ECI Virtual Classes - Organic Vegetable Gardening II

Learn how grow a successful home vegetable garden using organic methods! The Ecological Culture Initiative’s President and Agro-Ecology Director, Rachel Stephens, will guide new gardeners in how to test and improve their garden soil, choose the right watering method, manage disease and pests organically and more.

ECI Virtual Classes - Organic Vegetable Gardening I

Learn how to plan your home vegetable garden for this year’s growing season! The Ecological Culture Initiative’s President and Agro-Ecology Director, Rachel Stephens, will guide new gardeners in how to choose the right garden site, learn the different styles of garden beds, how to plant in succession, rotate crops, and more. 

Beekeeping With Chris Kelly

ECI Beekeeper Chris Kelly shows our European Honey Bee beehives, part of ECI's Pollinator Project.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction
00:12 - What Do We Know about Bees?
01:41 - Beekeeper Tools
02:35 - Beehive Hardware
05:34 - Bee Smoker
06:31 - Opening the Hive
13:11 - Questions about Beekeeping

ECI has set up European Honey Bee beehives and a native pollinator garden at the Good Ground Heritage Garden at St. Joseph Villa in Hampton Bays. The hives are used as an educational tool in conjunction with the adjacent native pollinator and vegetable gardens.

Bees pollinate 75 percent of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the United States and 33% of all produce, but the increased use of pesticides and fungicides has caused a sharp nationwide decline in bee populations and other pollinators.

Learn More → eciny.org/pollinator-project
Get Involved → eciny.org/volunteer
Donate → eciny.org/donate

Community Composting Program with Tony Romano

Chapters:
00:00 - Types of Composting
01:46 - Using Food Scraps
06:46 - Worms!
07:24 - Where to find worms for your composting bins
08:09 - ECI Community Composting Program
09:04 - More Worms!!

ECI Resource Director Tony Romano shows how we make our "Black Gold" compost for ECI's Community Composting Program.

Phase 1 of ECI’s new Zero Waste Initiative is the development of a Community Composting Program. ECI members divert wasted food scraps from the landfill and create nutrient-rich, “black gold” compost to be used at home. A composting site at the Good Ground Heritage Garden has been developed for the program.

Learn more → eciny.org/composting

Participants use a 6-gallon galvanized pail for collecting and transporting food scraps to the Good Ground Heritage Garden (optional curbside pickup is available). At the end of 3 months, participants receive 1 pail full of the nutrient-rich compost for use at home.

ECI hopes to close the loop on food waste while empowering community members, schools, and local businesses to build healthy soil, and create resilient local food systems while fighting climate change.

♻️ Over the 2020 Spring, Summer, and Fall Seasons, we diverted nearly 2 tons of food scraps, saving over 3950 lbs. of food waste from the landfills! Learn more and sign up for the 2021 Spring Season → eciny.org/composting

Good Ground heritage garden tour with doria hughes

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro slide
00:10 - Monarch Waystation & Pollinator Garden
06:14 - Pawpaw Trees
08:05 - Water for Pollinators
08:48 - What's a Hugelkultur?
11:59 - Growing Food / Crop Rotation / Asparagus
13:15 - Watermelons & Seed Saving
14:24 - Harvesting Seeds
16:53 - Birds & Sunflower Seeds
18:29 - Squash, Tomatoes, Potatoes for the Food Pantry
20:05 - Cover Crops (Crimson Clover) for Top Soil
21:13 - When to Harvest Watermelons
21:58 - Florida Weave for Growing Tall Tomatoes

The Good Ground Heritage Garden at St. Joseph Villa provides community members with the opportunity to learn hands-on organic gardening skills. The delicious, vitamin-rich, fresh herbs and vegetables are harvested from the garden and donated to local food pantries in Hampton Bays. Organic, heirloom variety seeds are collected from the garden, processed, and made available to the public for free through the Good Ground Seed Library.

Learn more → eciny.org/GGHG

Adjacent to the main heritage garden is our Community Composting Program composting site; the Eco-Shack, which currently houses our Good Ground Seed Library at the Garden; and our Pollinator Project, which includes bee hives, a native pollinator garden, and Monarch Waystation. Future plans include a greenhouse, garden signs, rain barrels, and a brick walkway to increase wheelchair accessibility.

