How to Harvest Popcorn

Pick the popcorn when the stalks have dried out. The kernels should be hard and nearly dry. Strip away the dried husks. Cure the corn in a warm dry place (like strung up over the heaters in the classroom) for 4-6 weeks. You could also store them in a mesh bag or nylon stockings in a warm dry place.

After 4-6 weeks of curing wear gloves to protect your hands and grasp the corn at both ends firmly. Twist your hands in opposite directions until the kernels pop out. Once the kernels start falling off they will come off more easily. Pop immediately or store in an airtight container for up to 4 months.

Harvesting Sunflower Seeds

Sunflower seeds are highly nutritious and a kid friendly snack. Harvest the seeds when the back of the flowers have turned brown or yellow then bring the sunflower heads indoors to a dry airy place. Once the seeds have totally dried they will easily fall from the head when rubbed with your hand. Soak the seeds overnight with salted water. Drain them the next day and roast in a single layer on a cookie sheet for a couple hours at 150-200 degrees Fahrenheit. Store the roasted seeds in an airtight container set in a cool, dry place until ready to eat.

To save seeds for next year put the dry(not roasted) seeds in paper envelopes and label them. They will be ready to sow next June by our students again!

Powdery Mildew

Yuck, powdery mildew has devastated our squash and pumpkin efforts. This common fungus first started in our cucumber patch in late July, we didn't catch it early enough and then the air born spores migrated their way to our zucchini plants. We still were able to harvest a substantial amount of zucchinis but it definitely cut our season short. By mid August the powdery mildew ravaged our blue ballet squash and small sugar pumpkin plants (part of our Iroquois Three Sisters Garden). The fruit of the squash and pumpkin plants are still hanging on but we are not sure for how much longer. We were hoping to harvest the squash in mid October but we might have to pick it sooner in order to save it. We will try to "keep" it for as long as we can so the second grade can use it in their Harvest celebration in November.

We treated the effected leaves by spraying them with a mixture of baking soda(natural fungicide) and water. This seemed to slow down the spread but next year if this happens we will start our treatment earlier and more aggressively. In the meantime we will look into ways to prevent this from happening next year.

Garden Curriculum for the upcoming school year

Here are the Garden Curriculum themes for the 2010-11 school year:

Kindergarten will study SOIL with highlights being vermicomposting (wormbins) in the K classrooms, engaging the boy scouts to build a compost bin from our left over wood and chicken wire, and studying what make soil healthy.

1st Grade will study SEEDS, they will study seed anatomy, seed diversity, how to save seeds and then save some from this year's garden. They can do a sunflower seed tasting in the Fall and a pea tasting in the Spring.

2nd Grade will have HARVEST, they can have a small Harvest Party in the Fall with the end of season produce. They can relate their celebration to the American Thanksgiving celebration. They can learn how to "keep" certain produce. They can decide what to do with the rest of the produce- cafeteria, donate, sell.

3rd Grade will have BENEFICIALS studying bugs, ecosystems, companion planting and planning.

4th Grade will have THE THREE SISTERS referring the Iroquois method of planting corn, squash and beans. They will plant the Three Sisters in the Spring. They can have a popcorn party this Fall with the corn we grew this summer. They can study the many uses of corn in industrialized societies. This theme will tie in with Parkdale's Intercultural Exchange (ICE) program this year.

Suggestions for an abundance of produce

This past week volunteers, Jennifer and her son Christopher brought over 7 cucumbers and 2 zucchini to the East Aurora Senior Center from the Parkdale Community Garden. The gifts were well received. We can add the East Aurora Senior Center to our list of places extra produce can be dropped off to. This goes for your own garden too, if you have zucchini coming out of your ears please consider finding a local place that would benefit greatly from donations of produce.

This is what the two most common weeds in our garden look like.

How to Harvest Swiss Chard

We have some beautiful swiss chard growing in the garden and some of it is just about ready to be harvested. The leaves should be about 18inches tall and blemish free. Grab the outer leaf that you want at the base of the plant and pull down forcefully it should snap off, leave the center leaves intact. The outer leaves will regenerate and we will have swiss chard again in a month. Check out this great video volunteer Heide found for us http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-harvest-swiss-chard.

