avenue

Time: 10 AM – 1 PM

Refreshments and Tools will be provided.

RSVP to help us plan: NYCCompostProject@dsny.nyc.gov

This special event is hosted by the NYC Compost Project and Friends of Brower Park.

The Mosaic Baptist Church and Pastor Stephen Stallard, continue to support the work Friends of Brower Park, Inc. to maintain the vitality of Brower Park for our community. Brower Park has blossomed as volunteers from all over the United States have gotten their hands dirty and helped make Brower Park bloom.

June 14, 2017 – Kentucky

June 21, 2017

June 28, 2017 –  Brooklyn, Savannah, Birmingham

July 12, 2017 – Atlanta

July 19, 2017 – Brooklyn, Savannah, Birmingham

August 2, 2017 – North Carolina

August 9, 2017 – Virginia

Rebuilding and Improving Brower Park’s Leaf Mold Bins

With the help of volunteers  of all ages and with Aaron and Claudia of the NYC Compost Project leading the effort we rebuilt Brower Park’s Leaf Mold Bins. We redesigned the bins to create a 4-sided enclosure, with a doorway. It is now one large bin to give us more flexibility in turning and piling.

Volunteers from the East New York Farms provided additional expertise and hands. Leaf Crunch this year will be held on Saturday, November 18, 2017. Please save the date. We once again build a mountain of leaves to jump into before placing the slightly crunched leaves in our new bin. Some work still needs to be done and as soon as we have a date we will send out a post.

At 2 PM we began our Red Wiggler Worm workshop. Friends of Brower Park gave away 6 bins with worms. Claudia, led the workshop. Everyone looked forward to holding the worms. We hope that the worm bins will provide the starting point for a science project about the ecosystems at work in the making of compost (humus) by humans and by nature. Follow these instructions to make an indoor worm bin and recycle your fruit and vegetable scraps. Discover the connection between what you eat and the health of your worms.

A Natural Science and Art project was set up on a corner of the lawn. Children and their parents made two signs from found natural objects. Kip donated the posts. The Monarch Butterfly Garden Sign is made from Baptisia australis (blue false indigo) seed pods and Rudbeckia fugida (orange cone flower) cones . These art materials (butterfly and pollinator friendly) plants  were harvested in the Monarch Butterfly Garden.

We all had a wonderful time and a healthy time outdoors. We said our goodbyes with a feeling of accomplishment and community.

A joint program of the NYC Compost Project hosted at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the Friends of Brower Park. Sponsored by NYC Compost Project at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Lula Bagels, Kip, and Friends of Brower Park, Inc.

Beginning July 5, 2017
Time: 10:30 AM
Location: Brower Park, Shirley Chisholm Circle (Kingston Avenue & Park Place)

In case of inclement weather storytelling will take place at the Brooklyn Public Library, Brower Park Branch

This story time series focuses on the natural world through stories and hands on activities that focus children’s attention on the natural life of plants and animals within Brower Park. This weekly summer series is being presented through a partnership of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brower Park Branch and the Friends of Brower Park, Inc.

Pre-schoolers and homeschooled children will have a hands-on opportunity to interact with Brower Park’s natural and landscaped plant and wild life. The natural world, the world in which we humans conduct our lives, often goes unnoticed. The change of seasons, birdsong, the work of worms, seems irrelevant to our everyday urban sidewalk lives. By bringing children into the environs of Brower Park’s natural ecosystems we hope to build on children’s natural curiosity about the world around them and to provide hands-on gardening activities that make the stories come to life. So be prepared to get your hands dirty. It’s the only way to experience and learn about the natural world.

We will begin our series with “Max Loves Sunflowers,” by Ken Wilson-Max, on July 5th at 10:30 AM. Followed by the planting of Mammoth Sunflower Seeds in park beds. These seeds were harvested in Brower Park’s Monarch Butterfly Garden. Gardening tools will be provided.

Children’s Books on Nature

• Max Loves Sunflowers, Ken Wilson-Max
• Katie and the Sunflowers, James Mayhew
• Planting a Rainbow, Lois Ehlert
• Seeds and More Seeds, Millicent E. Selsam
• Terry and the Caterpillars, Millicent E Selsam
• La Mariposa, Francisco Jimenez
• Hurry and the Butterfly, Antoine O Flatharta
• Gotta Go! Gotta Go!, Sam Swope
• The Butterfly House, Eve Bunting
• The Prince of Butterflies, Bruce Corville
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly
• Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian, Margarita Engle
• A Butterfly is Patient, Dianna Hutts Aston
• There Was A Tree, Rachel Isadora
• Sky Tree: Seeing Science Through Art, Thomas Locker
• The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
• A Tree is Nice, Janice May Udry
• Be a Friend to Trees, Patricia Lauber
• A Log’s Life, Wendy Pfeffer
• Tell Me, Tree: All about Trees for Kids
• The Tree Book for Kids and Their Grown-ups, Gina Ingoglia
• Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of the Natural World, Julia Rothman
• A Leaf Can Be, Laura Purdie Salas
• Compost Critters, Bianca Lavies (middle school)
• Rolypolyology,(middle school)
• Wonderful Worms, Linda Glaser
• Wiggling Worms at Work (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science books), Wendy Pfeffer (Make a Home for Red Wiggler Pet Worm)
• A Pill Bug’s Life (Nature Upclose), by John Himmelman
• Composting: Nature’s Recyclers (Amazing Science), Robin Koontz
• Garbage Helps Our Garden Grow: A Compost Story, Linda Glaser
• Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth, Mary McKenna Siddals
• Grubs, Bugs, and Worms: Invertebrates of the Underground, Jody S. Rake
• The Little Composter, Jan Gerardi (board book)
• Ladybugs (Creepy Critters), Sian Smith
• The Bug Book, Sue Fliess
• 100 Backyard Activities, Colleen Kessler