October 2011

Harvest Celebration

To view a photo gallery from the Oct. 2 Harvest Celebration click here.

August 2011

Around the garden...

It's been a banner year for sunflowers at the garden. Along the front flower beds are a variety of sunflowers adorning the garden, birds and bees are frequent visitors. Hurricane Irene damaged most of the tall varieties.

With help from Cornell Cooperative Extension master gardeners and Helderview Garden Club members, Blackbird Paradise is adorned by two new flower gardens in front of the main entrance. Annuals are mixed with perennials creating a colorful cascading border.

Students examining the new heights reached by Blackbird Paradise crops this year.
 

Experiencing the entire life cycle of a plant, students in science lab learned to extract seeds from sunflowers grown last year in the garden, prepared them for storage and planted them this spring. Impressive!
 

May 2011

In synch with their science lab curriculum, all second grade students learned about the flower life cycle and then planted flowers in Blackbird Paradise.

This year the focus is on growing your own food and all the benefits that can offer you. This is a bulletin board at the elementary school.

Ms. Zionts' kindergarten class participating in their first Farm to School taste test in Blackbird Paradise. The students overwhelmingly voted "yum" as apposed to "no thank you".

Our first strawberry crop.	Enough lettuce was planted for the entire school to taste test.

This year, the spirit bulb garden was even more beautiful than last year. It has since been planted with perennials and some annuals and promises to be magnificent this summer.

 

The initial stages of the 'carrots love tomatoes' garden. Companion planting and a sturdy tomatoes cage system will help this garden thrive until the fall.

This brassica insect barrier was constructed this year to keep out the  
moth that produces the cabbage worm. If eggs hatch on the plants, the  
worms will eat and damage much of the cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi and  
other plants of the brassica family.
 

April 2011

Scouts lend a big hand to Blackbird Paradise

On Saturday, April 9th, scouts from several dens joined garden volunteers in Blackbird Paradise to help prepare the garden for the upcoming season. Assisted by Master Gardener Keith Lee, the scouts and their dads were a model of efficiency and teamwork. Indeed, many hands made for light work.

August 2010 Potato Harvest

July 2010

June 2010

Miss Ashley Hillard's 4th-grade class planted their butterfly gardens in Blackbird Paradise:

Mr. Burns' 4-th grade class planted a Three Sisters Garden: