220. Asa Adams Elementary Greenhouse | Shaping Green Future Growers | Joe the Mason Returns | Orono, Maine
Joe the Mason Greenhouse coordinator and awesome Elementary School custodian returns from Orono Maine to tell us about the school greenhouse he cares for, and the pollinator garden he’s going to create this spring with a grant from the Audubon Society! As well as his pickling successes and many other golden seeds! You won’t want to miss this episode!
Tell us a little about yourself.
Thank you for having me back on ! I feel like an honor to be back on the second time. I am a custodian at our ASA Elementary.
I am an organic minded grower in the backyard
this year I was selected to be the greenhouse coordinator and I was selected
that is
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
So it was back when I was a kid in the same house I was living in now, my grandfather
qualtiy control
wipe the dirt off on the shorts
tomatoes
pull a accept
when I moved back to maine in 2007
I started gardening on a
back in the house that I grew up in
dug the back up again
go to lawn
dad mowing it
dug it back up 20’ x 50’
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
Once we
not a good year for my garden
grew well
my tomatoes
back to hand tilling g
more earth worm friendly turn over
new seeds
one of my ag friends here
seeds were too old
maybe
here’s a tip I wasn’t aware of
planting all of my seeds 1/4 inch deep
a seed isn’t supposed to be planted more then a 1/4 inch
what makes it grow and the food to get there
if it doesn’t have enough
too deep
not envought to
hear it it makes total sense
use all these lessons
- carrots
- beets
- peas
- basic garden
still grow brussels sprouts because I love those
cucumbers and zucchinis
I pickle everything!
actually for Christmas my friends got me this book:
The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Recipes to Use Year-Round
small gardeners
we don’t get 300 cukes
- asparagus
- taragon and shallots
great book
fallen in love with pickling
- carrots
- fiddleheads
- Maine item
- cucumbers
- pumpkin skin
you use
its a sweet pickle
clove an cinamin
candy ginger
it’s there’s some labor invovled
sterilizing your jars
if your
grocery store
6lbs bought the recipe
spring comes
taragon is a spring crop
pick up some from them
pickle those
test
going back to the asparagus
going to follow it
I’ve been talking about it
putting it in in
getting it so you get the size
just what I read when I was first looking into it
you put the seeds in
I might see some growth
they’re short and thin
you can cut them
the roots stay in tack
following season
root structure becoming more sound
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
I’ll put the asparagus in
follow my friends advice
carrots zuc
fun seeds
green house
to put seeds in to grow at the school
year before I had a tomato blight wipe out my tomatoes
gonna have to wait 5 years
that sounds like a challenge
at the other end of the garden
the rest of the garden
garlic
was great had a great garlic crop
120 bulbs got a 115
only put in 70 bulbs last fall
first year of using garlic bulbs from the garlic I grew last year
saved bulbs
first generation
use garlic
So our greenhouse was built in 1986 I wasn’t around when it was built
have ogne in and watered plants
as coordinator
part of what your tasked with you have to incorporate some sort of student activity throughout the year
enter the school through main doors
just off to the left
other side is the lobby
basic plants in there
ivy spider plants
small jade plant
pretty big plant
hybiscus
ficus tree
in the green house
looks great fills up some open space
very healthy
so it’s basically
used as a teaching space
one on one that teachers do with students
I maintain it
25 feet by 12 feet
people love to go join there and sit
teachers will go through
on a nice day
grapes that grow outsdie too
outside is not as well taken care of in
within the greenhouse
a couple of the things I am lining up
Maine Ag in the Classroom
been around since about 2008
funded by grants and sponsors
maine ag license plate
choose when you get a car
money from that
teaching ag which is a big business in maine
to kids
3rd weekend in
weed and ME
and ag
they have a book
one book for every classroom
have volunteers each week
read the book
Applesauce Day!
passed on through the generations
applesauce
kitchen manager
each classroom
- so for a special reader
- will go into each kindergarten class
- one reader for each 4th grade class
- pre-k
- 19 classrooms
- 19 readers in that day
and the book is left in the
apples are big crop in Maine too!
