Posts Tagged ‘Gardening’

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Mountain Gardens Galore

A garden in the Adirondacks

By Jackie Woodcock

It’s prime time here in the mountains to witness fruits, berries, and vegetables hanging from lush greenery. In the small towns that make up the western gateway to the Adirondacks, gardens of all sizes are thriving and abundant. There are several reasons people in these small towns choose to garden. Some find it therapeutic and gratifying, with the greatest reason being that we live in what is called a food desert. No, we don’t live in an area strictly covered by sand and scorching temperatures, rather we live in an area where access to fresh food is greatly limited. Thus the action of planting gardens becomes paramount to community health and well-being.

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Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Making Gardening Accessible

Lettuce, herbs, and flowers in a vertical garden

Is it possible to garden with compromised mobility or limited upper body strength or when in a wheelchair or using a walker? Absolutely!

As we grow older, we experience decreasing physical stamina and/or the development of other limitations in our physical abilities, forcing us to reduce the magnitude of tasks that we take on. We learn to slow down, but we don’t have to give up.

In my lifetime, I’ve worked with several dedicated direct care providers to introduce, or reintroduce, youth, the elderly, and disadvantaged, disabled, and special needs clients and friends to the satisfaction and tranquility of gardening. Cornell Cooperative Extension provided training, informational materials, and limited funding, while local farm and garden centers provided seeds, starter plants, and assorted building and gardening materials.

I’ve also had the good fortune of knowing several devoted gardeners with limitations, who crafted and tended remarkable gardens; cultivating their own food and ornamental plants for years; even decades. They remain an inspiration.

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Sunday, May 14, 2023

Heirloom Vegetables – Planting the Seed 

Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, and Black Brandywine tomatoes

What are Heirloom Vegetables?

The definition of heirloom vegetables varies, depending on who you ask. Some gardeners will tell you that heirloom vegetables are those they’ve grown successfully for many years. Others identify heirloom vegetables as those that are a traditional part of their family heritage or ethnicity. But most of the gardeners I know define heirloom vegetables as older, time-honored varieties whose seeds have been passed down from generation to generation, preserving all of the qualities of the original plant for decades or, in some cases, centuries.

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Thursday, March 16, 2023

Saranac Lake’s Common Ground Gardens Opening Registration to New Gardeners Today

Saranac Lake Common Ground Gardens growing season in full swing of summer.

Planting a Seed – Saranac Lake‘s Common Ground Gardens Opening Registration to New Gardeners Today, Thursday, March 16, 2023

By Paul Sorgule

It’s a bit ironic as I sit with my morning coffee, looking out the window at a steady Adirondack snowfall, knowing that my shovel is waiting outside – that my thoughts are on planting our garden in a few short months. Our High Mowing Seeds order has already been placed and a path has been cleared to the backyard shed where garden tools stand ready, willing, and able.  There is something so gratifying about getting our hands in the soil, weeding between rows as shoots pop their heads through the dirt, and watching humble seedlings grow and mature into the vegetables that will grace our table during the summer and early fall.  Sharing this experience with dozens of other local planters at Common Grounds Community Garden is icing on the cake.  These thoughts are really the first sign of Spring, long before lawns peek through the snow, and the birds return from their winter homes.

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Monday, October 11, 2021

When it comes to permaculture, we have a lot to learn

permaculture gardenI’ve never been fond of buzzwords. “Organic,” “Natural,” and “Sustainable” lost their foothold in reality decades ago when they were co-opted as marketing labels. Corporate buzzwords, cynical and empty, are often buzz-phrases anyway: “Whole-Systems Thinking,” “Trickle Down,” “Customer Journey.”

In my view, “Permaculture” has been teetering on the edge of irrelevance for some time.  Just look how it’s described in Wikipedia, which can usually be trusted for succinct and reasonably cogent (if not entirely accurate) definitions: “Permaculture is an approach to land management that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing ecosystems, and includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking.” Wait a minute – whole-systems thinking? I’ve heard that somewhere.

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Saturday, October 2, 2021

MAKE IT: Herbed Gardening Salve

herb salveI love permaculture, and have a spiral herb garden in which I grow some plants which have traditionally been used for medicine, along with a handful of culinary herbs. I also wildcraft other plants that I use medicinally. For this salve, I use a combination of wildcrafted and cultivated plants. However, many of these plants can also be purchased if you cannot find your own. Use whenever your hands need a little extra care! » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, September 21, 2021

A More Sustainable September

Master Gardeners working at Eastside Center in Glens FallsSeptember days traditionally mark a goodbye to summer as warm nights wane and are replaced with the cool mornings and falling leaves of autumn’s approach. As we wave a “see you next year” to summer, many opportunities await us in the month ahead for a more sustainable September.

  • Swap or borrow: Need something for school or a tool for a fall project? Before buying new, check with family, friends, neighbors, or community groups to see if they have what you’re looking for. Swapping or borrowing saves money and can help keep items that have already been purchased in use longer.
  • Go secondhand in September: Whether you’re searching for furniture, sports equipment, or on the lookout for a new outfit, great finds in good condition are out there through shopping secondhand at thrift stores, garage sales, or even through online community marketplaces. Shopping secondhand can be more affordable and helps extend the life of an item or product.
  • Share garden extras: Do you have a garden that produced more than you can eat? Don’t let it go to waste! Share what you can with coworkers, neighbors, and family. Still have too much? Check out some recipes to cook up what you’ve got, including the scraps! You can also look into donating to a food pantry or other similar food assistance program, but be sure to call ahead to check what is currently being accepted.
  • Plant native: Fall is a popular time for landscaping projects. Choose plants that are native to your area.

