Welcome back to Nay Aug Park, Franklinia alatamaha.

The Franklin tree, a native to Georgia rarely seen in the Northeast, once stood near the Everhart Museum, where local teachers would bring their classes to identify it among the greenery.

Then, nearly a decade ago, it was chopped down by mistake.

“It was the only one in the park, and now it’s back,” said John Romanaskas, a horticulturist with Scranton-based EarthBox, which donated and planted a new Franklin tree Aug. 30.

For EarthBox, a division of Laminations Inc., trees aren’t the norm. Its namesake product is a scientifically designed container for growing garden plants.

When it matures, the Franklin tree will stand upward of 15 feet tall, with white flowers that bloom in July and leaves that turn bright yellow and red in the fall.

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You’re never too young to start going green, says the administration at P.S. 257 in East Williamsburg.

The school has launched Growing Connection, a United Nations-sponsored gardening program that teaches kids how to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers on the roof of their school. The program connects students from all over the world, who share recipes and gardening tips.

Led by 3rd grade teacher Alexa Pinsker, each classroom was given an EarthBox planter to maintain throughout the spring. Students were responsible for planting the seeds, watering them, weeding the planters, and ultimately harvesting their crop of spinach, basil, cilantro, and chili peppers.

Pinsker instructed the students on how to prepare the greens and supplied them with recipes that utilized their school-grown bounty. In just a few weeks, students will be selling the veggies at the Graham Avenue Greenmarket, with the money raised going back to the school.

“I think the most magical part for the students was putting the seeds into the soil,” said Pinsker. “They were so excited to come and see if the seedlings had sprouted.”

The students were also excited to prepare their crops into delicious treats, such as the transformation of freshly grown basil into pesto.

“I liked the part where we tasted the basil,” said Sadie Rios, one of the now fourth grade students who participated in the program.

The Growing Connection was created by the U.N. as way to introduce West African children to easy to use gardening methods and using informational resources and the Internet as a tool for strengthening growing practices.

“The idea is simple: we want to get them growing and to get the to show peers around the world how to do it,” said Robert Patterson, director of Growing Connection for the U.N.

The program began in Ghana in 2003, a country that is suffering from poverty and malnutrition, and since the Growing Connection program began, Patterson has seen a change in attitude towards gardening and farming.

“Since the program began, we’ve seen a mental shift in students,” he said. “Tending gardens used to be viewed as a punishment or something done by people in the lowest economic positions, but now the cool kids want to be involved. We’ve got a lot of schools that wanted to expand their gardening programs, and now we’re seeing poultry and pig farms.”

Patterson explained that Brooklyn and other neighborhoods in the United States face the same problems seen in Ghana.

“In an urban setting, as it is in West Africa, we’re seeing a lot of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and escalating food prices, and the solution is the same here as it is over there,” he explained.

Patterson also discussed the informational part of the program, which unifies students from all different continents through the exchange of recipes and gardening tips over the Internet.

“Kids that exchange recipes are not going to bomb each other,” he said.

The program has participants in Ghana, Nicaragua, India, and other U.S. cities, including 60 in New York State.

“I think that kids teaching kids can be phenomenal,” said Councilwoman Diana Reyna. “Hopefully this will become a district-wide effort.

P.S. 257’s Growing Connection program was sponsored by the Graham Avenue Business Improvement District, which provided funding for the program and will assist the students as they sell their veggies at the Graham Avenue Greenmarket, as well as help them get future crops into other Williamsburg greenmarkets.

“This community is in need of good healthy food, and this not only creates new produce but does it in a sustainable way,” said Betty Cooney, executive director of the Graham Avenue BID.

The first year of the program was considered a great success, and it will not only continue but expand in the new school year.

“When we started, we didn’t think we’d have anybody working at the garden over the summer,” said Pinsker. “But know that we have the interest, we want to do less peppers and herbs and more summer vegetables like tomatoes and sunflowers.”

Posted 11/17/2008

Former nursing home administrator Larry Gibson was named Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year during a luncheon this week marking National Philanthropy Day. Gibson has made significant contributions to the Kingston community this year: $2 million to the Kingston cancer centre, $500,000 to the Pladec Day Care Centre and $25,000 to the Kingston Humane Society.

Another well-known community worker, Peter Kingston, was also honoured at the luncheon. Kingston was named Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser of the Year for his 20 years of tireless volunteering on behalf of countless regional organizations.

Felicia Marshall, a 14-year-old student at Module Vanier, was named Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy for her support of Volunteer & Information Kingston. She also sold Kiwanis fishing derby tickets, stuffed participant bags for the annual mayor’s walk, and volunteers at her church.

