Welcome!

 

Our goal is to learn how to feed our bodies, regenerate the environment and nourish our spirits. All programs are open to the public and held at South Church, 343 Broadway, Dobbs Ferry, NY. 

 

Roots & Wings CSA - learn more and register here 

A partnership with Deep Roots, an organic farm near Hudson, NY. Their mission is to provide local communities access to affordable, high-quality, fruit and vegetables through organic and sustainable crop production. 

18 weeks of farm-fresh produce / June 25 - October 22
Pick up is Sunday mornings, in the parking lot behind South Church, 8:30 - 10 am

Regular share $500 / Large share $700

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Garden with us! - The Kitchen Garden, The Labyrinth Garden, The Manse Garden - learn more here

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Interested in learning permaculture methods and being part of transforming a Dobbs Ferry backyard into an edible landscape? Your mentor is Greg Rosen, STEM educator on the Science Barge. Contact gregoryrosen@gmail.com

The work includes

• Taking apart pallets
• Digging to widen paths between garden beds  
• Spreading compost as mulch
• Hanging netting to make a plant nursery

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Roots and Wings is a natural outgrowth of South Church’s ministry of welcome. The congregation’s mission statement is “None of the lines which divide us outside of these walls apply.” They’ve embodied this in the past by welcoming homed and homeless, gay and straight, rich and poor, members and non-members. Roots and Wings broadens this further by beginning to erase lines between those who find God within the walls of the church and those find her in the garden. 

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Roots and Wings receives support from the Vision 2020 Fund of the Hudson River Presbytery. 

Foraging workshops with Greg Rosen

Learn the basics of foraging wild plants. There's food at your feet!

Join Greg Rosen in learning the basics of foraging for plants. We'll harvest, inspect, wash and then nibble. Foraging benefits include the joys of nature connection, free & nutritious food, new flavors, and mutually beneficial relationships with local landscapes.All ages are welcome. Children under 18 need to be accompanied by a participating adult. 

Tuesday evenings  | August 30 and September 20, 5:00 - 6:30 pm and October 18, 4:00 - 5:30 pm

Saturday November 12, 1:30 - 3 pm

Sign up for any or all of the above dates. 

Suggested donation of $15 per person per class. No one is turned away for lack of funds. 

Meet at the Manse Garden – behind the stone building to the right of South Presbyterian Church when facing from Broadway  

Maximum capacity for each date is 10 participants. 

Greg is an educator at Groundwork Hudson Valley, owner of Forest Folk and member of Roots & Wings steering committee. He gained his Permaculture Design Certification at the Panya Project, a sustainable living education center in Northern Thailand, and has led foraging tours for Hastings-on-Hudson Parks & Rec, Dobbs Ferry Girl Scouts, Queens Botanical Garden, Wayfinders on the Hudson, Groundwork Hudson Valley, and Forest Folk. 

(photo from UpstateHouse / Dina Falconi)

Shiitake Mushroom Growing Workshop - July 14 @5 pm

Learn to grow shiitake mushrooms in your own backyard with wild edibles expert Greg Rosen on Thursday, July 14, 5 - 7:30 pm.  

The hands-on workshop takes place in the Manse Garden, Roots & Wings new permaculture-teaching space. Participants will learn the process of cultivating shiitake mushrooms—from tree cutting and drilling logs to inserting spawn plugs, hammering, and coating. Each person will take home an inoculated log that will (hopefully) produce a small crop of organic shiitake mushrooms.

REGISTER HERE

RAIN DATE Friday July 15, 5 - 7:30

Participation is donation based and limited to 12 people. Any minors must be accompanied by adults.

The process:

1. Use a handsaw to cut down an invasive Norway Maple tree and make 4 logs, each about 3' long and 4" diameter wide.  
2. Use an electric hand drill to drill holes 1.25" deep and 5-6" apart in a diamond pattern.
3. Use a hammer to lightly pound in shiitake mushroom spawn plugs.
4. Use Dave's custom-built fire pit to build a small fire.
5. Melt soy wax in an old glass jar placed in a titanium camping pot filled halfway with water and placed in the fire. 
6. Use an old toothbrush to coat the plugs with the melted wax.
7. Lean the logs against a tree in the shade.  

Visit the gardens

 

Compost Conversation on April 21

PLEASE RSVP HERE.

A roundtable discussion with experienced composters including Susan DeGeorge, a backyard composter, Els van den Bosch, a participant in Roots & Wings’ community composting, and Sophia Macaluso of Hudson Compost Services, a new curbside food scraps pickup biz. 

There will be plenty of time for Q&A so you leave empowered to keep your food scraps out of the landfill and return nutrients to the soil.   

Arrive at 6:45 behind South Church for a demo of Roots & Wings 3-bin system that's used by dozens of people including members of Roots & Wings CSA. Bring (a small amount of) food scraps and see what happens next!

This roundtable is sponsored by Sustainable Dobbs and Hudson Compost Services. Rumor has it that Kathy Dean is baking some yummy bread! Questions? You can reach Roots & Wings at info@RivertownsCommunityGardens.

We're celebrating 10 years!!

Roots & Wings celebrates 10 years in 2021~ ! We celebrate our Kitchen Garden - a group that gardens together each Saturday morning and donates hundreds of pounds of fresh produce to the Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry each summer, our active CSA with FABLE: From Farm to Table, and our labyrinth now reconceived as a spiral of healing herbs. 

Over the years we have hosted film series and book groups, roundtable discussions with local farmers and suburban chicken owners and bee keepers, Rivertowns Permaculture - a certification class, bread and soap and sauce making classes, gardening and composting workshops, potlucks, presentations by a Native elder, a local young woman who walks to draw attention to environmental issues, gardeners who are creating stops on the pollinator pathway and so much more. 

Our vision is to live more sustainable and full lives through connection with one another and the earth. 

COLLABORATORS WANTED for these teams:

• CSA outreach
• Social media 
• Programming (organizing workshops, garden tours, films ... )
• Food coop envisioning
• Herbal gardening / creating remedies

Sign up for our emails, follow us on Instagram and Facebook, or send us a note: info@RivertownsCommunityGardens.com

Thank you for your interest!

Thank you to all who tuned in to Gabriela Munoz' presentation Fire Cider, Fungi, Fruits & Ferments. We apologize for the technical difficulties ...

Below are some of the recipes and resources shared that evening.