Cornell Cooperative Extension Community Horticulture

I am pleased to share that the 2007 CCE Master Gardener Volunteer (MGV) report is posted online in the right column of our MGV web page.

More than 2,000 active MGV spent more than 110,000 hours working to bring gardening success to New York State citizens and communities. Collectively MGV made more than 140,000 direct citizen contacts.

Lori Bushway

Leader of Adult Outreach

Cornell’s Garden-based Learning Program

Lawn questions have always ranked at the top of our counties call list, are things changing in your county?

This NEW YORK TIMES article by Allison Arieff is from July 28, 2008.

“Edible landscape” seems to be going head to head with “staycation” as the most popular catch phrase of Summer 2008. Lawns may not be disappearing before our very eyes, but citizens are definitely swapping out blades of grass for bushels of beans in increasing numbers.

Take me for instance, a bona fide city dweller: As a follow up to my column in March on the reclamation of urban and suburban land for agricultural use, I’ve spent the last several weeks putting theory into practice, literally getting my hands dirty (and whatever other cliché I can unearth) in the interest of urban agriculture.

Full article here (website)

Another reason to eat and grow your vegetables…

ScienceDaily (July 24, 2008) — Study finds a healthier diet and a return to traditional farming can help reduce energy consumption in US food system by 50 percent.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080723094838.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 23, 2008

Contact: Sarah Fiorello, Interpretation Coordinator, Cornell Plantations
Phone: (607) 255-7558
E-mail: sjh16@cornell.edu

*Cornell Plantations Seeks Help Selecting Butterfly Bushes *

*Ithaca**, NY* - Cornell Plantations’ beautiful butterfly bushes are ready to burst into bloom! Come visit Plantations anytime between now and mid-September to enjoy a display of new butterfly bush cultivars, which could be the next ones on the market. Plant breeders at Cornell would like visitors’ opinions on which cultivars they like best and would most likely purchase at a garden center. In return for taking the time to vote, you will receive a 10% discount on your next purchase at Plantations’ Garden Gift Shop.

The butterfly bush display bed is located in the F.R. Newman Arboretum, next to the Sculpture Garden and directly across from the Houston Pond parking lot. For more information, please contact Sarah Fiorello at (607) 255-7558, or via email at sjh16@cornell.edu.

Cornell Plantations is the arboretum, botanical garden, and natural areas of Cornell University, and is a member of Ithaca’s Discovery Trail partnership (www.discoverytrail.com ). Plantations is open free of charge to the public during daylight hours. Drop-in tours, featuring seasonal garden highlights, take place throughout the summer; lectures, classes, and events are held throughout the year. For more information, visit www.plantations.cornell.edu.

Cornell Waste Management Institute in the Dept Crop & Soil Sciences announces…

CWMI is working on simpler and more interpretable soil tests for trace elements and toxic metals in soils and residuals. Quick field tests have been developed for copper, zinc and lead by Dr. Murray McBride (see: http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/quicktest.pdf). A PowerPoint presentation on the merits and deficiencies of the commonly used soil tests in Northeastern states for zinc and copper in agricultural soils is posted at: http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/soiltests.pdf.

Christine Hadekel, a project leader with Cornell’s Garden-based Learning Institute, attended a workshop titled “Writing Right for the Web.” She thought these items below were some of the most useful points in the workshop:

· People go to a website for two reasons

1. To find content and information that’s important to them
2. To take actions and complete tasks

· People are impatient. A website needs to be clear and concise in order to initially capture and then hold peoples attention (this needs to occur within 2-3 seconds of them visiting your website).

· Web readers are scanners. Sentences and paragraphs need to be short and broken up using subheads and bullet points.

- Paragraphs should have a maximum of 5 sentences or < 50 words.

- Sentences should have a maximum of 5 to10 words.

- Subheads should use active words.

· Blogs are a very popular and effective method of conveying a lot of information on a website. One way to do this is provide a list of topics with intro paragraphs, and then provide the opportunity for people to click to the full story if they want to find out more.

· If you use photos at the top, pair the image with a caption that succinctly captures the message of the page. Top of the page photos can distract the viewer from your primary message.

