The best way I've found so far to beat the heat is to hop the Governors Island ferry, bike in hand, and spend a Friday afternoon in a world apart. Last week, conditions were ideal for a picnic and a 1-hour urban farming intensive - optional, of course: you could just as easily loll about with some reading material or catch up on email while enjoying magnificent harbor views and a cool breeze. Or visit the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Building 110 Art Program. Or play miniature golf...

The first stop was Picnic Point, roughly half way around the island's 2.2-mile circumference. Picnic tables and hammocks are placed in tree-shaded spots around a field that overlooks New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island beyond. At the rear of the field are a group of colorful cabanas furnished with brightly painted Adirondack-style chairs where visitors were keeping cool in the shade. Nearby was a cart offering home-made ice cream from Blue Marble - the best I've had in the city, and a bargain at $4 for a single on a sugar cone.

The Added Value Farm on Governors Island, with downtown Manhattan skyscrapers in the distance.

But the main purpose of my trip was to visit the Added Value Farm, which is operated by the same group that has turned a dilapidated playground in Red Hook, Brooklyn, into a vital farming and educational component for South Brooklyn. Two years ago they started the farm on Governors Island and today, according to Ian Marvy, co-founder and executive director, the 1.5-acre plot annually nets about $60,000 in sales from its weekend market and CSA. "That's enough," said Ian, "to cover the salary of the project coordinator and pay for the stipends we offer to high school students enrolled in programs at the Red Hook farm."

Dozens of blue-shirted volunteers were hoeing and weeding the crops, making ready for the Saturday market. In addition to vegetables, rows of sunflowers and everlastings were blooming at the western end of the plot. The entire farm is watered via a perforated T-Tape drip irrigation system that takes up very little space and squeezes out just the right amount of water to keep things growing. For information about Added Value's programs, please visit the website

Across the road was a table offering earthworms for sale, and a hand-lettered sign announcing a composting workshop. The site is a small fenced in yard where Earth Matter, NY operates a zero waste program that engages high school students from the New York Harbor School in an island beautification program in which they turn food scraps from island concessions into compost used for growing flowers and ornamental plants.

Volunteers mix it up and test the pH value of compost at Earth Matter workshop. Photos: Peggy Roalf.

The demonstration featured a way to compost all discarded edibles (not just fruits and veggies) in a fermentation process that results in rich new earth ready to plant in roughly a month's time. What's amazing to me is the fact that there was no unpleasant odor. The stuff still undergoing the process smelled a little like beer - which makes sense, as one of the active ingredients is fermented malt. The process and product is ideal for a place like Governors Island, where a waste-to-table loop is completely manageable. The website http://earthmatter.org/ was not operating at publication time; please try again.

For information about Governors Island, including the Friday-Sunday ferry schedule, upcoming events, and the weekend farm stand, please visit the website.

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