Plant Swap/Sale

Bring your houseplant cuttings or extra rooted plants to share at the Open Garden Day on Saturday, October 30 from 11:00am—2:00pm. The plants can be in soil or a container of water. Any proceeds go to Prospect Farm. Please label your flora and drop off during the event. (Plants should be pest free.)

Prospect Farm is located at 1194 Prospect Avenue, between Seeley and Vanderbilt Streets.
We hope to see you at the Farm on the 30th!

COVID-19 Update

To our Prospect Farm community:

In light of new guidelines to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, we will be following these protocols for activities at Prospect Farm:

  1. The Farm remains open for members to do essential work.  We strongly recommend that no more than two and at the most three members be present at any one time.
  2. Compost collection will continue on Saturday between 11 and 12 with one person only processing the compost.  Buckets will be put on the strip for community members to deposit their food scraps.
  3. All recommendations as to social distance and cleaning of surfaces are to be followed.  Members can bring their own gloves or take a pair home for washing after use. Another suggestion is to keep your gloves in a plastic bag in the shed with your name on it.  Wear gloves at all times to handle the locks and tools. Bring sanitary wipes if you have them.
  4. Members are encouraged to do solo gardening during the week.  You can sign up for a slot (Phil is working on a way to do this) or simply come to work.  Tasks will be posted on the white board in the shed. The planting schedule and map will also be posted in the shed.
  5. Keep us informed by writing in the log book (maybe you want to bring your own pen) or by posting an email as to what tasks you have done.

Fall Open House

Please join us for a community gathering to celebrate the end of the growing season.  

Activities for all ages! 
+ Bulb planting
+ Composting
+ Music
+ Scavenger Hunt
+ Tours
+ Bake Sale
+ more!

Saturday, October 19, 2019
11am–2pm 1194 Prospect Avenue

FREE but your donations are welcome! Prospect Farm is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so donations are tax-deductible.

Let us know you’re coming on our Facebook event

New for June: Meditation Hour on Saturdays

For the month of June we’ll be trying out a meditation hour at the farm! Come 10-11am on Saturdays, just before our compost hour, to join us. The sessions will be led by Bess.

We’ll sit at our table area up on the hill — you can also bring a cushion or blanket to sit on the ground if you prefer. You’re welcome to join at any point during the hour.

Crowdfunding for a reinforced Prospect Farm

We’re asking for some help from our community to fund infrastructure improvements on the farm. Due to our hilly plot, we rely on terracing to increase our growing space. Our current walls are made of loose stone collected from the land, as well as some smaller bamboo buffers, but these barriers are very susceptible to erosion and most need to be rebuilt every year.

Our infrastructure committee did some research on alternatives and made a pilot test of a gabion.

What is a gabion?
A gabion is a resilient wall made by filling metal cages with stones and other material like gravel, dirt, or sand. Because of their sturdiness, they are often used in landscaping and civil engineering — you may have seen them on the sides of highways or in other large-scale applications. But they are also inexpensive and relatively simple to build, requiring only metal mesh, metal wire, and stone (much of which can be found). In this case, modest fundraising can do a lot to improve Prospect Farm’s infrastructure.

How can our community help?
We are looking to raise $500 for materials to replace as many of our retaining walls as possible with gabions. The money will go toward the metal mesh plus possibly stone or other material to fill the cages if we can’t source enough from the farm. We plan to host workshops while building the walls to share this knowledge with the community. This will make Prospect Farm safer, more accessible, and more productive. We hope you will consider contributing to this effort — even donations as small as $5 will help us reach our goal.

Visit our fundraiser on GoFundMe to contribute!

Come celebrate Earth Day at Prospect Farm

Prospect Farm invites the community to join us for our annual Earth Day party!

Saturday, April 27, 2019
11am to 2pm 1194 Prospect Avenue

Subway directions: take the F or G train to the Fort Hamilton Parkway subway station. Exit at the Prospect Avenue end of the station.

There will be activities for all ages! Help us with spring planting projects, go on a scavenger hunt, and learn all about composting. There will be music and sing-a-longs. Come take a tour of the farm and see what’s sprouting. Plus we’ll have crafts, plants, and books for sale!

Let us know you’re coming on Facebook!

The event is free but donations will be accepted. Prospect Farm is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so your contributions are tax-deductible.

Notes from our pre-spring clean-up weekend

We had our first work weekend of the year, spending a beautiful Saturday processing lots of compost and raking leaves away from all the bulbs coming up. Spring is really coming!

Sunday morning started out with some heavy rain, so once that let up a little, our pruners got to work on our fruit trees. Last year was the first time we pruned them in both the spring and fall. Pruning in really important for encouraging the trees to produce fruit. We definitely saw a difference last year, so after a full pruning cycle, this year may be even better.

We also collected soil samples for testing and started planting! The past few years we have been planting our peas pretty late and not seeing very significant yields as a result. Peas can actually be planted a month before the average last frost, so we went for it, turning in some of the remaining snow in the bed. Judging from internet advice, the warmer, sunnier conditions this week should help the seeds get a jump start, even though there was still snow on the ground. We’re planning to plant additional rows every two weeks until summer.

And remember farmers: yellow strings on plants or beds means don’t pull it!