Description
Our second course in our Gardening Series, Planting Warm-Season Crops, helps students select the vegetables that thrive through-out the summer and should be picked for continuous harvesting. Students will be instructed on garden care, plant selection, natural pest management through companion planting, and much more.
Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or this is the first time you’ve broken ground, cultivate your skills throughout the growing season. There’s so much to cover: soil preparation, composting, seed starting, transplanting, plant care, irrigation, pest management, harvesting, season extension, preserving the harvest, and even recipes. A variety of hands-on activities will support your quest to have the abundant vegetable garden you’ve always wanted.
Vegetables are classed as either warm- or cool-season, depending on the weather they need for best growth. Warm-season veggies require both warm soil and high temperatures (with a little cooling at night) to grow steadily and produce crops. They include traditional summer crops such as snap beans, corn, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and squash. These warm-season crops are what students will be planting in the Raised Bed Demonstration Garden, May 19th, , 2-4pm at the Hannah Grimes Center. Guided by the expert instruction of local subsistence gardener and Author, Celeste Longacre students will grow confidence and gain a complete understanding of growing a healthy, productive garden.
The instructor for this course, Celeste Longacre, is an accomplished gardener who has been growing most of her family’s vegetables for over 35 years. Celeste preserves the garden’s bounty by canning, freezing, drying, and fermenting it as well as storing her produce in a root cellar. She and her husband, Bob, live sustainably in a handmade octagonal home. During the cold winter months, their heat is provided by the firewood that Bob cuts. Much of their electricity is generated with an array of solar panels.
