Sowing Peach Pits

At the beginning of the school year Ms. Whetzel, our Barbering Instructor, very generously gave the students several bags of cleaned peach pits in the hopes that we could germinate them and grow our own peach trees to sell and/or plant.

Now, before you just go about tossing a peach pit in a pot and hoping for the best, it must be "cold stratified", exposed to a period of chiling (to simulate winter) before germination can occur. Our peach pits began their stratification way back on August 27, one of our first days of school. 90 days later, they are ready to sow.

The above video walks through the steps of sowing a prepared peach pit, one that has been fully stratified.

Our students are going to prepare two groups for germination. One group will stay inside ontop of a heat mat and under a grow light, the other group will go out into the greenhouse.

We'll keep you posted on progress!

STUDENTS: Which group do you think will germinate the fastest? Why?

Extreme Teamwork

Throughout the school year here at CATEC our focus is two-fold. First, we strive to give our students specific technical skills that they may apply in the workplace. Second we work hard to instill in them the "soft skills" also necessary for the workplace, here at CATEC we call them WORKPLACE SKILLS. Amongst those "soft skills" teamwork ranks very high, and it is something that the Horticulture/Landscaping students get lessons in almost everyday.
Today we watched a video clip from the History Channels Ax Men, (episode 1 Man v. Mountain), that I felt demonstrated teamwork in an extreme situation, but also showed teamwork skills that could be applied to everyday situations.
Students - If you need a refresher, please click on the link above to review the video from yesterday, then answer the following questions -

1. Specifically, what are three things in the video that show examples of good teamwork?
2. How could you apply those skills demonstrated in the video in the classroom?

HGTV

Hello All!

This past week our class began watching a show on HGTV, Home and Garden Television, called "Groundbreakers". The HGTV website streams full episodes of many of their shows, several of which are very pertinent to our class. This week we watched two episodes of "Groundbreakers". One episode ("Laboring Towards a New Landscape") involved what could be considered a large scale residential project, the other ("Windowwall") a smaller scale residential project. However both incorporated retaining walls, water features, sod removal, and plant installation.

I began showing these episodes to the students as a form of inspiration, and to open dialog about the landscaping industry.

STUDENTS: Please tell me at least three things that you thought were really cool from these episodes. Also tell me if anything was surprising to you, did you see anything that was unexpected for the role of the Landscape Designer? What projects featured in these episodes do you want to learn more about?

Blueberry Patch!

Hello all!

Over the course of the past few weeks the Horticulture students have been working on several projects around campus. One of those projects has been the installation of a "Blueberry Patch". We hope that this new planting will do several things - 1. Provide blueberries! 2. Encourage wildlife habitation 3. Create a spot of beautiful fall color.
Instead of me telling you the steps we performed to install these shrubs, I will instead provide pictures and have students tell what we did.

STUDENTS - using the pictures above as your guide, tell our readers the steps we took to install the blueberry patch!

Happy Halloween!

On Halloween the CATEC Hort students had a lesson on flower parts and fruit parts. To accompany this lesson the students disected a "Stargazer Lily".

After our dissection of the lily we had a pumpkin carving contest! During the contest Students had to find and display the four parts of fruit as found in the pumpkin.

Unfortunately our camera batteries died before I could get a picture of our winning pumpkin, carved by our 10th grade exploratory students, Tank and Brandon, so I've included some other photos that I did get.

STUDENTS - 1. What are the four main parts of the flower and what do they do? 2. What would be another profession that may need to know the parts of fruit? 3. Tell me what your favorite berry, and hesperidium are?

Bulb Planting Begins!

Hello All! Today we began planting bulbs on campus! We had been waiting for the daytime tempuratures to consistently be around 65 or slightly below, and those days have finally come! The first to go into the ground are the Dutch Master Tulips and the Giant Crocus.
Please enjoy the Bulb Demonstration Video.

Next week we learn how to use the bulb auger! (We learn everything by hand first!)

Fall Business Council Meeting

On Friday October 17 CATEC's Director, Darah Bonham, and myself, Mrs. Greenberg, met with our Business Council. This is a group of business leaders in the Green Industry from our local community. These invaluable people give us valuable feedback on our course structure and offer advice on how to improve. This most recent meeting included representatives from Waynesboro Nurseries, PVCC, Ian Robertson Ltd., Snow's Nurseries, and JW Townsend. Links to all of our Business Council members can be found on our blog.
THANK YOU TO ALL WHO ATTENDED!

Planet Earth

Yesterday, Wednesday October 15, began our classroom viewing of the "Planet Earth" series created by the BBC and viewed here in the states on the Discovery Channel. We began with the episode entitled "Pole to Pole". The episode showed the earth from top to bottom, focusing mainly on the sun's influence on the earth. As the year progresses we will view the entire 12 part series.
As an instructor I feel that in order to truly convey the importance of environmental stewardship my students need to be aware of a world beyond their front door. This series provides us with an opportunity to view parts of the world we will never visit, and allows for open dialogue on a wide range of topics, in an informative and entertaining manner.
As we view more episodes we will add our thoughts and learning moments here on our blog!

