Recipes are Coming

Stay tuned for recipe posts by Mary.  Mary has collected fantastic recipes from students and their families using ingredients that we grow in the Parkdale Community Garden.

Garden Club Is Busy Sowing Seeds

The Garden Club sowed radish and carrot seeds this week.  Here is what we learned:
The radish is indigenous to Europe and Asia. Domestication is believed to have occurred 5,000 years ago. Radishes were well known to the Greeks and Romans.  One of the oldest varieties is the Black Spanish Radish dating back to the sixteenth century. In all likelihood, the variety grew well before that time, but without documentation, seed historians can only guess at exact dates of introduction. We are sowing more than 15 different varieties of heirloom radishes today, including the black Spanish variety.

Wild carrots grow from the Mediterranean to Asia. Queen Anne's Lace is America's wild carrot relative.  The first cultivated carrot variety had branching purple roots and is believed to have been developed in Afghanistan. There is some evidence of a few red varieties around that time period. It migrated to the Mediterranean in the 14th century and then Northwards.  The orange varieties were developed in the Netherlands by the Dutch in the 17th century. Many of today's better known orange heirloom varieties were developed by the French seed company Vilmorin-Andrieux starting in the 1850s, such as Nantes and the Chantenay varieties. Yellow carrots were first recorded in Turkey around the end of the 1st Century.  We are sowing examples of each of these colors today.

Seeds Ordered for 2012

Our Seeds have been delivered and we are ready to start sowing.  We made a decision this year to sow only heirloom or open-pollinated seeds.  We have ordered most of our seeds from an incredible company Terroir Seeds http://www.underwoodgardens.com/.  This company is committed to keeping seed diversity strong and varied for generations to come.  Please see the links to the specific varieties we are planting in the columns to the right of this post.

Planting Peas in March

Today some of us adult volunteers planted pea seeds in the garden.  We planted the heirloom varieties Lincoln(shell pea) and Cascadia(snap pea).  They do not need staking since they only grow to about 3ft tall, they support each other.  We planted them three inches apart intensively.  Intensively means three inches apart on all sides, not in rows.  They will be ready to harvest in about 70 days.
Peas have enchanted humans for thousands of years.  Dried peas were found in 7000 year old burial sites in Europe.  They originally were cultivated in the Eastern Mediterranean.  They were a standby of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

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.