Last summer, our Live Animal Coordinator, Jarad, introduced about 50 tadpoles into the small pond in our garden. We were hopeful that the wiggly creatures would morph into full-blown toads but we weren’t sure that they’d make it through a hurricane and a harsh winter. However, last Friday, we spotted three American toads in the pond! Two of the toads were mating, so we didn’t want to disturb, but we found this guy hanging out in the sedge just asking for some close up observation. 

If we were around the garden at night, I bet we’d hear the cricket-like song that that male toads make to attract a female. Check out this guy stretching out his “dewlap” to create a beautiful toady -love song.

Mealy bugs often just look like little cottony clusters gathered on the underside of leaves and at the crotch of each leaf stem (also known as the “node”). Sometimes, I’ll spot one that’s big enough for me to see its 6 insect legs and antennae. But nothing beats getting a magnified look at these creepy crawlies. Their white color comes from a powdery waxy substance that they excrete for protection while they’re sucking juices from the plant. Check ‘em out!

Mealybugs are a type of scale insect, but while mealybugs can move, most adult scale bugs are immobile. They’re like tics on leaves, attaching for life to suck sap and creating a permanent wax shell for protection.  This video shows a mobile, baby scale bug searching for the perfect spot to dig in to a leaf. Many scale bugs have symbiotic relationships with ants. The ants will act as herders and carry the young scale to the most protected area of a plant and then feed on their sweet honeydew secretions. The video is magnified 10 times; I couldn’t see the young scale bug with my naked eye!

Click here to view the embedded video.

**This video was super easy to produce. I just held the lens of my iphone camera up to the top of the in-focus microscope. 

At the Celebrate Earth Festival, Kid's Crew wanted to give visitors a green give-away so we decided to make a messy yet functional craft – Seed Power Balls!

Seed Power Balls are made from clay, dirt, and seeds. The idea is simple, you pass by an empty lot or front stoop that needs some greenery, toss over you clay seed pwer ball, and – boom! – the next time it rains, you’ll be on your way to a flower explosion!  These kids were pretty amazing sales-people. After offering one attendee a seed bomb to plant, the attendee asked, "I can plant this anywhere?" Our little seed steward replied, "No, not anywhere, you have to find a place that's sad because there are no plants!" Oh, of course. So, ready for some guerilla gardening? 

Just mix one part pottery clay (I soaked this stuff in water until it was dissolved) and one part dirt with a sprinkling of wild flower seeds. Mix together until you get a consistency thick enough to scoop into cookie dough like dollops. Get messy! Roll the mixture in your hands and let dry overnight. And your done, let the seeds fly!

Last week’s Celebrate Earth Festival went by in an exciting green blur! One highlight was the “Plant Parade” our afterschool Kid’s Crew kids put together to show off their botanical know-how. For the past couple months, we’ve been learning about plant parts, the lifecycle of a plant, and what plants need to thrive.  We’ve investigated how seeds travel, dissected fruits, potted up bean seeds, did some garbage gardening, and danced the plant-part pokey! Their lead educators, the talented and patient Gina and Elyse, also helped the kids reinforce their learning with a plant journal and some fun flowery crafts.

At the Festival, we set out up an expo table with the sample of their journals, crafts,  and the plants they’d been growing. The students wanted to give visitors a green give-away so we decided to make a messy yet functional craft – Seed Bombs!

Seed Bombs are made from clay, dirt, and seeds. The idea is simple, you pass by an empty lot or front stoop that needs some greenery, toss over you clay seed bomb, and – boom! – the next time it rains, you’ll be on your way to a flower explosion!  These kids were pretty amazing sales-people. After offering one attendee a seed bomb to plant, the attendee asked, "I can plant this anywhere?" Our little seed steward replied, "No, not anywhere, you have to find a place that's sad because there are no plants!" Oh, of course. So, ready for some guerilla gardening? 

Just mix one part pottery clay (I soaked this stuff in water until it was dissolved) and one part dirt with a sprinkling of wild flower seeds. Mix together until you get a consistency thick enough to scoop into cookie dough like dollops. Get messy! Roll the mixture in your hands and let dry overnight. And your done, let the seeds fly!

Last year, we had a blast meeting the chickens of BKFarmyards. They arrived via bicycle, enjoyed the garden’s greens, and one hen even laid an egg!

This year for Celebrate Earth, we’re very excited to meet the chickens of the Hattie Carthan Community Farmer’s Market, a garden and market just ten minutes away from the museum. The market’s founder, Yonette Flemming or “Farmer Yon”, will answer all your clucking questions as she shows off her Rhode Island Reds. Get a preview of her story on the Hattie Carthan website. It turns out her mother and grandmother also raised Rhode Island Reds! I loved this sweet excerpt of her story:

“Livestock breeding and farming has been practiced by the women in my family for years. According to my grandmother's accounts, (a woman who raised hundreds of chickens at a time for consumption in her village of Berbice) when the women in our family got married, they were given five live eggs (as part of a sort of dowry arrangement) which were hatched (of course roosters were allowed on those farms) and they learnt how to raise those chicks, those chicks went on to lay eggs and have other chicks and that was the foundation of their livestock farm.”

Check out Hattie Carthan's events page for a list of awesome ongoing community events!

Meet a BeekeeperThursday, March 21, 2013 – 1:30-3:30 p.m.

Beekeeping in New York City has only been legal for three years, but since 2010, the number of hives and urban beekeepers has exploded. Many urban bee keepers have hives right on their rooftops for hyper-local honey making!