Zero waste Initiative with Lauren Carrozzi

Lauren Carrozzi, ECI Director of Zero Waste & Wellness, shares her vision of a zero waste culture, and offers solutions to help us shift from a throw-away society.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro & Welcome
01:15 - What is Zero Waste?
01:40 - Refuse what we don't need
03:24 - Reduce what we consume or toss
08:25 - Reuse or repair instead of tossing
13:05 - Recycle what we have to
14:18 - Rot or compost the rest

ECI’s Zero Waste Initiative empowers local schools, businesses, restaurants, and homes to rethink their trash. We guide community members through the process of eliminating excess food waste, single use plastics, and packaging.

Learn More → eciny.org/zero-waste
Get Involved → eciny.org/volunteer
Donate → eciny.org/donate

Ultimately, the aim of Zero Waste is to shift from a throw-away society to one that refuses what we don’t need, reduces what we consume or toss, reuses or repairs items instead of disposing of them, recycles what we have to, and rots (or composts) the rest.

Once we put those principles into practice, zero waste becomes about emulating sustainable natural cycles, a goal that is ethical, economical, efficient, and visionary.

The first phase of our initiative includes:

• Touring the Hampton Bays Middle School cafeteria and garden to perform a waste analysis
• Teach community members how to create a Zero Waste Household through workshops and forums
• Develop a community composting site at the Good Ground Heritage Garden
• Create a Community Composting Program for ECI members
• Research and present sustainable packaging solutions for Good Ground Farmers Market vendors and local eateries
• Activate our members to contact local businesses to voice opinions on shifting their packaging practices

An ecological vision for hampton bays with Dr. Scott Carlin

Dr. Scott Carlin, ECI Advisory Board member, associate professor of geography, and faculty member of LIU Post’s master’s program in environmental sustainability, shared his ideas for sustainable development on Long Island with us at our Good Ground Heritage Garden Tour & Taste event on August 8, 2020, and invited folks to give their vision of what the future of Hampton Bays should be like. A few topics that one tour group came up with were: sea level rise & property loss, planting flower & vegetable gardens, solar panels at Manorville Recycling Center, self-sufficiency, and seed sharing.

Learn More → eciny.org/initiatives
Get Involved → eciny.org/volunteer
Donate → eciny.org/donate

ECI Community Composting Program - Introduction & Demonstration

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro slide
00:10 - Welcome & Introduction
01:10 - How to weigh, log, & dispose food scraps
03:31 - How we make "Black Gold" compost
05:57 - Questions about grass clippings & paper
07:46 - Zero Waste and using food scraps
10:57 - How worms help make compost
11:52 - Questions about citrus in compost
13:31 - Volunteers in the garden
14:00 - Plans for accessible beds, brick walkway, & sculpture
14:56 - Good Ground Seed Library at the Eco-Shack
15:32 - Thanks for coming!

Part of ECI's Zero Waste Initiative is the Community Composting Program, which we introduced and demonstrated to new participants on June 6th, 2020 at the Good Ground Heritage Garden, located at the St. Joseph Villa in Hampton Bays, NY.

The Ecological Culture Initiative (ECI) hopes to close the loop on food waste while empowering community members, schools, and local businesses. ECI members divert wasted food scraps from the landfill and create nutrient-rich, “black gold” compost to be used at home and at the heritage garden. Closing the loop on food waste is imperative to build healthy soil, and create resilient local food systems while fighting climate change.

The Spring Season of the Community Composting Program diverted 975 lbs. of food scraps! Thanks to all our program participants! Learn more and sign up here!

Good Ground Heritage Garden Groundbreaking - Nov 25th, 2017

The groundbreaking of the Good Ground Heritage Garden at the St. Joseph Villa in Hampton Bays, NY included the installation of hugelkultur beds. The hugelkultur contains logs, sticks, leaves, seaweed, compost, and topsoil. Pronounced "hoo-gul-culture", the name means 'hill culture' or 'hill mound.' Gradual decay of the organic material in the hugelkultur provides nutrients, heat, and captured rainwater to vegetables and other plantings. 

ECI Organic Farm-to-Table Spring 2017 Equinox Dinner at Nurel's Farmers' Market

The Ecological Culture Initiative presents its vision to the Southampton Town Board - March 2nd, 2017

Dirty Water short film documentary