August 2011 Newsletter
August 16, 2011
Dear Members,
Once again, the Southeastern Horticultural Society (SHS) presented successful summer intensive programs, educating a new generation of young adults in the field of horticulture. The Edgewood Farm continues to produce prolific crops of organic fruits and vegetables. You can visit the Farm Crew at the East Atlanta Village Farmers Market every Thursday through the end of November and purchase produce grown directly from the farm.
You won’t believe how much the East Lake Community Learning Garden has grown. Bring the whole family to enjoy the garden and participate in one of our weekday or weekend family workshops. Container Gardening on Wednesday August 31st, Worm Composting on Saturday, September 10th, Rainwater Harvesting on Saturday, September 24th, and Urban Farm Animals on Saturday, October 8th. You’ll discover new exciting growing ideas to bring home and try in your own garden.
The Southeastern Flower Show volunteers and SHS Board of Directors are deep into the preparations for the Southeastern Horticultural Society’s 25th Silver Anniversary Flower Show. The Show will be presented March 15-17, 2013 at the Cobb Galleria. A series of pre-show events are being planned to get everyone geared up for a fantastic Show. March of 2013 may seem far away, but it’s really just around the corner!
As the melodious days of summer draw to an end, SHS is winding up for a busy festive fall. We have an abundance of new and exciting programs to offer you throughout the upcoming season.
Enjoy the pleasures of fall,
Kate Chura
Executive Director
In each newsletter we try to feature a timely article about horticulture from various professionals and enthusiasts in the Southeast. If you would like to submit an article for consideration please send it to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Fall Leaf Color by Clark Robertson
Leaf color in the Fall is affected by many variables; genetics, species and geographic location are among these; but one of the primary factors is weather/environmentally related.
From the first sign of leaves in Spring, until late Summer, plants are producing (among other chemicals) Chlorophyll, carotenoids, and anthocyanins. These pigments are responsible for leaf color and all are present when the leaf is growing, but it is the Chlorophyll that is dominant and give leaves their “green”, masking the other pigments. Chlorophyll also is responsible for that miraculous series of chemical processes called photosynthesis.
As the days grow shorter and temperatures cool, the leaves of deciduous plants essentially stop the flow of water and other nutrients from the stem and twig; beginning the progression toward dormancy. The results are the vivid colors of Fall as the visible Chlorophyll is depleted allowing the red hues of the anthocyanins and orange/yellows of the carotenoids to be seen.
Folklore has attributed this change in leaf color to visits by Jack Frost but a heavy early frost actually shortens the cycle and often mutes the color show.
The most recent research by both UGA and Clemson has rebuked the previous accepted thinking of color intensity and brilliance being directly related to a wet summer. In fact, the best color development takes place when a dry Summer is followed by crisp, cool (not cold) Autumn nights. So it seems the weather patterns in the Fall have the most influences in controlling the quality of the “Show”. These complexities in the environmental factors and their effects on leaf color make predicting the “peak” and intensity of the Fall Season difficult and despite what you may read or hear on television, no one knows for sure.
With all the guess-work related to our Fall color season, the one thing that can be counted on year after year are the traffic jams that occur in the North Georgia and Western Carolina mountains during October. Even though some years are better than others, the fall is the one time Nature provides us with a show that consistently includes a huge class of plants. Flowers come and go with the seasons, some in Spring and some in Summer, but the Fall is the only time where all deciduous plants are on the same schedule and synchronize the color show.
About Clark Robertson
Assistant Horticulturist, Georgia Institute of Technology. Head Horticulturist, The Atlanta Botanical Garden (1980-84). Adjunct Professor, Ornamental Horticulture, Dekalb College. Consultant, designer, entrepreneur, inventor. Senior Vice President, Ice Screen, Inc. http://www.facebook.com/IceScreen. Father of three sons and three step-daughters. Currently residing in Woodstock, Georgia.