Outstanding Corporation of the Year went to Kingston’s Star Tek for raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Kingston hospitals and assisting with regional special events.

The luncheon and awards were sponsored by the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Two budding entrepreneurs from Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute were recently honoured for their business acumen.

Connor Patterson and Raymond Yan took home the regional prize and provincial third-place awards at the Ontario Ministry of Small Business and Consumer Services High School Business Plan Competition. The awards ceremony was held in Ottawa.

Connor and Raymond were among 10 students recognized for their outstanding business plans. The pair’s EarthBox Farm emphasizes growing heirloom tomatoes in an organic environment using Earth Box agriculture technology, which can double yields using less water and fertilizer than conventional gardening.

Jan Dines and Kristina Sutton, business consultants with the Kingston Economic Development Corporation, also attended the awards ceremony, where Connor accepted a cheque for $2,250 that he will share with Raymond.

Both boys are graduates of the ministry’s summer company program, which is delivered by the KEDCO Entrepreneurship Centre.

John Casselman of Kingston was recently presented with the American Fisheries Society’s Award of Excellence.

The award is the highest honour bestowed by the society and is presented to a member who demonstrates original and outstanding contributions to fisheries science and aquatic biology.

A retired research scientist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Casselman is an adjunct professor at Queen’s University, with appointments at several other universities.

A fish ecologist and environmental physiologist, he was recognized by the society for his unwavering commitment to fisheries research and to training the next generation of fisheries scientists.

The American Fisheries Society is the world’s largest and oldest society for fisheries scientists and managers, with a membership of about 10,000.

The Limestone District School Board recently honoured two teachers and six support staff for their outstanding service.

Pam Woods, a primary teacher at Sharbot Lake Public School, and Alan Wilkinson, a master teacher of the arts at Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute, are this year’s recipients of the J. C. McLeod Excellence in Teaching Award.

The award is named after J. C. (Colin) McLeod, who was director of education for the for mer Lennox and Addington County Board of Education from 1969 to 1983.

The board also presented Barry C. O’Connor Excellence in Support Staff Awards to Pat Dowdall, Laurie Mc-Neely, Susan Saccary, Cathy Goodfellow, Heather White and Dianne Lake.

The awards are named after retired education director Barry C. O’Connor, who dedicated his career to providing young people with opportunities.

Kingston Literacy, a longtime provider of adult and family literacy programs in Kingston and surrounding area, is a finalist in its size category in the 2008 Voluntary Sector Reporting Awards.

Sponsored by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Queen’s School of Business, the awards recognize excellence in financial reporting, with annual reports that have high levels of accountability, transparency and clarify.

There are four award categories and the winners will be announced on Nov. 24. Each winner will receive $5,000.

# Equip yourself for gardening. If you’re going to plant in the ground, you’ll need tools: at the very least, a garden spade for digging and a garden fork for turning over the soil. You can probably borrow these from family or neighbors, but if you’re planning to make gardening a hobby, you’ll eventually want good tools of your own. Hand tools such as a trowel, a cultivator and garden shears are also nice to have, and you’ll need stakes and twine to tie up your tomatoes, unless you use cages.

# Grow vegetables in pots. You don’t need big tools for container gardening — you can even get by without a trowel if you have to, since potting soil is light enough to dig with your hands. You’ll need pots, of course; clay pots dry out quickly, so plastic is usually better. Use packaged potting mix, not garden soil, which can carry fungus or disease. Many potting soils have fertilizer in them, but if not, you’ll need to fertilize the plants once or twice a month. You can buy time-release fertilizer that you mix with the soil, or liquid or granular fertilizer that you dilute with water and apply with a watering can. Or you could buy an EarthBox, a container gardening system that includes fertilizer, a plastic cover to keep in the moisture, and an optional trellis so you can grow vegetables vertically. (It’s $60, plus extra for the trellis, at Feeney’s, for example.)

# Don’t overlook seeds. You’ll save more money if you start plants from seed, but many vegetable seeds, such as tomatoes and peppers, should be sown indoors in early spring, so the plants get a head start before time to go outside. (However, George Ball Jr., president of W. Atlee Burpee & Co., maintains that you can sow tomato seeds directly in the ground after the soil warms in May, and still get a crop before frost.) Some seeds, such as green beans, lima beans, carrots, radishes, cucumbers and squash, can be sown directly in the ground in late spring or early summer.