· Use “care words.” Words that are important to your audience and reflect what they can get out of the site. For example, “care words” on a university site that is trying to attract new students would be words such as: “advance your career” and “gain the skills you need”, not words that reflect the institution such as “diverse student body” or “experienced faculty.” A garden example: “find the tools and activities you need for your gardening success” as opposed “one-stop-shopping for gardening how-to information.”

· Speak to the people visiting your website – use the word YOU.

· Real stories about real people are very popular and effective at getting a message across.

· Use newspaper copy words, not frilly and fancy language.

· Use emotional language when appropriate.

· The right-hand column of a page is now used as the place to list visible calls to action – i.e. opportunities to get involved, connect, interact, contact others, etc…. Use imperative action words that tell people what to do (i.e. Interact!)

· Limit the use of PDFs – especially ones that were initially print publications. Reformat these PDFs into an online friendly or blog format.

· Avoid low contrast between colors of text and background.

· Use a consistent font and format throughout your website. Verdana, Arial, and Calibri are the most popular fonts for websites.

· White space between lines is very important.

· An organization’s mission statement is written primarily for the internal community and therefore should not be featured prominently at the top or beginning of a page.

· Title tags are important ways to be ranked higher by a search engine. Title tags should include the main heading of a page.

· To ensure maximum search engine visibility: use common keywords, ensure no broken links, ensure good title tags on every page, ensure good content and body copy on every page.

· Check all links on your website to make sure there are no dead links. Dead links inhibit a high search rank.

Check out this latest addition to our Home-Grounds and Community Horticulture Resource Library. This is a lending library maintained in the Department of Horticulture and CCE educators are encouraged to borrow items (see more details below).

Borrow this DVD to add an educational component to your Master Gardener Volunteer meeting or if you are working with youth or public adult audiences it could be a nice addition to a garden lesson. It might even inspire your audience to look closer at their gardens and be inspired to do their own filming.

Garden Insects (DVD) a 50 minute long documentary film by Chris Korrow that features colorful close-up photography, an original music score, combined with facts about insect habitats and life cycles offers viewers a documentary film that is aesthetically pleasing, awe-inspiring and informative. Viewers learn about the multitude of insects in their own gardens — which ones are beneficial and which ones are destroying their vegetables, who eats who and why. Organized by insect families: ants; bees and wasps; etc. The unique aspect of this project is that Korrow is both an biodynamic farmer and a professional filmmaker, his insights coming from hard-won hours in the fields and a love for the garden ecosystem. Visually stimulating, the film awakens the viewer to the fact that we are not as separate from nature as we might think. If we have a garden in our backyard, chances are there is more happening out there than we could have imagined!

Filmmaker’s statement:
“Having taught gardening classes for over 14 years, I was inspired to make this film when I realized how little the majority of gardeners know about the insect ecosystem that exists in their gardens, and also that they do have a strong desire and interest to understand it better. From the point of view of an environmental activist this film is important as it gives the viewer an opportunity to connect with the natural world through something that is close and personal — their own gardens — rather than something far away and abstract like the destruction of the rain forests of the world. Garden Insects was filmed almost entirely in my own backyard.”

Home-Grounds and Community Horticulture Resource Library houses hundreds of titles. The bulk of the collection is slide presentations with an increasing number of powerpoints on CDs. There are also posters for display. CCE staff can contact Max Welcome in the Dept of Horticulture for a complete list of resources available or to borrowing any of the resources.

Have any of you seen these videos from Fine Gardening?

http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/Videos/

What do you think of them? Have you made use of them in meeting your programing effort or volunteer training? Share by posting comments below.

Jessica Chittenden Immediately, Friday

518-457-3136 July 25, 2008

STATE ANNOUNCES FUNDING TO SUPPORT COMMUNITY GARDENS

Announcement Made at First Statewide Community Garden Summit at SUNY New Paltz

Governor David A. Paterson and Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker today announced a new grant program that will strengthen community gardens. The Community Gardens Capacity Building Grants Program will improve access to fresh local produce, help New Yorkers reduce their food budgets, preserve open space, and provide a cleaner, healthier environment by supporting community gardens throughout New York State.

“Community gardens are an important resource in our urban neighborhoods, providing open space and access to healthy, nutritious food for city dwellers. It is for these reasons I am pleased to announce the first-ever grant program to support community gardens in New York State,” said Governor David A. Paterson. “Individually, these gardens may have a modest impact, but taken together they can help to reduce the need to ship agriculture goods thousands of miles across the country. This will help to cut down pollution, food prices and our dependence on oil.”

