Ross Creagan

I sat down with Mr. Creagan today and talked to him about his experiences as a gardener. He was also able to give me a little advice about some of my plants and what to do to solve some of the problems I have encountered.
Mr. Creagan has been gardening for over 40 years now. Since he has started gardening he has had 4, 1/4 to 1/2 acre plots of land that he has used for gardening. He has always been organic. When he began gardening the USA was in a time that had placed a focus of green practices and organic foods. When he saw that organic gardening was rewarding as well as healthy, he was excited to grow almost all of his own food. His methods involve deep trenching, french intensive methods of planting, crop rotation and the idea of companion planting which pairs beneficial plants with each other to help them support one another. In the local ecosystem Mr. Creagan has been an integral part. He has brought many species of insects including praying mantis, lady bugs, and red worms to green spaces around Ithaca.
When I asked him if he could answer a few of my specific to my garden questions he was happy to help.
I have had problems with my tomatoes ever since I put them in the ground. He told me that he had never had much success with tomatoes but what he suggested was that the soil may be too cold. He said especially my variety, brandywine pink, likes to be hot. He suggested using black plastic to help insulate and warm the soil. He proposed another method which sounds interesting and may be an interesting experiment.
The method lays in the idea of waters high spcific heat. If you place a plastic moat around the tomato plant, when you fill the moat with water, the sun heats it and then when night falls it holds on to that heat and keeps the plant warmer through the night. It may be interesting to try both ways and see the difference it may cause.
I asked him what he found to be the best to grow in this area. He talked of the success of his greens. All kinds of lettuce, and other similar plants like spinach and kale. He mentioned ones that due well most any where including squash and zucchini. Beans he added were a helpful way to add nitrogen to the soil, and they are very hardy when it comes to standing up to the Ithaca climate. In general he said that the best plants to use are ones that can be planted early in the season and give fruit before it gets too hot, or plants that can go in the ground in august and have fruit before winter comes.
The thing I found most fascinating about this interview was the passion that mr. Creagan showed. He was eager to share everything he knew and what he had accomplished. This showed me that gardening is such an intense process and takes a strong love for your plants and for the earth to commit yourself to such an extensive pundertaking gardening is. When I left Mr. Creagan he said to me that gardening is his heart and soul. What I have seen in Mr. Creagan is true happiness.

Plant Check Up

My plants are doing variably well. One of my zucchini plants is doing fantastic. It has grown so much since I put it in the ground and it is growing extremely fast it has quadrupled in size over the past week. My spinach is also doing very well. It has begun to show some little flowers. My tomatoes and lettuce on the other hand are not doing as well. They are smaller and seem to not be thriving. I am not sure why though. I am hoping to ask Mr. Creagan or the Shermans what they think the problem may be. I took some pictures but my phone is having some problems sending them so I will upload them later hopefully.

Problems and this week

So it seems to me that my little plants seem to be less well off now that I have put compost down. It is kind of discouraging. I am not sure however, if my plants are unhappy or i am just impatient. One of the possibilities was that I am not watering them enough. i am hoping to see if they will be happier after the large amount of rain we are supposed to get. If they do turn up I may need to water them more than I have been.
I also found a weed that sprang up really quickly. I followed it's root down and I seems to be pretty old as the main root went at least 6 inches down. I am now wondering if weeds that had laid dormant under all of the bricks are going to pop up again, with a vengeance.
I am going to go out to the CSA in dryden sometime this week, hopefully when it is not pouring rain. I am nervous to see what they have as I am afraid that I may be doing things wrong. However I guess seeing what I am doing is wrong could be good in the long run.

Compost Fair

I drove down the street behind cooperative extension and saw a huge mass of people walking down the street, and I thought to myself, "Are all of these people going to the compost fair?" While most of them were only walking down the road to follow the rubber ducks they had set free further upstream, a few of them stuck around.
There were a good 100 people there while I was there. Some were petting a huge rabbit, others were listening to the strange folk music being played across the parking lot. I quickly got the sense that this event was not only geared toward compost but children as well. There were games a plenty and a small petting zoo complete with ducks, chicks, and rabbits.
I began to walk around to the booths and found that a lot of things they had to offer were things I had already learned from the lecture, a couple weeks ago. The largest tent was being run by the people who gave the lecture. I found this was to be less of learning experience in the sense of compost and more of a learning about my community through this common thing.
When I was driving there I had assumed 30 or 40 people would be there but came to find that even with people coming and going, there were about 100 people there constantly. This gave me the opportunity to realize how much work our community is doing/ wants to do to contribute to helping to save our environment. I had always known that we were, "That Hippie Town", but this gave me a physical representation of what a bunch of hippies really want to get done. It gave me a sense of uplifting to see that some many people realized that even doing just a little can add to the cause so much.
So while I answered their four question quiz on compost building without a hitch, I learned that the compost has grown into something much larger than me in my backyard but has taken our whole community by storm.