Recycle Right: Make sure recycling bins at home, work, and school have signage that helps everyone recycle right. Find out what can and cannot go in your recycling bin by checking your local recycling guidelines.

Looking for more ideas? Visit DEC’s Living the Green Life for tips.


Tuesday, August 10, 2021

High Tunnels can Extend the Growing Season and Enhance High-Value Crop Viability

Putting the finishing touches on a high tunnel Photo Credit: Susan Alman; University of Arkansas

High tunnels, sometimes called hoop houses, offer northern New York market growers an easy way to extend our limited growing season by two or three months. Sometimes more. Farmers can grow early and/or late crops of cool weather and salad vegetables even while there’s snow on the ground. And depending upon the weather, warm season crops, like tomatoes, can mature several weeks earlier and be harvested and sold many weeks after similar field grown crops have been killed by frost.

In addition, high tunnels offer protection from wind, driving rain, disease, insects, and deer. And more than a decade of Cornell University-conducted research has shown that the yields and quality of produce grown in high tunnels can be far superior to that of comparable field-grown crops.

This is great news for consumers too, who gain access to an ever-increasing variety and supply of top-quality, locally-grown fruits and vegetables, both earlier and later in the year.

» Continue Reading.


Monday, July 26, 2021

TAUNY Garden Tour at Jane Desotelle’s ‘Plattsburgh Botanical Sanctuary’

Jane Desotelle garden tourJoin TAUNY in Plattsburgh for the next Grow and Tell Project garden tour of the season. The Grow and Tell Project is a 2021 partnership between TAUNY and littleGrasse Community Farm (Canton, NY), highlighting the local food and food traditions that help sustain us, through a series of garden tours, kitchen demonstrations, video and digital features, and more.

The second in the summer series, this garden tour brings us to Jane Desotelle’s “Plattsburgh Botanical Sanctuary” (Plattsburgh, NY), where Jane will show visitors the garden and share stories of how the things she grows and forages both connect her to her heritage and offer tasty flavors and medicinal properties for living a healthful and delicious life.

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Monday, April 26, 2021

Hey bugs! Fear This!

colorado potato beetleNo offense, but Franklin D. Roosevelt should maybe bug off with his assertion that “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” because fear is good for gardeners and farmers.

According to entomologists Nicholas Aflitto and Jennifer Thaler of the Cornell University-based New York State Integrated Pest Management Program (NYSPIM), it can be harnessed as a weapon against destructive pests. Turns out it’s possible to scare harmful insects out of gardens and crop fields.

Ascribing human feelings to bugs may be a stretch, but if something makes the critters run away and hide, it seems fair, not to mention simple, to call that fear instead of “a consistent generalized avoidance response in reaction to certain stimuli” or some such thing. After all, it took biologists a few hundred years to establish that various animals from elephants to birds and turtles really and truly play, and for no other reason than to have fun. Perhaps one day we’ll figure out that invertebrates have emotional lives, too. I suppose that might raise ethical issues around pest control, but let’s not go there just yet.

» Continue Reading.


Saturday, April 24, 2021

Gearing up for gardening

cilantro

Will the pandemic home gardening trend continue?

If you weren’t a gardener before, the COVID-19 pandemic may have inspired you to start a veggie garden. Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Fairfield, Maine, saw a 270% jump in orders the week the coronavirus pandemic was declared a national emergency. Many local nurseries sold out of vegetable transplants fast last spring, citing they couldn’t keep up with demand.

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Friday, May 29, 2020

The Adirondack Pollinator Project: 2020 Plant Sale

AdkAction’s Adirondack Pollinator Project will be offering its annual “Pollinator Plant” sale again to help the hummingbirds, butterflies and bee population.

They have teamed up with Cook & Gardener Nursery and chose plants that can thrive in the Adirondacks. The plants offered have been sourced or grown from seeds to ensure no contact with neonicotinoids (a class of insecticides harmful to pollinators) and will help efforts to rebuild the monarch butterfly population, attract hummingbirds, and reinforce the native bee and moth population.

Plant orders are available online until June 15,  or while supplies last.

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Vermicomposting: Making Black Gold

Vermicomposting uses worms to decompose waste courtesy Wikimedia user ChristopheFinotVermicomposting is the process of using worms to digest food waste to produce a nutrient and microbe rich soil amendment known as vermicompost (vermi – being latin for worm).

This compost is sometimes referred to as “black gold” because when mixed into the soil, it’s extremely valuable to the health and growth of the plants. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, November 19, 2019

American Witch Hazel: A New York Native

American witch-hazel plant by Judy GallagherAs one of the only native plants that blooms in late fall and early winter, American witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) can be found stealing the forest spotlight right now.

While most of our native bloomers turn in for a long winter’s nap, the streamer-like flowers of this plant are just starting to appear, following the annual loss of the shrub’s leaves. These highly-fragrant yellow blooms typically last into December. » Continue Reading.


Monday, October 7, 2019

10th Annual Garlic Festival Set For Warrensburg

Garlic Festival at the Warrensburgh Riverfront Farmers' MarketTenth Annual Garlic Festival at the Warrensburgh Riverfront Farmers’ Market is set for Friday, October 11th, from 3 to 6 pm.

Certified organic and naturally grown garlic will be sampled and sold for planting and consumption. Horticultural information and recipes will be provided at the CCE of Warren County Master Gardener Station. » Continue Reading.



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