How to Make Borage Herbal Tea

The Garden's borage plants are tucked in between the tomato plants. You can't miss them they have beautiful pink, purple and blue flowers on them right now. The herb borage is native to Syria and has long been hailed for its healing properties. It has been shown to alleviate symptoms of melancholy, depression and fatigue. It is also a strong anti-inflammatory. The leaves and flowers can be used fresh in salads, the leaves taste like cucumber.

Here is how to make borage tea: pour one cup of boiling water over a quarter cup of bruised fresh leaves. Steep for five minutes, strain and drink up.

Chores for the third week in July

Please keep up on the weeding, last week's volunteers made your job a lot easier they were weeding champions. Please harvest the swiss chard, borage, basil, cucumbers and lettuce under the cucumber trellises. Please sow spinach seeds on the inside perrimeter bed opposite of the shed in the left corner and mark your sowing with a stick marker from the shed. Please sow additional sunflower seeds all along the outside perrimeter. The tomato plants still need to be suckered check out the link showing you how to do this from a previous post. Remember the garden needs to have a total of 1 inch of rain so if it doesn't get that please water regularly. It is important to water the soil around the plants and not the plants themselves. Watering the soil and not the plant is important for two reasons; the first being the sun will burn the leaves if they are wet and the second is that there is bacteria that collects in the rain barrels and the soil will filter out the bacteria.

Chores for the second week in July

The garden has burst into life. Weeding will be the theme this week. Please see pictures in previous post for pictures of common weeds. Please harvest the lettuces underneath the cucumber trellises. Look for cucumbers to pick. Take the hoes in the shed and use them weeding large areas like the front bed. Thank you to one of our volunteers Mary for suggesting and planting golden purslane this week(see picture above). Purslane can add zest to salads and stirfrys, it is the highest known plant source for omega 3 fatty acids and high in vitamin C.

Chores for the first week in July

Our seeds have really taken off! We have cucumbers, zucchini, beans, corn, melons, salad mix, borage, basil, parsley and loads of flowers all growing and recognizable which means weeding shouldn't be a daunting task. The inside perimeter beds have corn growing and we just planted corn's sisters; beans and squash to make the three sisters of the Iroquois tradition. The beans will grow up along the corn fixing nitrogen into the soil and making the corn stronger and the squash will grow in between the corn mounds keeping off critters with its spiky foliage. We also sowed more beans (which have not sprouted yet) in the zucchini and bean bed.

We tied up the tomatoes to the stakes and pruned them. If they need to be tied again at a higher level the string and scissors are in the shed. Please prune the developing suckers from the tomato plants, refer to this great article for details http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/pruning-tomatoes.aspx. We do not have pruning shears yet so please use your hands to pull off the suckers.

Thanks to our amazing volunteer contractor Bryant Tent our gutters are hooked up to our rain barrels and the rain barrels are already full of water. The garden needs one inch rain per week so if it has not rained in a couple of days please take the watering cans in the shed and fill them up and go to town watering (this is an excellent kid job).

The bed closest to the the garden gate needs to have another sowing of carrots, beets and swiss chard. The seeds will be in the shed. Please make a straight indentation with a ruler, also found in the shed just behind the plant marker and sow the seeds according to the directions on the packet, just the length of one ruler. Then move the plant marker behind your new sowing. Be sure to water your new seeds thoroughly.

Garden Party Tuesday June 22nd

Rain or Shine 6-8pm. The Community is welcome to tour the Parkdale Community Garden and sign up for a week of summer maintenance. In case of rain please come into the school through the new entrance and there will be signs leading you to the Party. Refreshments and goodies will be available (donations appreciated). School Curriculum will be on display so you can see how teachers can use the Garden in their lesson plans. Meet our local business supporters and our donors.

