News

  • Down to Earth Garden awarded GreenThumb’s Environmental Innovation Award

    On Friday, February 27, 2026, the Down to Earth Community Garden was honored at the ninth annual GreenThumb Garden Recognition Awards ceremony held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Our garden received GreenThumb’s Environmental Innovation Award. “These awards recognize the exceptional achievements of GreenThumb’s gardens, gardeners and community partners that are dedicated to making New York City a greener,…

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  • Work Day – Removing a Dead Tree and Relandscaping a Common Area

    On a recent Saturday morning, garden members met to clear out a dead tree in the center of the main common area that had been trimmed down the week before. The plot was surrounded with cinder blocks and thick concrete that required crowbars and sledgehammers to remove. The cinder blocks, bricks, and large capstones were…

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  • Sol Hosts Queens Botanical Garden Staff for Bokashi Training

    El Sol Brillante and Down to Earth Garden hosted four staff members from the Queens Botanical Garden to go deep into our bokashi composting process. Our resident expert led them through all aspects of the bokashi process from creating the bokashi to feeding worm compost bins, and even how to improve growing vegetables. Between the…

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  • Garden Members March to End Fossil Fuels

    Garden members joined tens of thousands of others marching across New York to demand the end of fossil fuels ahead of the UN Global Climate Action Summit.

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  • Additional $500 Grant Received for our Composting Project

    El Sol Brillante receives $500 grant for composting efforts

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  • El Sol Receives $7500 Grant for Composting

    For 2023, LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens) was selected to receive a $7500 grant for Down to Earth Garden/El Sol Brillante. The grant is from the Manhattan Composting Initiative for fiscal year 2023, “Intergenerational Composting Program.” The grant was used to improve our composting system, including a bokashi rotator and solar-battery system to run the rotator. …

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