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  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: http://amzn.to/2DKMKYR () http://amzn.to/2DKMKYR (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... Support this podcast