Save the Date!

Friday, September 19
4:00-7:00 p.m.

Mark your calendar for Bob Beyfuss’ retirement reception. After more than 30 years with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Greene County, Bob will be retiring at the end of 2008. In keeping with Bob’s legacy in Greene County, we will be hosting an outdoor reception in his honor at the Siuslaw Model Forest (across from the Agroforestry Resource Center in Acra, NY). More details to follow!

Angela Tallarico
Senior Extension Administrator
Cornell Cooperative Extension Greene County
Agroforestry Resource Center
6055 Route 23, Acra, NY 12405
Phone: 518-622-9820 X21

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

A new program is being initiated at CWMI in response to interest from community gardening groups in urban areas of New York State to provide more complete information about the levels of contaminants in urban soils. Typically, urban garden sites are located on abandoned properties that might have a history of contamination. At the same time, increasing interest in creating green and food-producing spaces within cities means that we need to find ways to assess contamination and minimize the exposure of gardeners to soil contaminants. We will be working with community gardening groups to test soils and provide gardeners with information on how to use test results to make decisions about best gardening practices. For information as it becomes available, visit: http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/urbangardensoils.htm

The United States Botanic Garden has posters that we create in with the Northeast IPM Community Horticulture Working Group on display in their gardens and posted on their web site. So if you haven’t seen them yet, here’s your chance.
http://www.usbg.gov/education/events/exhibitors_map.cfm

Our lawn care display is under Bartholdi Park #32 Sustainable Turf Care, the bloopers are #33 Don’t Do This at Home. The site can be painfully slow…just hit reload if it gets hung up.

• If you click on an exhibit number (black circle) photos of that exhibit appear – these will be updated as the summer goes along.
• If you click on the listed exhibitor name then you see interpretive material, any resource material, and a link to your web site
• If you click on the gold star the over all exhibition introductory panels can be viewed
• If you click on the information icon (i) then the Exhibition Visitors Guide is viewable.

http://www.hort.uconn.edu/ipm/

This is Connecticut’s IPM Homepage. From this link you can find the IPM Homestudy Courses ( links on the left side of the page).
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Checkout the videos on this blog (website link) managed by Life Lab Science Program. You might find some of them to be useful in your outreach efforts, especially those with children and youth. Maybe even for use in training your volunteers? Or you might be inspired to create your own videos (a project we have found youth particularly enjoy).

And if you have videos (Putnam didn’t you create one of MGV reading with youth for Ag Literacy day?) scroll down to the bottom of the blog home page for info on submitting videos.

Life Lab Science Program is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization and has been working in the field of science and environmental education for over twent-eight years. With our award winning curricula and programs, the organization helps schools develop gardens where children can create “living laboratories” for the study of the natural world.

These resources target the larger than home scale composting and yard waste operation but those of you eager to get school or other community groups engaged in these activities might find these resources helpful.

Cornell Waste Management Institute in the Dept Crop & Soil Sciences announces resources available on its website…

Compost…because a rind is a terrible thing to waste! The 65-page manual can now be accessed at: http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/compostbecause.pdf. Hard copy and videos are sold at: http://compost.css.cornell.edu/FoodCompostpr.html

Yard Waste Management – A Planning Guide for New York State. 1990 edited version. Prepared by Cornell University, Tellus Institute, and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. Can be accessed at: http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/yardwastemanual.pdf

Monday July 21^st (10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.) Hosted by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Rensselaer County

This in-service will provide an opportunity for CCE educators working in community horticulture to build their confidence and skill in helping lawn owners implement ecological lawn care practices.

Come with your lawn care questions and be prepared to practice identifying grasses, weeds and diseases as well as trouble shooting issues in the field. Cornell turf team experts Dr. Frank Rossi will be leading this in-service.

We will begin at 10am at CCE Rensselaer, 61 State Street, Troy, NY and take a field trip to nearby lawns in the afternoon. We will end about 3:00 pm.

Registration fee: $25 includes lunch and materials.

Homework
Identify the hot lawn care topics and issues in your county. Bring your clients’ most challenging/frequently asked lawn care questions and issues. We want to share these with the turf team to identify potential solutions and fuel future educational and research efforts.
Review Lawn Care without Pesticides and Lawn Care Almanac available from www.gardening.cornell.edu/lawn

Send this registration information by July 15^th to:
Maxine Welcome mw45@cornell.edu
Your Name:
Your County:
Your Email:
The county 9100 account to charge $25 fee:

…after July 15^th contact Lori to register.

If you are not able to attend this in-service do you have a volunteer eager to build expertise in lawn care and willing to represent your county program at this in-service? If so please contact Lori to determine arrangements.

Lori Bushway, bushway@cornell.edu, 607.255.5918

Yet another article in main stream press about vegetable gardening.

This one Banking on Gardening is from the New York Times begins…

CASSANDRA FEELEY prefers organic ingredients, especially for her baby, but she finds it hard to manage on her husband’s salary as an Army sergeant. So this year she did something she has wanted to do for a long time: she planted vegetables in her yard to save money.

“One organic cucumber is $3 and I can produce it for pennies,” she said.

for the full article click here

And remember or Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners forum. We are approaching 3,000 registered users and ever increasing interest as vegetable growing fever spreads!

This article from the Daily Gazette in SCHENECTADY features some terrific advice for engaging young people in gardening from our own Cornell Garden-based Learning children and youth expert Marcia Eames-Sheavly. It starts out….

o maybe your daughter didn’t bat an eyelash at the kaleidoscopic wildflower garden you cultivated last year, and perhaps your son showed his enthusiasm for your prized rose bushes by blasting the life out of them with his water gun and smearing the fallen petals across his face like war paint.

Children and gardening, it has been said, mix about as well as ferns in full sun.

But Marcia Eames-Sheavly, youth program leader for the Cornell Garden-Based Learning Program in the Department of Horticulture at Cornell University, said this is nothing more than a misconception.

click here for the full article

This is an invitation to submit photos for the Cornell Garden-Based Learning Program’s new website. Your program can become world famous!

We have been working on an exhaustive and exciting revision of our website. Soon, it will be easy to navigate, attractive, user friendly, featuring excellent content! BUT, we’re missing photos of YOUR program, and that would make it so much better.

1) We are looking for 4 photos to feature on our homepage. We invite you to submit photos from your program that you would like to be permanently featured on our site! Your photo submission(s) should illustrate the following four themes:
· Garden-based learning activities and projects in action
· Keys to a successful adult, youth or adult and youth gardening programs
· Your garden
· Connecting with others interested in gardening (i.e. photos of Master Gardener Volunteers, 4-H leaders, older folks in the community, etc…)

2) We are also looking for many more photos to feature throughout our website that beautifully illustrate the following:
· Garden-based learning in action with youths, adults, families, communities…
· CCE Volunteers or adult and youth citizens actively engaging in leadership roles
· People of all ages learning about food/ nutrition as it relates to the garden
· People demonstrating an appreciation of the outdoors/garden environment
· The intimate connection between children, youth or adults and nature
· The unique perspective volunteers or children and youth bring to a program
· The role of your garden/program in your community
· Your garden-based learning success stories or any other fantastic photos from your program!

Please send your photos to Marcia Eames-Sheavly by August 1^st, 2008.