EDGEWOOD FARM CREW
SHS’s Edgewood Farm Crew 8 week urban agriculture program ended with a graduation ceremony on July 22nd at the Edgewood Community Learning Garden. Ten proud Crew members accepted certificates of completion in front of friends and family. The Crew spent that morning preparing dishes fresh from the Coan Edible School Farm, including cucumber salad and delicious pizzas, to share for the celebration.
During this whirlwind 8 weeks, the Crew worked diligently at the Coan Farm, sold produce every week at the East Atlanta Village (EAV) Farmers Market, visited farms, restaurants and universities, from Riverview Farms near Ellijay to Fort Valley State University in Fort Valley, GA.
Though the summer program is over, Farm Crew continues to make a difference in their community. From helping neighbors maintain vegetable gardens to working in local coffee shops to continuing to run the EAV Market booth, you’ll see the Crew out and about throughout the year.
Check out updates and photos from the Crew on our Facebook page: here
Edgewood Community Learning Garden Upcoming Events
Do Something
Garden Workdays: 2nd and 4th Saturdays, 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Sept 24 - 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Trinity Presbyterian Church
Oct 8 - Neighborhood workday
Oct 22 - 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Crop Mob followed by APS Parents Farm to School Coalition event and National Food Day celebration http://www.cropmobgeorgia.com/category/crop-mob-atlanta/
http://foodday.org/
Learn Something
Fall garden workshops: 3rd Saturdays, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Sept 17 - Food preservation techniques: canning, natural pickling, drying and more
Oct 13 - Seed saving
Eat Something
Please support these local restaurants that use organic produce grown from the East Lake and Edgewood Community Learning Gardens:
East Atlanta Village Farmers Market
http://www.farmeav.com
561 Flat Shoals Ave.
Atlanta GA 30316
Thursdays May - November 4:00 - 8:00 pm
Double your WIC and EBT dollars at this location!
Empire State South
http://empirestatesouth.com
999 Peachtree St NE
Atlanta, GA 30309
No. 246
www.no246.com
129 E Ponce de Leon Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030
East Atlanta Thai and Sushi
http://eavthai.com
467 Flat Shoals Ave.
Atlanta GA 30317
Speaking engagements For Kyla
Wednesday, August 17, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.pm Edgewood Farm Crew: Urban Agriculture as a Tool for Job Skills Training
The Southeastern Horticultural Society’s Edgewood Farm Crew program gives teens and young adults an opportunity to develop job skills through maintaining a subacre urban farm. From planting, harvesting and cooking to running a farmer’s market booth, the Farm Crew gets a full urban agricultural experience in this 8 week summer program. The program manager Kyla Zaro-Moore and a 2nd year graduate, Desmond “Ike” Thompson, will present on how this little plot of land in Edgewood can transform peoples’ lives. This event is part of Charis Circle’s Urban Sustainability Project.
http://www.charisbooksandmore.com/event/edgewood-farm-crew-urban-agriculture-tool-job-skills-training
East Lake Community Learning Garden Update
Green Youth Summer Work Program
The ELCLG has completed five weeks of Garden Works programming with a total of 13 youth from the East Lake community. Working alongside residents from the Villages of East Lake (VOEL), the young men and women have been engaged in learning valuable skills in landscape management and improvement including:
• Invasive plant identification and removal, and control through mulching
• Vegetable plant identification, seed-starting, and transplanting
• Ornamental plant identification, installation, and maintenance
• Raised bed garden construction
• Composting and vermi-composting
The Learning Garden’s summer program has been an overwhelming success. With the help of over a dozen 13-19 year-olds from the East Lake community, the garden has been transformed into a daily oasis of experiential learning. It has become a place where a young woman living in the Villages of East Lake, a former CREW Teen on summer break from college, is working alongside a recent Drew Charter School graduate and rising high school freshman just entering the CREW Teen program. She is not only acting as a mentor to this young man but has actually become like extended family as they toil together in the blazing sun to clear kudzu and spread mulch.