STUDENTS AND BLOG VISITORS- After viewing the first episode of the series, what were three things that you found really cool or interesting? Of those three, which would you like to learn more about?

Compost put to work!

As some of you may know we have created a Composting Program with our Culinary Arts students. They bring us vegetable and fruit scraps from the kitchen and we add them to leaves, pine needles, pruning scraps, and grass clippings that we collect; all of it goes into the composter!

This program has yielded some beautiful product which we added to a raised bed that we have been working on since last year. The bed runs alongside a portion of our school building. The first layer of material put down included clumps of sod that we had after several of our edging and planting projects. We turned the sod clumps upside-down to smother the grass. Upon that layer we added leaf compost, generously donated by UVA Grounds management. Upon that layer was added our very on compost. To finish off the look the students mulched with a layer of pine needles gathered from out own campus. We hope to create a drought resistant annual and perennial flower garden this spring!

STUDENTS and BLOG VISITORS - To create this bed we used materials found here on campus, and donated materials, making this a "free" landscaping project. With this in mind, how might you approach new projects assigned at school, or new projects that come up at home? Please answer using the "comments" option.

Busy Days!

The past week or so has been very busy for the Horticulture students here at CATEC! While our book work has continued, our outside work has gone into full swing!

We have cleaned out the greenhouse, and are prepping it for some new tables being donated by our carpentry class.

We've also been busy with Fall Planting! As some of you may know Fall is a great time of year to plant. Woody plants are focusing there energy on root growth instead of leaf production. Strong root systems heading into winter are a must! Also, and perhaps most important, plants with an extra season of establishment are better suited for facing the challenges of summer heat and drought stress.

We've added new shrubs and trees to our landscape, and will continue to plant as the season goes on, so be sure to check back for updates!

Above are pictures of a successful planting of a River Birch. We chose this plant for this area because it is tolerant of wet conditions, this is a low spot on campus where rain water collects.

Above you can see us planting a Cleveland Select Pear Tree. Different from the Bradford Pear Tree, this variety is less susceptible to breakage during high winds. It also flowers beautifully in spring and is well suited to the mostly sunny conditions in the area.

In the photos above the students are recieving a planting lesson from me, Mrs. Greenberg; in the next shot they are putting their new skills to work. We chose Chrysanthemums for around our flagpole because they are perennial flowering plants that are ofter evergreen. They are well suited to the sunny conditions of the area as well. In the next week or so we will be adding spring-blooming bulbs and holly shrubs.

STUDENTS:

What are the steps to planting that you have learned over the last week? Please give me a numbered list of steps; answer by adding a comment!

What's going on? 8/20 - 9/12

Hello all!
The CATEC Hortuculture students have been quite busy since the beginning of the school year. In the short 3+ weeks since school began we have covered ALOT of material, including:

1. The history of Horticulture
2. Divisions of Horticulture
3. Horticultural jobs
4. Plant classification
5. Latin names of plants

Outdoors we have been working hard as well, preforming the following tasks:

1. Cutting back perennials
2. Preparing a new bed by adding leaf compost and pine needle mulch
3. Cleaning out and reorganizing our Greenhouse
4. Taking out dead plant material, unfortunately the summer drought hit us too!

I'd like to invite students to answer the following question- What has been your favorite day so far in horticulture class? Was it a day outside working? Was is a group project inside? Let me know by leaving a comment for me!

Blog readers: Stay tuned for more updates from us!

Mrs. Greenberg and class

Spring Blooming Bulb Fundraiser

Giant Hyacinth Mixture, Early Spring Bloomtime, DEER RESISTANT, 8-10"tall, Naturalizing, Fragrant
First 10 bulbs, $7.50, each additional 10, $7.00

Rembrandt's Tulip Mixture, Late Spring Bloomtime, 24-28" tall
Red Riding Hood Tulip, Early Spring Bloomtime, 10-12" tall
Queen of Night Tulip, Late Spring Bloomtime, 24-28" tall
All Tulips:
First 10 bulbs $5.50, each additional 10 $5.00. (Groups of 10 must be of the same variety)

Dutch Master Daffodil, DEER RESISTANT, Naturalizing, Early Spring Bloomtime, 16 - 18" tall
First 10 bulbs, $5.50, each additional group of 10, $5.00

Large Crocus Mixture, Early Spring Bloomtime, 4" tall
First 10 bulbs, $3.50. Each additional 10, $3.00

Hello CATEC Students, Faculty, Parents and Friends!

The above are pictures of Fall Bulbs that the CATEC Horticulture students will be selling this fall to raise funds for field trips.

To place an order please contact Mrs. Greenberg, rgreenberg@k12albemarle.org, find a CATEC Hort Student, each will have an order form, or use the order form in the main office of CATEC.

Thank you so much for your support!

FALL BULB FAQ'S

Student Blog Question Week of 9/8

Students: What do you think of this blog? Is this something that you would look forward to using instead of paper and pencil assignments all the time? Would you prefer to answer questions here?
Post a comment and let me know!
Thanks,
Mrs. Greenberg

Welcome Back Students!

Welcome back to school! This will be an exciting year here at CATEC, especially in Horticulture/Landscaping!