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


Mushroom Walk with Mycologist, Zaac Chaves - scroll down!


Gardening


Organic Gardening
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.


All About Seeds for Native Plants in Your Garden!
Seeds of native plants differ from seeds of vegetables or non-native perennials and annuals.  They need very different conditions to germinate.  In the first session of this class, we will explore the history and nature of seeds, how they evolved and how types of seeds differ from the others.  We will discuss how and when to collect them, how to prepare them for sowing and/or storage, and which requirements encourage their growth.  If you have always bought packets of plant seeds from your local nursery and sprinkled them in your garden beds, you will find that native seeds are fascinating - and fun - to learn about and to work with.  Our second session will be a workshop. We will select seeds to plant and will get them ready for germination.  All materials will be provided, including seeds. Finished products will go home to germinate on your patio or balcony and by summer you will have some small seedlings to either up-pot or directly plant into your garden!  Based on your new knowledge, you will be ready to collect seeds for the following growing season and can propagate them yourself to expand your garden's native plants at little cost to you and at great benefit to wildlife! Instructor is CT Master Gardener and Gardening Lecturer, Jackie Algon.

2 Sessions $ 54 (Ridgefield Sr./Disab. $ 46)
Mon., 3/3 and 10 from 6 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)
Please call (203) 431-2812 or email ridgefieldcontinuingeducation@gmail.com for date from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Directions to class location in Ridgefield will be emailed prior to class.