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["Chrys B. Gardener" <cab69 AT cornell.edu>]

Spring Into Gardening!

Saturday, March 28, 9:00am-4:30pm

CCE-Tompkins, 615 Willow Avenue, Ithaca NY

Choose from nine different gardening workshops in one day and get growing this spring! Sign up for just one or two, or stay for the whole day and attend four different workshops at a reduced price.

Cost: $8 per class or a reduced price of $25 for 4 classes. Space is limited! Download a brochure and registration form at http://ccetompkins.org/gardening/garden-events/spring-into-gardening and send it in with payment, or call the reception desk at 272-2292 to register and pay with a credit/debit card.

Workshop Schedule and Descriptions

9:00 am – 10:30 am

Tool Sharpening Clinic:  Properly sharpened pruners and handsaws make pruning tasks much easier and healthier for plants. Bring your dull loppers, hand pruners and pruning saws to this hands-on workshop led by local landscaper Bill Carini to learn how to maintain and sharpen these tools properly.

Identifying and Managing Late Blight:  Late blight is a serious plant disease that affects tomato and potato plants, especially in wetter summers. Master Gardener Tracy McLellan will show you how to identify the early stages of late blight on plants and give tips for managing the disease so you can still get a decent harvest.

10:45 am – 12:15 pm

Gardening with Children:  Kids have unbounded curiosity and wild enthusiasm about starting a garden. Join Yamila Fournier, the Ithaca Children's Garden's Facility Manager, to learn how to set your littlest green thumbs up for success. We'll cover choosing child-friendly varieties, planning a garden for continuous bloom, and some fun experiments to learn what's happening underground and inside those plants.

Freezing Your Garden Fruits and Vegetables:  Learn how to preserve your garden harvest to feed your family throughout the winter. Carole Fisher, CCE Consumer/Food Safety Educator, will demonstrate techniques on freezing fruits and vegetables to get the best results. You'll learn tips on blanching, packaging, and how to avoid freezingerrors, as well as an introduction to dehydrating your fruits and vegetables.

Familiar and Uncommon Annual Flowers:  Perhaps you have seen the beautiful flower plantings around the City of Ithaca and wondered what some of these plants are and how to grow them. Martha Gioumousis, Community Beautification Coordinator, has years of experience beautifying challenging locations and will show the best annual flowers to grow in both sunny and shady locations. Also covered will be tropical annuals, such as cannas and caladiums, that are grown from tubers.

12:15 pm – 1:15 pm-----LUNCH BREAK-----

Bring a brown bag lunch to eat at CCE and network with other gardeners, or go out to a nearby café for lunch. 

1:15 pm - 2:45 pm

Unusual Fruits and Perennial Vegetables for the Ithaca Area:  Sean Dembrosky, owner of Edible Acres in Trumansburg, will talk about less-common fruits such as paw-paw, persimmon, hardy kiwi , currant and jostaberry, and perennial vegetables such as cardoon, sea kale, skirret and air potato. Sean will also lead a hands-on demonstration on propagating edible perennial plants from cuttings.Participants will be able to take home cuttings from these plants for their own gardens.

Compost Techniques for Every Lifestyle:  The Master Composters of Tompkins County will give a tour of the compost demonstration site and talk about the pros and cons of various compost bin styles, both purchased and homemade. There will be a demonstration of how to effectively use many of the bins. Vermicomposting, or composting with worms, will also be covered briefly.

3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

Beginner Gardening for Butterflies and Bees:  These friendly pollinating insects need food sources for both larvae and adults. Pat Curran, Master Gardener Program Coordinator, will show you how to diversify your plantings to encourage pollinators to ‘set up house’ in your garden instead of being transient visitors.

Growing Staple Crops in the Home Garden:  Learn how to grow staple crops that can feed you long into the winter months, such as pinto and black beans, soup peas, and flint corn for grinding into cornmeal. Chrys Gardener, Community Horticulture Educator, will show you how to grow garden crops that take up more space but are generally easier to maintain than traditional vegetables and are well-suited to growing in large backyards or a community garden plot.

- See more at: http://ccetompkins.org/gardening/garden-events/spring-into-gardening

 

 

 

Chrys Gardener
Commercial/Community Horticulture Educator
Cornell Cooperative Extension - Tompkins County
615 Willow Avenue, Ithaca NY 14850
(607)272-2292, extension 241
www.ccetompkins.org