I was thinking there was someone who told me that Maine was a good place to start a farm if you were new to farming looking for land.
at that time
three years ago
Maine’s average age of farmers was like in the 30s
works with farmers helps them secure loans to start farms
organic
They can buy a small plot of land here and get a lot of produce
or animals for meat they can still have a small farm and produce cheeses and some milk for people. IDK if the median age has changes.
welcoming
800 farms in Maine
for a population of a million and a half people quite a few farm, it’s not easy, it’s a hard life but they are obviously passionate.
I keep hearing these statistics that a small farm produces more food per acre then these big conventional farms.
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Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!
Pollinator Garden Coming
Another way doing this in conjunction with some other teachers
co-sponsored by the Audubon Society
We were selected to have a pollinator garden built
were still choosing the site 10 foot by 20 foot
flowers
and lots of colors!
One of my first guests was Elizabeth Leonard from EARLS kitchen gardens in NY and she talked about how soothing it is for kids to have gardens to be in!
specific
rusty patch bumble bee
Audubon is selected the flowers those bees are drawn too
hasn’t been seen up this far in Maine in years
were also gonna focus on butterflies like monarch butterflies
some of the kids plant flowers
in addition to the ones
colors
Maine
offers like $50k in garden themed projects
because I’m new to this
have this info saved
my budget is $300
I can get organic potting soil
worm castings
pet pots
plenty for that m
urban garden center
I just placed an order
pick it up next week
Once a week I water the flowers
Mr. Joe can I water the flowers this week
they’re always interested to help the
get help watering the flowers this Friday
polinator
even thoguh most of the flowers
keep a small section
plant marigold seeds
have those put out in the pollinator garden
if space issues
kids have a marigold
you grew it
talking with our principal
how can I get a group
hey Im gonna do a flower planting
after school on such a date
maybe bring
following
if they want to come in plant with natural ingredients
one more thing
they break kids out to do a book read
a video
gym teacher
this teacher’s also on the committee for the
bee houses
not every bee has a hive
leaf cutter
mason bees
they lay eggs in trees
have a whole burrowed
cover in mud
bee houses
scrap wood
drilling holes into them
allow that seed
egg laying
ill cut the wood
have the kids sand the edges
kids aren’t hurt
kids can paint them
hang them outside
in the vicinity on the trees around…
gonna be a busy next few months
next year I should be able to get a little more organized
another
greenhouse coordinator
had a garden club
went to the local flower show
in Bangor
Asa Adams
Green house club
IDK if I would get there
flower greenhouse
plants greenhouse
into the hall
2 sides connect to the school
there’s a big window
get to decorate with the harvest in the fall thee
snowmen
definitely not a decorator
people were kind
Here’s something I want to tell you
back to organics
through some friends through the University of maine lives on a horse farm
let me go out
there’s this enormous compost pile
huge!
taller then me
20-30 feet wide
old compost in front
fresh
how about I come out and turn compost
spend like an hour
climb to the top
I got paid
nice workout
and I listened to podcast
put on my muck boots
smell would be awful
no smell at all
not what you would think
I don’t wanna use a phrase
take a week off drive
that’s about it
Im looking through that small batch preserving
jams and chutneys
such a great book
put some thought into
its as much for our benefit as yours….
need to go to my johnny’s seed catalog
spring
The frugal green girl got my first pickling recipe
now I’ve expanded out
pickled carrots
oh my grandmother made pickled carrots
disc golfers
my local disc golf community
bought $250 pickled
jams
brought a jar of the asparagus
to indoor putting
at the basket
had like 10 people say Ill buy these from you
when you make them let me know
there’s some labor intense
now the greenhouse thing
stipend associated with the
incorporating teaching
drove me to start looking into what I could to
Id like to do a little plant some bean seeds
maybe it will
that may be
look forward to having the first thing that I am involved with
tried to recruit some speakers through my professor friend Eric
weed ecology
organic
grad students
already signed up schools back in
6 weeks
urgency
interest
again
that’s part of what MAITC
part of what they offer
local university
people who can reach out to students directly
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
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