CHAPPAQUA
gARDEN CLUB

From Judy Leheny The Pocket Park will reconvene on Thursday, March 23 at 10:00.  A number of our core members have already “signed” on to continue the great work that we accomplished last year. We are definitely NOT an exclusive group and welcome anyone who wants to learn about gardening and participate in restoring our little Central Park. We learn from one another and laugh a lot.  We meet on Thursdays at 10 but there is no sign-up.  If you go on vacation that’s okay.  If life intervenes, no problem. If you know nothing about gardening, that’s okay, too.  Pruning, weeding, planting, thinning, garden design - we do it all.  If you want to know more, contact us.  See you on the 23rd!

From Sue Meany Chappaqua Garden Club volunteers guided 20 seniors into creating beautiful centerpieces on Valentine's Day at Chappaqua Community Center. 20 seniors and 10 volunteers participated and enjoyed creating flower arrangements, the lively conversations and tea.

From Karen Bazik

Our Garden Jr. 's created beautiful cards.  The children learned how to press flowers at home using a flower press or a book. We discussed how to select flowers to press at home. Everyone was inspired to create their own valentines. One mother even shared how she preserved bouquets with the group. Thanks to Diane, Diane and Chris for helping out. 

From Judy Leheny

Pocket Park - Most of the garden is sleeping but, if you look carefully, the Winter Aconites have started to come into bloom.  We shall be selling these (from private garden) at the Plant Sale.  Now is the time to see what they look like and think where these early-flowering harbingers of Spring would look in your garden.

From Karen Bazik

The Garden Jr.'s program held its first winter sowing workshop. Families planted seeds gathered from milkweed planted last May. We also planted some coneflower seeds gathered from the Pocket Park. Families took their jugs home and some jugs were left in the library's vegetable bed.Sue Meany and Kent assisted families and they shared information about the Pollinator Pathway. Special thanks to all the members who donated empty gallon jugs.

From Judy Leheny

Making it easy to coil a garden hose for the winter: Set a garbage can  in the driveway and coil the hose around the base of it. Tie the hose in 3-4 places to keep it intact. Remove the garbage can. Neat and easy.
Don’t forget to remove the nozzle and store it separately.

From Karen Bazik

The Garden Jr's have been very busy this fall. Our October fall flower arranging workshop was buzzing with activity. Juniors learned how to dry flowers from their garden. Then, they used a variety of dried flowers to create their own arrangements in a pumpkin container. Special thanks to Judy for the giant allium flowers. 

The juniors welcomed the end of fall by creating leaf crowns. Juniors learned to identify different leaves and adhered them to  paper strips which were made into crowns. They also created Thanksgiving placemats using pressed leaves. Thanks to all the members who collected and pressed leaves for the event.

From Sue Meany

It has been a banner year for green tomatoes. My husband, Kent, create a recipe which allows you to bake the green tomatoes in the oven without frying them in a skillet which makes a mess. The clean-up is not fun! 

If you have leftover baked green tomatoes, you can freeze them in in a plastic container in the freezer. Line the bottom of the container with waxed or parchment paper, place the baked tomato slices on the paper with a little room to spare. Add additional sheets of paper to keep the tomatoes from sticking together. Add the final layer of paper before sealing the top of the container. Eat them before next year’s green tomato harvest!

Baked Green Tomatoes

INGREDIENTS

4 large green tomatoes

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

vegetable oil for browning

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick. Discard the ends.

Whisk eggs and milk together in a medium sized bowl.

Scoop flour onto a plate

Mix cornmeal, bread crumbs, salt and pepper on another plate

Dip tomatoes into flour to coat

Then dip the tomatoes into milk and egg mixture

Dredge in breadcrumb mixture to completely coat

Either brush or spray the tomatoes with a think coat of oil to help then brown

Place the tomatoes on a sheet pan

Do not crowd the tomatoes, they should not touch each other

Place on a rack in the middle of the oven(or upper and lower third if you're doing two trays

Brown the tomatoes on the first side, approximately 15 minutes

Flip and brown the other side, again, approximately 15 minutes

Drain them on paper towels if necessary.

If you have any questions, please contact us at: kentevanthomas@gmail.com or suemeany@gmail.com

From Judy Leheny

The Pocket Park is Chappaqua’s Central Park in miniature. It is the garden between Susan Lawrence and the traffic light where so many people come and relax, drink their coffee, amuse children in strollers and even take their annual family portrait. In recent years it has been tended by Anne Boyd (and her husband) and the late Maria Carvao.  Anne’s family is away all summer so this year there would have been no one to tend the Park. That’s how this project started and it has been very, very successful. 

Each Thursday, as their schedules permitted, a core group of 10 would gather between 9:30 and 11:30 to renovate the Park.  The key to success seems to have been that people, though devoted to the garden, would not have to come if life intervened and they couldn’t show up. In practice, a great camaraderie developed and we were never fewer than 8. There was a lot of laughter, shared stories and, by the by, a lot of garden lore and techniques were imparted:  how to prune a rose bush, how to deadhead Butterfly Bushes to keep the Monarch butterflies coming, how to reduce the size of Hydrangeas, how to prune Russian Sage and much, much more. One of the unexpected and interesting things that happened was how people “took ownership” of certain plants as they took care of them. It has been a great time for novice gardeners to learn. Treasures were uncovered beneath overgrown plants – a beautiful yellow rose which kept blooming all summer and, recently, Autumn Crocus, a total surprise.  

Each Thursday, after we had finished, we would sit around and drink lemonade and eat homemade chocolate chip cookies and look at what we had accomplished that day.  And what needed to be tackled the next week!  Every single day people would stop by and thank us for all our hard work.  

Our Thursdays are on hiatus until the spring but there will be one more Thursday this fall when we shall gather to put the garden to bed for the winter.  A couple of our gardeners will not be able to help us next spring, so we are going to need more help.  The only thing required is a sense of humor.  Call Judy Leheny, (914-420-9246) or Anne Boyd (914) 238-9326) if you want to know more about the “Park Rangers.”

From Judy Leheny

Getting ready for winter:

1. Throw your gardening gloves in the wash!

2. Take care of your tools.  This is something that usually gets skipped but it is really important for your investment.  Wash all the dirt off your tools and leave them in the sun to dry.  If they have wood handles  and you’re really serious, rub the handles with a little vaseline to nourish the wood.

3. After you have washed the tools, disconnect the hoses, tie them in circles so they don’t get tangled and put them in a frost-free place so that the water residue inside them doesn’t freeze and burst the hose.  Disconnect the nozzle before storing; it can corrode on the hose connection and then you won’t be able to remove it.

4. When you plant your bulbs, put a small handful of bone meal in the bottom of the hole to nourish root formation.

5. Bring ceramic pots inside so they don’t crack in the frost; it’s okay to stack plastic ones outside.

6. Store birdseed in galvanized garbage cans in the garage so mice so don’t get at it.

7. Likewise, I discovered that mice are attracted to liquid fish fertilizer and punched tiny holes in the plastic container; keep it in the house or in a mouse-proof container.

8.Cut your geraniums back hard, shake off the dirt and store in a paper bag in a warm place.  They’ll perk right back up in spring once you plant them and begin watering.

9. Dig up your dahlia and begonia tubers and winter them inside.  Various ways of doing this on Google.

Hunker down for the winter and wait for the beautiful, colorful garden catalogues which are produced by teams of gardeners in greenhouses - not like the rest of us.