Cornell Cooperative Extension Community Horticulture

This article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine about uses gardening as an example as it discusses the economics of leisure activities; interesting implications on our work with gardeners.

It notes:

… 17.5 percent of adults currently engage in what the Census Bureau calls “cooking for fun.”

… 41 percent of households have flower gardens, 25 percent raise vegetables and 13 percent grow fruit trees ­even though just 1 percent of Americans live on a farm today, down from 30 percent in 1920.

…

Isn’t it puzzling that so many middle-aged Americans are spending so much of their time and money performing menial labors when they don’t have to? Just as the radio and phonograph proved to be powerful substitutes for the piano, the forces of technology and capitalism have greatly eased the burden of feeding and clothing ourselves. So what’s with all the knitting, gardening and “cooking for fun”? Why do some forms of menial labor survive as hobbies while others have been killed off? (For instance, we can’t think of a single person who, since the invention of the washing machine, practices “laundry for fun.”)

…

Whether or not you’re getting paid, it’s work if someone else tells you to do it and leisure if you choose to do it yourself. If you are the sort of person who likes to mow his own lawn even though you can afford to pay someone to do it, consider how you’d react if your neighbor offered to pay you the going rate to mow his lawn. The odds are that you wouldn’t accept his job offer.

Find out more by reading the full article here.

Gardening is great exercise and the pleasure of tending plants outdoors is valuable mood medicine as well. But let’s face it, all that digging, shoveling, hoeing, weeding, and lugging takes its toll.

In this special report the National Gardening Asoociation shares some tips and techniques to improve comfort and reduce the chance of injury.

Full article.

Are you looking for ways to share the excitement of school gardening with other teachers and educators? Need to convince your administrators of the benefits of beginning a garden in your school? Although you’re familiar with all the merits, are you looking for research-based justification of why gardening is so important? Use a new powerpoint presentation, posted at our Cornell garden-based learning website, to get everyone on board! Designed as a guided presentation, or a stand alone that can run on its own, this will help you rally others and build enthusiasm.

http://www.hort.cornell.edu/gbl

This report comes from Lynn Braband in the NYS Integrated Pest Management Program of Cornell University who surveyed multiple individuals (including CCE community Horticulture educators) in winter 2007.

Full report as a word document.

Scientists are working hard to understand the sources of a staggering decline in honeybees in as many as 27 U.S. states and countries in Europe and Asia this winter…

The full article in the from Cornell at this link.

There has been speculation that breathing the bone meal dust or eating vegetables fertilized with bone meal fertilizer could cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Should gardeners be worried?

The bottom line is no. Bone meal fertilizer sold in the U.S. should be free of the agent that causes BSE or Mad Cow Disease and should be safe to use. U.S. manufactures use a heat and solvents in the rendering process so the BSE agent, if present, would be destroyed. Further, bone meal and other animal feeds can no longer be imported from England.

Britain cows became infected with BSE when animal feed that included bone meal that had the BSE prion was given to them. A small number of people that ate the infected beef as became infected. Although this disease was already in English sheep (in sheep the disorder is called Scrapie) for more than 200 years, it was never seen in other animal species until the 1980’s. It’s been suggested that the spread came about due to a change in the way infected sheep carcasses were processed/rendered in the late 1970’s. These carcasses were used for many years to make a high protein feed for cattle and other ruminants. But in the late 1970’s they altered the procedure from using high heat and chemical solvents to only using a heat method which apparently was not effective in destroying the BSE in rendered products.

Answer researched by Holy Wise of CCE of Oneida County.

From the 2007 Late Spring Gardening Trends Research Report .

The Garden Writers Association Foundation is pleased to announce the release of the 2007 Late Spring Gardening Trends Research Report with some very interesting insights on this year’s consumer gardening attitudes and expectations for the current spring months:

1. Better mental health, nutrition or fitness is the primary reason 31% of households garden.

2. The two leading additions households plan to make to their garden this spring are more perennials (38%) and more vegetables (34%). Adding more annuals is favored by 31% of households.

3. The number of consumers planning to increase their lawn area dropped from 16% in 2006 to 9% in 2007 while the number planning to decrease their lawn area rose slightly from 9% in 2006 to 10% in 2007.

4. More households plan to use weed control this spring (39% in 2006 vs. 47% in 2007) while plans for insect control remains the same at one of every four households (24%).

5. The most significant change in spring garden preparation is the increase in consumer plans to “Fertilize Only” which rose from 19% in 2006 to 31% in 2007.

6. This spring and summer, one in four households plan to prepare their garden area with store-bought soil mixes (27%).

For more details, get your copy of the 2007 Late Spring Gardening Trends Research Report today. It is now available online FREE TO ALL GWA MEMBERS. Simply visit the Garden Writers Association website at www.gardenwriters.org and select the Gardening Trends Research tab. For further information, contact the GWA at 703.257.1032 or info@gardenwriters.org.

A new issue of the journal of Applied Environmental Education & Communication has been published, the entire volume of which is devoted to children’s gardening. More exciting research-based justification of the value of our work!

The special issue about children’s gardening is available online here.

You can see all the abstracts, order individual article copies or entire volume copies on the websites. CCE educators contact Lori or Marcia if you’d like to borrow a copy to read the full article.

Articles include:

Fostering Children’s Interests in Gardening
Authors: Kristi S. Lekies; Marcia Eames Sheavly

Teaming Children and Elders to Grow Food and Environmental Consciousness
Authors: Jolie Mayer-Smith; Oksana Bartosh; Linda Peterat

Growing Youth Growing Food: How Vegetable Gardening Influences Young People’s Food Consciousness and Eating Habits
Author: Kimberly Libman

Guidelines are available electronically at:

http://ipmguidelines.org/

Paul Curtis, Associate Professor Natural Resources and principle investigator for the eXtension Wildlife Damage Management web site, reports that the public version of the website now is live. The project helps consumers manage wildlife problems and links people to experts who have this information. The site, available at http://www.extension.org/human-wildlife+relations, offers a wealth of information and is an excellent resource for anyone needing information about managing wildlife problems.

The eXtension Wildlife Damage Management Web site was developed through the collaboration of nationally recognized wildlife biologists, nuisance wildlife control operators, educators and people interested in the field of human-wildlife relations. The eXtension site builds on more detailed information available from the Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management’s Web site at http://icwdm.org/

The eXtension Wildlife Damage Management Web site also features:

• Frequently Asked Questions, which allow users to submit queries about wildlife management.
• Ask the Expert, which provides an answer to questions not already available in the Frequently Asked Questions section with a response usually within 24 hours.
• News and Upcoming Events, which keeps the news and calendar of events current at the local, state and national levels.
• Glossary and Diseases, which lists terms and illnesses commonly found in wildlife damage management.