# Buy hybrids. These are vegetables that have been bred for disease resistance, vigorous growth and heavy yields, so they’ll give good results almost every time. Older plant varieties, including the so-called heirloom vegetables, often have that wonderful old-time garden flavor, but many of them have a short season and low productivity, and they’re susceptible to a variety of soil diseases. If you’re trying to save money, especially if you’re a beginning gardener, hybrids are more reliable and easier to grow.

# Plan for succession planting. Tomatoes, beans or squash can go in the ground when the lettuce or broccoli comes out. Cool-season vegetables such as broccoli and lettuce can be planted again for a fall crop; look for plants in the garden center in late summer, or start your own plants from seed in July, sowing the seeds either indoors or in a cool spot in the garden.

# Grow your own herbs. If you like to cook with fresh herbs, you can save lots of money by growing your own. And you’ll be amazed at how much better homegrown herbs taste and smell than store-bought ones. If you have space for only one herb, grow basil — one plant will keep growing from early summer to frost, yielding far more than you’d get in a dozen of those plastic packets at the store. (To keep new leaves coming, cut off the flowers that form at the top of the stems.) Basil lasts only one season, but many other herbs, including sage, thyme, oregano, chives and tarragon, are perennials, meaning they’ll return next year if the conditions are right. So plant them where you’d like them to stay, and make sure the soil is well-draining, because most herbs don’t like wet feet. Annual herbs such as dill and cilantro can be planted from seed, but the plants go to seed quickly, so let them self-sow, or plant new seeds every two weeks or so.

# Ask for help. “Gardeners love to tell you how to garden,” says Burpee’s Ball. Family, friends and neighbors can offer advice, lend you gardening books and tools, and share extra seeds and plants. If you’re lucky, they’ll even help you get the garden ready for planting. The Bucks County office of the Penn State Cooperative Extension will send you fact sheets that explain how to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables; it also offers occasional workshops on gardening hosted by local master gardeners. Information: 215-345-3283. You can also find gardening information from Penn State’s Department of Horticulture online at http://consumerhorticulture.psu.edu.

When Leonard Sokoloski served in Vietnam in the 1960s, he enjoyed photographing the people and observing their culture. This year, he’s taking a lesson learned from Southeast Asia and putting it to use in Fort Collins.

As in many Asian countries, the Vietnamese must do a lot with small parcels of ground. One way of adapting to limited space is to do “vertical” gardening. The people grow vegetables, such as cucumbers, on poles, with vines stretching as high as 7 feet. With this method, very little horizontal space is needed, and a family can harvest lots of vegetables on a small plot of ground.

A couple of years ago, Sokoloski moved from a home on 2 1/2 acres in LaPorte to a west-side Fort Collins home on a small lot. This allowed him to switch from a riding lawnmower – and lots of hours sitting on it–to an earth-friendly push mower.

However, the lack of garden space became a bit frustrating, so this year he’s using that 40-year-old lesson from Vietnam. He created a vertical garden space in an unused area of his back yard, next to a 6-foot privacy fence.

Sokoloski had to buy a truckload of topsoil for his new garden space, but aside from that his monetary investment was nil. Using his reuse/recycle philosophy, Sokoloski found the materials he needed in castaway stuff, then invested some elbow grease and ingenuity in the project.

To make the raised garden space, he rescued lumber from a neighbor’s old swing set. The lumber, destined for the landfill but perfect for his project, consisted of treated 4x4s and boards. After the bed was constructed, he created a “climbing wall” for plants, using a piece of wrought iron fencing donated by a friend. He built brackets to position it away from the privacy fence, so vines and vegetables can grow on both sides.

On either end of the raised bed, he made tepee-shaped structures for pole beans from pieces of lath–saved from another project.

Sokoloski plans to grow beans and peas in his new garden space this summer. Meanwhile, the neighbor on the other side of the privacy fence is also interested in the project. He’s hoping that some of that produce just might climb over to his side!

EarthBox solution

For small-space gardeners who don’t want to build something themselves, an EarthBox is a good solution. They’re sold at Fort Collins Nursery, and supervisor Kent Hixson has one of his own at home. The EarthBox is great for small yards or even apartments.

The EarthBox comes with fertilizer and dolomite, so all the homeowner needs to add is soil and plants.

The plastic EarthBox measures 13 inches by 29 inches and has several features that promote great growth in plants. One is a set of casters, so the gardener can start plants early and move them into the garage at night to protect from frost.

Another design feature is a self-watering system. There is a water reservoir beneath the plants and soil and a watering tube for refilling it. Plants take up water as they need it, so water is used efficiently.