The community garden grants will provide up to $5,000 to existing community gardens and local garden coalitions that serve low-income people in urban areas. The funding is to be used to strengthen local community garden organizations.

“Community gardens provide a wealth of positive attributes,” said Agriculture and Markets Commissioner, Patrick Hooker. “We are confident that capacity building grants will support local efforts to build more community garden resources in our urban environments, and we thank Governor Paterson for his leadership on this issue.”

The announcement was made at SUNY New Paltz at the first ever gathering of 100 community gardeners and farmers from across the State at a summit titled, Seeding Our Cities: The Future of New York’s Community Gardens and Urban Farms. The grant program was announced in an opening address given by Judith Enck, Governor David A. Paterson’s Deputy Secretary for the Environment. The goal of the summit is to create a collective vision and plan for growing and sustaining New York’s community gardens.

A community garden is a public piece of land worked by an organized group of people, and owned either by a local government or nonprofit organizations. They provide green space in urban areas and encourage food production by providing gardeners a place to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers. Community gardens also provide a sense of community, neighborhood beautification and a unique connection to the environment. There are an estimated 10,000 community gardens within U.S. cities, with more than 1,000 in New York State alone.

The Department of Agriculture and Markets has a community gardens program that assists interested gardeners in accessing public land, coordinates and promotes community gardening and urban agriculture, connects gardeners to resources in their communities, and develops community and school gardening policies and programs. For more information on this grant program and other community gardening programs, please contact the Department of Agriculture and Markets at 718-722-2834 or www.agmkt.state.ny.us.

Extension Associate
Extension Associate-08956

Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences seeks a full time Senior Project Associate to serve half-time as Assistant Coordinator of the Agricultural Sciences Major in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and half-time as a Program Services Specialist for the Agricultural Outreach and Education (AO&E) Program in the Department of Education.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Coordinate the Agricultural Sciences major: (50%)

• Provide coordination and support for a multi-department, multi-disciplinary faculty advisory committee that provides leadership and direction of the Agricultural Science major.
• Coordinate the development, implementation, and evaluation of new courses as part of the overall program curriculum.
• Facilitate the design and implementation of a senior-level experiential learning based capstone course.
• Assist in coordinating Agricultural Service major Seminar Series held each semester
• Manage the student internship program providing a wide range of agricultural opportunities for students both in the U.S. and abroad
• Communicate with prospective students, including phone/email correspondence and planning of outreach activities and campus visits.
• Assist with student and club advising.
• Organize orientation and team building activities for Ag Science students.
• Interpret program policies for students and faculty.

Program Services Specialist for Agriculture Outreach and Education (AO&E) (50%)

• Organize and manage a stakeholder committee of secondary level agriculture teachers and others to plan and set priorities for recruiting new and returning agriculture teachers.
• Prepare and implement a coordinated recruiting campaign for teachers of agricultural sciences involving appropriate stakeholders and current students.
• Develop a comprehensive public relations program for programs supported by AO&E
• Prepare and coordinate the operation of program displays at appropriate venues including Empire Farm Days, the NYS Farm Show, State Fair, NYSFFA Convention, and others.
• Prepare and manage web sites for groups served by AO&E.

This is a 1-year term position with renewal contingent on funding.

Qualifications

• Required: Master’s degree in the agricultural sciences, or equivalent; effective oral and written communications skills; ability to design and manage web sites; ability to prepare and communicate effective public relations information; ability to travel within New York State for recruiting and public relations activities.
• Preferred: Ability and experience with curriculum design, teaching, and academic program coordination in the agricultural or environmental sciences.

Applicants should submit a cover letter; curriculum vitae; and the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of three references to: Toni DiTommaso, Department of Crop & Soil Sciences, 903 Bradfield Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.

Located in Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University is a bold, innovative and inclusive teaching and research university of academic distinction and public service where staff, faculty, and students alike are challenged to be active citizens of the world.

Cornell University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action educator and employer.

Send this job description to a friend by email. All the relevant details are included in this message.

William G. Camp, Ph.D.
Professor and Director
Agricultural Science Education
416 Kennedy Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Voice: (607) 255-9269, Fax: (607) 255-7905, Cell: (607) 351-3484, E-mail: wgc4@cornell.edu