Free Garden Clinic Saturday July 30th- Organic Pest Management

Save the date for Parkdale Community Garden's second gardening clinic. On Saturday, July 30 at 9:00 a.m. at Parkdale Elementary School (park in the Girard Avenue parking lot and walk around back to the garden), Gayle and Mike Thorpe, owners of Thorpes' Organic Family Farm, will give a presentation on organic pest management. Learn how Gayle and Mike battle bugs, weeds, fungus, and other pestilence using organic methods.

Free Garden Clinic Wednesday May 25th 6:30pm

We’re excited that Ken Brown, long-time host of WBEN's The Home Garden Show, former Cornell Cooperative Extension Agent, and owner of Field of Dreams Farm, a cut-your-own Christmas tree farm in South Wales, has agreed to teach the PCG’s first community gardening clinic. The clinic will run from 6:30-7:15 during the open house. Ken’s topic is “gardening fundamentals” and will cover: Soil fundamentals and amendments, Garden planning and planting and Garden maintenance. Look for future community garden clinics on organic pest and weed control and food preservation.

Parkdale Community Garden Awarded $2000 from Lowes

We just received fantastic news! Lowes is giving the Parkdale Community Garden $2000 to start a school wide composting program! We are soo thrilled. The science and ecological lessons to be learned from composting are incredible.

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.