Albany High Garden Club brings in apple harvest

Posted on October 6, 2014 | Comments Off on Albany High Garden Club brings in apple harvest

Apple picking Oct6,2014Albany High Garden Club members picked perhaps a hundred apples from the old apple tree near the teachers’ parking lot on Monday. With the right tools now in hand, the take will probably be several times that next year. And wouldn’t it be great to get another tree or two in the ground in the spring?

Club members took apples home. They’ll share a bucket with food sciences teacher Eleanor Sicluna. And they’ll offer apple slices in the school in the days ahead as a vehicle for talking up joining the club and taking an interest in our plant endeavors.

—Bill Stoneman

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Posted in School garden

Buying flower bulbs supports school gardening

Posted on October 6, 2014 | Comments Off on Buying flower bulbs supports school gardening

FlowerPowerThinking about sprucing up your home with spring flowers from fall-planted bulbs? We have just what you are looking for with our Flower Power Fundraising bulb sale. And when you make a purchase, the Vegetable Project receives half of the sales price, which supports our effort to put more grow lights in classrooms and build more hoop houses and generally create more hands-on learning opportunities for Albany students. Please take a look at the offering.

—Bill Stoneman

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Posted in School garden, Uncategorized

Hope to see you at Myers garden on Oct. 11

Posted on September 21, 2014 | Comments Off on Hope to see you at Myers garden on Oct. 11

Hey, mark your calendars and try to join us, if you can, for a Family Day in the Garden at Myers Middle School on Saturday, Oct. 11, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Green thumbThat’s Columbus Day weekend. We do this once in the fall and twice in the spring. It’s a great opportunity to meet other members of the Myers community. It’s a huge help when we can get adults working on a couple of projects that are a bit much for sixth, seventh and eighth graders. And it helps us focus on growing plants when we are with students, rather than construction or lugging heavy materials.

We would like to get some heavy lifting done that will prepare our garden for the winter and ensure that we continue growing well into the cold months. Most importantly, we want to sheath our greenhouse with plastic wrap and button it up tightly. But we have a host of other plans to draw on your carpentry skills, muscles and elbow grease. The whole family is welcome. And we’ll surely have some plans for younger folks.

—Bill Stoneman

 

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Posted in Uncategorized

Growing indoors a short walk from Albany High

Posted on September 20, 2014 | Comments Off on Growing indoors a short walk from Albany High

Greenhouse2The school leaders at Saint Anne Institute have kindly offered use of a beautiful heated greenhouse on its campus to Albany High School and Abrookin Career and Technical Center. And as slightly captured in the accompanying photo, we have begun exploring how to put this great opportunity to use.

With as much as 1,000 square feet of heated and sun-lit space about 10 minutes Continue reading →

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Posted in Four-season growing, Greenhouses, Planting, School garden, Teaching

Yes, we’re still putting seeds in the ground

Posted on August 22, 2014 | Comments Off on Yes, we’re still putting seeds in the ground
Carrots AHS 82214

Carrot seedlings at Albany High started 13 days ago. Not bad considering carrot seeds are notoriously slow to germinate.

I mentioned a patch of ground near Albany High to an administrator there the other day. I said that I hoped we could throw some compost there and drop some seeds in.

“Now?”

More than ask a question, this individual betrayed substantial surprise that we would still be putting seeds in the ground in late August. So, for the record, yes, now. Indeed, we put lettuce, spinach, arugula and radish seed in over Continue reading →

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Posted in Four-season growing, Planting, Teaching

School leaders see students growing in garden

Posted on August 18, 2014 | Comments Off on School leaders see students growing in garden

A big thanks to our friend, retired Albany school district teacher George Benson, for a link to a television report about a school garden initiative in Kansas City, Mo. Please take a look.

Quite hearteningly, educators talk about many of the same reasons that we offer for growing plants, and especially edible plants. It can foster eating healthier Continue reading →

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Posted in School garden, Teaching, Uncategorized

Planning and planting for the fall

Posted on August 11, 2014 | Comments Off on Planning and planting for the fall
Corn Aug 11

Corn at Myers Middle School is getting near as high as the proverbial elephant’s eye.

We will keep our garden going and growing well into the cool days of autumn at Myers Middle School. In fact, we have started a few things already after Crem Dias and I made some plans  about what would go where and when. We try to rotate our planting based on what was most recently planted in a given bed and what does and Continue reading →

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Posted in Four-season growing, Planting

Teaching and learning as onlookers take note

Posted on August 10, 2014 | Comments Off on Teaching and learning as onlookers take note

Our garden at Myers Middle School is fairly hidden behind the school building. The new garden at Albany High School, however, is about as visible as can be. It’s just inside the school property from North Main Avenue. It’s just across the interior road from soccer fields, where hundreds and hundreds of families gather Saturday mornings in the spring and fall. We’re in full view of passers-by on Main. And most of the high school faculty and staff drive right by the six raised  Continue reading →

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Posted in School garden, Teaching

Hay for the cows? Not on this school farm

Posted on July 21, 2014 | Comments Off on Hay for the cows? Not on this school farm

Potato towerPotato at potato towerWhat in the world are those straw cylinders in the accompanying pictures? In simplest terms, they’re our latest experiment at the garden at Myers Middle School. They’re potato towers. And the leaves beginning to poke out the sides are from potato plants within.

Cremilda Dias, who spurs us to give many unfamiliar approaches a try, says she didn’t invent this. And indeed, a quick Google search for “potato tower” yields 13 million results. Still, chances are this is new to most of us.

Construction is simple. A piece of wire fencing is pulled into a cylinder and Continue reading →

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Posted in Compost, School garden

An experiment in human nature, of a sort

Posted on July 7, 2014 | Comments Off on An experiment in human nature, of a sort
Squash1-AHS
If anything seems to attract thieves’ notice, it’s big showy fruiting vegetables, such as the squash that will soon appear on these beautiful plants.

The new garden at Albany High is in quite an exposed location. That is to say that, among other things, that trouble-makers must see it all the time. Presumably people who damage things that don’t belong to them drive and bike and walk up and down North Main Avenue. So what were the organizers of this garden thinking? And is it going to be safe without a fence around it?

The first question is easy to answer. In addition to lots of sun, the site is near Continue reading →

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Posted in School garden, Science