Mrs. McAtee's Class Rules

Mrs. McAtee's morning class came to the garden with a very cool gardening tool; their rulers. We used the width of the rulers to make straight row indentations for the seeds we planted. We lightly pressed the rulers into the soil since the carrot, beet and swiss chard seeds we sowed only need to be planted 1/8"-1/4" into the soil. Then we used the rulers to measure how far apart the rows should be. We planted a rows of Red Core Chantenay Carrots, Dragon Carrots, Yellowstone Carrots and Chioggia Beets. Then we planted rows of Multi Color Swiss Chard seeds close between the carrot rows so the swiss chard would shade the carrots as they grew. The swiss chard will be ready to harvest as the carrots are getting bigger and then leave room for the carrots to grow. Mrs. McAttee's class- you rule!

Mrs. Evans' class planting cherry tomatoes

Mrs. Evans' class joined us in the garden to plant cherry tomatoes of all different varieties (see sidebar for varieties). The students did a stellar job! The students crushed egg shells in their hands and dropped them in the holes we dug for the tomato plants. The egg shells will provide extra calcium the tomato plants need. The students then seeded the same bed with basil and dill seeds. The basil and dill will confuse the bugs that want to eat the tomato plants with their pungent smells. Plus tomatoes and basil go really nicely together in dishes.

Mrs. McDonald's 1st Grade Class Made Cucumber Rainbows in the Garden

Mrs. McDonald's class learned the trick to growing lettuces all summer long. With a little help from its friend cucumber, lettuces can grow under the shade of the cucumber plant when you make a rainbow shaped support with chicken wire for the cucumber plant to trellis onto. The students planted cucumber plants and cucumber seeds, this way there are cucumbers all summer long and not all at once. They planted the small lettuce seeds with an easy seed sower (pictured above). They also planted seeds of melons in the bed directly behind the cucumber/lettuce bed. They sprinkled nasturtium flower seeds along the edges of the two beds. Nasturtiums have been shown to repel ground beetles and squash bugs, the flowers also act as a living mulch to keep down weeds.

Mr. Downs' 2nd Grade Class in the Garden

Mr. Downs' 2nd Grade class did a fantastic job in the garden this week. We talked about the importance of diversity in the vegetable garden. They planted six tomato plants and then planted the seeds of good companion plants as well. All around the tomato plants they seeded the edible flower borage (pictured above) and the herb basil. The borage flower is useful because it attracts pollinators to the tomato plants. The basil is important because its aromatic oils may confuse the pest tomato hornworms. When in the garden brush up against the basil or pick leaves to release the aromatic oils. The students were very helpful in tidying up the garden as well; they weeded the beds, straightened the gravel pathways and started edging the perimeter beds. What a crew!

Lead Free Hoses

If you are considering purchasing a new hose this Spring consider this, many hoses are made of polyvinyl chloride, which uses lead as a stabilizer. Lead leaches into the water flow at 10 to 100 times the allowable EPA levels for drinking water. Phthalate ester, an industrial chemical that you taste, is also a health concern. Look for a lead-free, antimicrobial, rubber (preferable over plastic) hose. With any hose, flush by allowing water to run for a minute or more to let fresh water reach the hose end. The Parkdale Community Garden purchased two lead-free garden hoses from Reboy Supply Inc. in Elma.

Charitable Support Grows

The Parkdale Community Garden is funded through the East Aurora Educational Foundation's Leadership Grant program and the Priscilla Gleed Memorial Fund. Miss Gleed was a lifelong resident of East Aurora and a teacher in the East Aurora Union Free School District for 41 years. Her life was devoted to charitable activities in support of children, the elderly, wildlife and community in general.

Art adds pizazz to garden

Our incredibly talented art teachers have added pizazz to our garden and garden room. With the help of the 3rd graders Mrs. White decorated one of the two rain barrels that was donated to us by the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper. Mrs. Cotton made a beautiful mural for our Garden Room.

Welcome to the Parkdale Community Garden

This spring over thirty parent and community volunteers built the Parkdale Community Garden. We are about to start planting this week. Stay tuned for the list of seeds we are using.