Gardening and Herbs
Welcome to Ridgefield Public Schools Continuing Education Program
Gardening ~ Organic, Flowers, Landscapes, Vegetables, Mushroom Walk
Back to Course Index Sign Me Up!
Ridgefield Schools Senior Citizens FAQ's Home

Gardening - Organic Gardening, Container Gardening, Perennials, Bulbs, and Landscape Garden Design


Mushroom Walk with Mycologist, Zaac Chaves - scroll down!


Gardening


Organic Gardening - Vegetables and Flowers
How to grow organically a wide variety of vegetables, flowers, and other plants suitable for our climate. This 2 part course will cover everything you need to know about organic gardening - from creating gardens, purchasing seeds or plants, growing on, fertilizing, controlling pests. Instructor Eileen Burton, a long term gardening instructor, is a former Horticultural Manager for a large non-profit and currently manages a church garden that grows produce for Meals on Wheels.

2 Sessions $ 41 (Ridgefield Sr./Disab. $ 35)
Wed., 4/23 and 30 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at East Ridge Middle School.



Make Room for Natives: Sharing the Environment with Wildlife
There’s been a lot of hype about “Natives” in the past year or so. This class will explore what native plants are and why they are important. For beginning or fairly-new gardeners, we will start with the basics: getting your soil ready, removing invasive plants from your property, assessing what is already growing in your yard and what you can consider adding or deleting from it, the “New Best Practices” for gardening that will help make your garden more sustainable, resilient and functional not only for the aesthetics but also for the support of wildlife and ecology. Instructor is CT Master Gardener and Gardening Lecturer, Jackie Algon.

2 Sessions $ 54 (Ridgefield Sr./Disab. $ 46)
Mon., Lecture on 4/28 from 6 to 8 p.m. at East Ridge Middle School AND Saturday Walk on 5/3 from 10 a.m. to 12 noon (Ridgefield, meeting location provided at class on 4/30).


Mushroom Walk


Mushroom Walk with Mycologist, Zaac Chaves
Grab a notebook and join Zaac Chaves on a mycologically focused ecological tour in Ridgefield on date to be determined at 3 p.m.. During this outing we will identify seasonal mushrooms. You will help us catalog species (including possibly rare sightings) and even help document increasing evidence of climate change locally. No experience required. Zaac Chaves works on species surveys for several sites and sometimes with organizations including Harvard University, the New York Botanical Gardens, and the National Parks Service. We have found several new species at many sites and are also helping recognize others which are rare and disappearing. He also serves as the chief editor of the Boston Mycological Club Bulletin, established in 1897.

1 Session $ 29 (Ridgefield Sr./Disab. $ 25)
Sat., 6/14 from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Directions to class location in Ridgefield will be emailed prior to class.