Garden and Compost

I bought some organic soil from Home depot and put it in my plot. I underestimated how much soil I was going to need. I bought 6 bags and have come to find that i need around 8 more. I am going to go buy some more tomorrow and fill it in this weekend. The weather seems to be holding sort of constant so I may plant some of my seedlings or some new seeds directly in the ground. I want to see if this has any effect on the plants.
I have gotten my compost walls to a height I am happy with for now. I threw some sticks and some dead leaves in the bottom (the base for a good compost) and will begin to throw food waste into the pile. That will take a while to be usable so I am going to use my previous compost as soon as I have all the soil laid.
On Sunday there is a compost fair at Cooperative Extension from 12-4. I am going to see if I can learn anything new by attending.

Layout for Garden

Here is the layout I have designed for my garden. I have found in my research that strawberries are helpful to some of the plants so I am going to add those in to the garden. I was happy to find that as strawberries are one of my favorites.


Riotte, Louise. Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening. Charlotte, VT: Garden Way Pub., 1981. Print.

Composting Presentation

The Green Team has been hosting some presentation on being a teenager and energy and environmentally conscious. Today the presentation was on composting and I was excited to see what they had to offer.
The presentation was interesting and they did a demonstration on lasagna layering compost (the process of alternating dry, brown matter and "green" nitrogen rich material like food scraps) and why compost is important for us to do.
Although it was interesting it was quite basic and I knew a lot of the stuff from AP Environmental Science and from already having a compost. However, they described some methods of composting that I had never heard of, such as stealth composting.
I took notes of which I am going to try and upload a scan. If that can't be done I'll type up the important parts.
Overall I think what this presentation did was kind of plant the seed of what this project will lead me too. I have recently got extremely excited about composting. Because of the nature of this project it has led me to spending a lot of time working with compost and the science of it. I think I will become a "hard-core" composter because of this whole experience.

Seeds

My new design for my seedlings is working really well! The water is being held in the space more readily and the seeds seem to be growing faster despite the recent drop in temperatures.
My tomatoes had their first sprout and have grown to have 3 seedlings sprout up. I can't wait for more to sprout up. Hopefully the sun and weather will begin to cooperate and they will be able to grow outside soon.

Dilmun Hill Organic Student Garden

"Projects." CUAES. Cornell University, 2010. Web. 25 Mar. 2011. http://www.cuaes.cornell.edu/cals/cuaes/ag-operations/dilmun-hill/projects.cfm.

I was driving around today and noticed for the first time the Dilmun Hill Student Farm. So I did some research.

I found out that it is a student run farm that gives an opportunity to students, staff, and community members to work with an organic farm and learn many new sustainable agricultural practices. They have yearly events which everyone is allowed to participate in. Their largest project has been their Market Garden which has been the primary focus of the group since it was started in 1996. The market garden is approximately 1.5 acres in size. The garden is run under sustainable practices and uses cornell compost. All of the food produced goes to various selling venues but some is given to food banks as well as compensation for volunteer workers.

A nice thing about this site is the provide garden reports which include their pest control, soil reports, irrigation tactics and lots of information that could be very useful to me while i work through my garden.
I was really excited to find this great place. It is still pretty early and it didn't look too active when I pulled over for a second but hopefully I can go back in a week or two and talk to the people there. They seemed very welcoming of visitors so I can't wait to see what they have available.

Seedlings

Two days ago I saw the first sign of sprouting in my lettuce seeds. And now I have at least ten sprouts in the lettuce seeds. Lettuce reproduces rather quickly so I am not surprised that it is the first one up. I hope that some of the others show up soon. It was very exciting to see them popping up. I think this is kind of a turning point in my project. The snow is all melted and my seeds have sprouted so it seems that we are moving forward very quickly!

Bummer

I just went on the Cornell Cooperative Extension website to check the location of the Home Food production panel and found out that registration, a fee, and some previous gardening experience are prerequisites of taking this, although I did not know it was, class. It was more hands on than I had originally known. It is my fault that I over looked that detail and I am kind of upset about it. I am not worried though. They have events nearly every day so I will be able to find another one to attend.

Seeds

Today I went to Agway and I picked out some seeds that I wanted to put in the garden. I am going to start looking at the average date when the last frost is in Ithaca so that I can plant the seeds indoors in a proper amount of them to germinate and be ready to go into the ground after the last frost. I bought French Rosemary, Bloomsdale Spinach, Zucchini, Brandywine Pink Tomatoes, Muncher Cucumbers, Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, and Rainbow Bell peppers. All of the seeds are organic. I also want to try drying and saving some of my own seeds from some sweet peppers that my family enjoys. Depending on each individual seeds duration of growing it needs indoors I will have to start looking into grow lights and some boxes in which to plant soon.