Some even worry that there is not enough forage to sustain the number of hives. Now isn’t that a sad something? There may not be enough flowers in the city to feed our growing honeybee population!

This Thursday, visit the museum’s greenhouse to meet a real urban beekeeper, Emily Vaughn. Emily’s an urban farmer and freelance horticulturist. She teaches beekeeping workshops at 3^rd Ward, one of the many places that hosts workshops and info sessions on this new urban farming phenomenon. Try on Emily’s beekeeping veil, test out her bee-calming smoker, do the bee waggle dance, and touch real honeycomb. Emily will answer all your buzzing questions so stop by for a sweet time!

Chickens in the Garden Friday, March 22, 2013 - 1:30-3:30 p.m.

Last year, we had a blast meeting the chickens of BKFarmyards. They arrived via bicycle, enjoyed the garden’s greens, and one hen even laid an egg!

This year for Celebrate Earth, we’re very excited to meet the chickens of the Hattie Carthan Community Farmer’s Market, a garden and market just ten minutes away from the museum. The market’s founder, Yonette Flemming or “Farmer Yon”, will answer all your clucking questions as she shows off her Rhode Island Reds. Get a preview of her story on the Hattie Carthan website. It turns out her mother and grandmother also raised Rhode Island Reds! I loved this sweet excerpt of her story:

“Livestock breeding and farming has been practiced by the women in my family for years. According to my grandmother's accounts, (a woman who raised hundreds of chickens at a time for consumption in her village of Berbice) when the women in our family got married, they were given five live eggs (as part of a sort of dowry arrangement) which were hatched (of course roosters were allowed on those farms) and they learnt how to raise those chicks, those chicks went on to lay eggs and have other chicks and that was the foundation of their livestock farm.”

Check out Hattie Carthan's events page for a list of awesome ongoing community events!

BCM’s Celebrate Earth Festival begins next week on Monday, March 25^th! We have a week packed full of amazing events celebrating our green museum, our community, our city, and our planet! 

Meet a BeekeeperThursday, March 21, 2013 - 1:30-3:30 p.m.

Beekeeping in New York City has only been legal for three years, but since 2010, the number of hives and urban beekeepers has exploded. Many urban bee keepers have hives right on their rooftops for hyper-local honey making!

Some even worry that there is not enough forage to sustain the number of hives. Now isn’t that a sad something? There may not be enough flowers in the city to feed our growing honeybee population!

This Thursday, visit the museum’s greenhouse to meet a real urban beekeeper, Emily Vaughn. Emily’s an urban farmer and freelance horticulturist. She teaches beekeeping workshops at 3^rd Ward, one of the many places that hosts workshops and info sessions on this new urban farming phenomenon. Try on Emily’s beekeeping veil, test out her bee-calming smoker, do the bee waggle dance, and touch real honeycomb. Emily will answer all your buzzing questions so stop by for a sweet time!

One of our programs, “Creatures of the Sea Debris”, will focus on the sad state of our deep blue oceans. Along with warming waters due to climate change, agricultural run-off pollution, and oil spills, our sea life must also face beach litter that they often get tangled in or confuse for food.  We’ll be getting out our horseshoe crabs to show how litter can trap these ancient creatures on the shore. The plastic gets tangle on their feet so that they can’t make it back to the water.

What’s more, turtles favorite food are jelly fish, and guess what looks exactly like tasty jelly fish floating gracefully through the water? A plastic grocery bag! Approximately 100,000 turtles and other sea creatures die each year by either getting tangled in the bags and suffocating or mistaking them for food.

The U.S. uses 380 billion plastic bags per year, that’s enough to stretch around the earth 29,000 times! Let’s go for the low hanging fruit. Grocery bags take a ton of energy to make- 12 million tons of crude oil per year- and less than 1% of them end up getting recycled. They take up space in landfills, clog drainage systems, and take 400 years to decompose! They are in use for an average of 12 minutes. Isn’t all this worth cultivating a habit of carrying a tote to the grocery store? I sure think so! 

One of our programs, “Creatures of the Sea Debris”, will focus on the sad state of our deep blue oceans. Along with warming waters due to climate change, agricultural run-off pollution, and oil spills, our sea life must also face beach litter that they often get tangled in or confuse for food.  We’ll be getting out our horseshoe crabs to show how litter can trap these ancient creatures on the shore. The plastic gets tangle on their feet so that they can’t make it back to the water.

What’s more, turtles favorite food are jelly fish, and guess what looks exactly like tasty jelly fish floating gracefully through the water? A plastic grocery bag! Approximately 100,000 turtles and other sea creatures die each year by either getting tangled in the bags and suffocating or mistaking them for food.

The U.S. uses 380 billion plastic bags per year, that’s enough to stretch around the earth 29,000 times! Let’s go for the low hanging fruit. Grocery bags take a ton of energy to make- 12 million tons of crude oil per year- and less than 1% of them end up getting recycled. They take up space in landfills, clog drainage systems, and take 400 years to decompose! They are in use for an average of 12 minutes. Isn’t all this worth cultivating a habit of carrying a tote to the grocery store? I sure think so! 

Of course, people often need a little push towards good habits. Ireland has reduced their plastic bag consumption by 95% by simply putting a 20 cent tax on them. Sixty-one American cities have already banned or put a fee on plastic bags. We can do better!

If you're interested in joining the ban the bag movement, check out this site.

New York Audubon, New York Harbor Parks, and the American Littoral Society organize beach cleans ups and wildlife monitoring projects throughout the year, visit their sites to find out how to get involved.

Be sure to visit the museum for Celebrate Earth March 25- March 31st !