Daily activities are centered around the garden’s immediate need to engage in constant battle with invasive plants encroaching on our hard fought boundaries, all while working to enhance the garden’s overall aesthetic appeal. The hard work, sweat, callused hands and aching muscles are part of a quiet cathartic process that will hopefully empower these youth with a knowledge literally grounded in the soil and the land that they’ve worked giving them confidence in their own self-reliance. Through clearing the paths and trails leading into and out of the garden, they are participating in the literal and figurative exercise of removing obstacles from the paths of their highest destiny. By removing the accumulated trash and debris from years of dumping in the area, they are purifying the ground and their own spirits, preparing the physical and mental landscapes of their lives to produce the fruits of their labor. In learning to identify the plants in the garden, vegetable and ornamental, they are reconnecting with nature and the food that provides the sustenance to fuel their daily movements.
One of our major goals and outcomes has been to develop a strong set of local “garden guardians and ambassadors” ideally from the immediate surrounding neighborhood. We hope that as continued numbers of East Lake and The VOEL residents establish plots at the ELCLG, getting the necessary training to transfer their skills to future gardens onsite at the Villages, they can connect with greater EL residents who live in closer proximity to the garden, thus increasing the chances that their hard-earned vegetable produce doesn’t become the victim of theft or vandalism and that mutual cooperation and exchange will have a fertile ground to grow and thrive .
East Lake Community Learning Garden Upcoming Events
Sept. 3 & Oct. 1 - 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Community Workdays
Sept. 10 - 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Vermicomposting Workshop
Sept. 24 - Rainwater Harvesting Workshop
Oct. 8 - 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Urban Livestock Workshop
For more info, please contact Khari Diop at (404) 351-1074 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Volunteer Spotlight
Desmond “Ike” Thompson
2nd year Farm Crew member
Edgewood Community Learning Garden
Q. How did you first learn about the garden?
A. I got a flyer in my mailbox 2 years ago saying they were going to start a garden here and I went to the meeting to learn more about it.
Q. How often are you in the garden?
A. I work here 6 day a week from 8:30 - 2:45. I just like to hang out here too.
Q. What do you like best about this garden?
A. I like that I’ve changed the community. This used to be a vacant corner lot and now it’s a garden that I helped build; I like that I’ve made a difference. I also like that I have gotten other people involved here too.
Q. What have you learned about yourself from this work experience?
A. I’ve learned that I really like to work hard and when I’m in the middle of working I don’t like to be distracted.
Q. What have you learned from being a Farm Crew member?
A. I’ve learned so many things. I’ve learned how to harvest vegetables and flowers. What nutrition is about and how to cook different things we harvest and how different they taste from the things we buy in the grocery store. I’ve learned about figuring out what bugs eat our crops and the best natural ways to get rid of them. I’ve learned the burning and swelling technique, water harvesting, selling, taxes, and the food pyramid. I’ve learned so many things it’s hard to talk about them all!
Q. What type of job do you want to have some day?
A. I want to be an Environmental Community Educator like Ms. Kyla.
Ms. Melba Potter
East Lake Garden Club President,
Mother, Grandmother, scout leader, mentor
Q. What does the East Lake Garden mean to you?
A. It’s a place that I go to everyday to seek peace and serenity. It is a social place, gathering place and learning place for me.
Q. How often do you volunteer at the garden?
A. I am there 7 days a week. Some days working and other days I bring my grandchildren to visit. We are having my grandchild’s birthday party here.
Q. What would you like to be added to the garden?
A. I would like a fish pond under the big tree, a greenhouse, chickens and goats.
Q. What motivates you?
A. Life! I love working with the kids and teaching them new things. There is so much to learn here, not just about gardening, but about science, math, business, teamwork, leadership, and work ethics.
Q. Do you think a garden is ever finished?
A. Well, I can’t wait until this garden is finished, but no, I guess a garden never is finished because things grow and change all the time.
