Listen to the full episode at the Organic Gardener Podcast
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
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 classroom!
Maine’s average age of farmers was like in the 30s

Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners
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.
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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!
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com
Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
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That book, Small Batch Preserving, looks like an old copy. Those old ones, or reprints of old ones, are the best. Newer publications tend to complicate things.
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