An option with the EarthBox is a staking system, which Hixson uses for growing tomatoes. He notes that tomatoes need a good amount of soil to do well, so he limits his box to just two tomato plants. He recommends using the same variety of tomato plant, to prevent a larger plant from overshadowing a smaller one.

Hixson said gardeners have had great luck growing peppers in the EarthBox, and it would also be good for peas, beans, herbs and other plants. “Flowers are just tremendous in the EarthBox,” he noted. “They grow twice as big.” Vegetable production is also good because of the concentrated nutrients and good drainage.

The EarthBox has earned a recommendation from the National Home Gardening Club.

March 25, 2009

Growing vegetables, I suspect, is like writing or painting or playing the guitar. You can read how to do it, hear how to do it, but until you do it you’re clueless.

I drove down to 111th Street on Tuesday anyway to ask Ron Wolford for an urban gardening crash course.

Wolford was standing in the greenhouse behind the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences. Rain thumped on the roof. The air smelled of fresh dirt.

“We’re getting a lot more vegetable calls,” he said.

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The calls at the Chicago Master Gardener program Wolford runs through the University of Illinois extension service picked up when the recession started. They’ve spiked since Barack and Michelle Obama announced they’re planting a vegetable garden at the White House.

Now—call it the Obama vegetable bump—half of everybody wants to know how to coax cucumbers from the ground.

Wolford’s the perfect instructor. He learned to garden on his grandfather’s farm, then came to Chicago in 1984 to teach people in poor neighborhoods how to grow vegetables. He helped older African-Americans who had come up from the rural South put their skills to use in the city’s vacant lots.

These days, hundreds of volunteer graduates of the Master Gardener program help oversee gardens, in schools, museums, even the Cook County Jail.

But today’s goal is not to create masters. It’s to create less ignorant beginners.

What should a city person plant in?

Wolford loves EarthBoxes (earthbox.com). They come as fully equipped kits. The sterilized potting mix is lighter than dirt. Spread the fertilizer on top, and you’re done fertilizing for the season. The watering tube and drain make it hard to over-water. A plastic cover keeps the bugs out.

They’re great for gardeners with small spaces, and for those with yards but short attention spans. Teachers and schoolkids love them. A drawback: They cost around $50, but they’ll last for ages, and the soil can be reused.

How much sun?

Most vegetables need 6 to 8 hours a day. Four hours or less, think lettuce and greens. An EarthBox can go on casters and be moved as the sun moves.

What veggies are goof-proof?

Tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, cucumbers and beans are easy. Broccoli and cauliflower are dicey.

When can I plant?

You could plant potatoes, lettuce, spinach and onions now. For everything else, wait until at least mid-May. You might start an EarthBox sooner; it keeps soil warmer.

Which is better, seeds or those tiny plants in the plastic trays?

Don’t plant tomatoes and peppers from seeds. They take too long to grow. But you could plant radish seeds and be eating radishes in 20 days. Cucumbers grow from seed in 50.

When buying plants to plant, what should I avoid?

They’re called transplants. Look at the bottom; if roots stick out, avoid it. Shake the plant; if white flies flutter out, avoid it. Check the backs of leaves for aphids. Avoid browning leaves.

Good things to look for?

Seeds and plants labeled as All-America Selections; their performance has been tested. Plants with labels that say “VFN” will resist disease.

What’s not worth the money?

Pricey ceramic containers. (Wolford remembers a woman in Cabrini-Green who grew good vegetables in an orange crate lined with plastic.)

Stray advice?

Start off small. Don’t start too soon. And remember: Gardening is an adventure. You learn from your mistakes.

In discussion with a friend, I heard of this site and decided to read a bit more about it.

From the website:

Our studies have shown that the EarthBox can double yields, using less water and fertilizer compared to conventional gardening. More importantly, thousands of EarthBox customers prove our claims every time they plant. We’re so sure that the EarthBox will work for you; we offer a one year satisfaction guarantee. That’s right, you can use the EarthBox all season long and if it doesn’t produce as advertised, we will promptly refund your purchase price.

Since The EarthBox uses potting mix available at any garden center, soil conditions in your area mean nothing. In fact many people have tremendous EarthBox gardens on their patios, balconies and decks. Since the potting mix in The EarthBox is covered, weeds don’t even have a chance to start. There’s never any need to pull weeds or use herbicides.

Each time you plant in the EarthBox, use two cups of a dry granular fertilizer or plant food for vegetables. The three numbers of the elements making up the fertilizer content should be in the range of 5 to 15; i.e., 12-8-10, 10-10-10. After you have applied the fertilizer stripe, no additional fertilizer will be needed.