Trae's Spider and Project Noah

Well I don't know about everyone else but I have been swamped and finding the time to garden has been hard enough let alone trying to find time to blog about gardening. However, I did find myself in the garden with my housemates the other day and we were lucky enough to be there when Trae Booker was there as well.  Trae is our community liaison and she is always just so much fun to be around - not to mention the great gardening advice that she always has.  Well any way Trae says "you have to see this spider in my garden" and she took us over and pointed out this huge spider.  None of us knew what it was so I volunteered to post a photo of the spider on Project Noah.  Project Noah is a website tied to a mobile app where you can post photos of wildlife and plants.  If you can't ID something you can indicate this and the community will help you.

Project Noah is an awesome online field guide that was started by NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program.  According to their about page:

"It all started off as an experiment to see if we could build a fun, location-based mobile application to encourage people to reconnect with nature and document local wildlife. We wanted to harness the power and popularity of new smart phones to collect important ecological data and help preserve global biodiversity... Our ultimate goal is to build the go-to platform for documenting all the world's organisms and through doing this we hope to develop an effective way to measure Mother Nature's pulse. By encouraging the mobile masses to document their encounters with nature, we hope to build a powerful force for data collection and an important educational tool for wildlife awareness and preservation. We hope you'll support us on this mission by joining Project Noah today."

After posting the spider on Project Noah I had an ID on it within a few hours.  GregMasteller IDed the spider as a Banded Garden Spider.  You can check out the posting on Project Noah here http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/7226745

Bexley Community Garden Video

I was playing with some digital storytelling tools for a workshop that I am giving next week and created this little video of the garden.

Plant a Row to Feed the Hungry By Donating Garden Produce to Food Pantries

Here is a great article from our friends at Stoddard Ave Community Garden about where you can donate produce. Plant a Row to Feed the Hungry By Donating Garden Produce to Food Pantries

Help Us Build a First Aid Kit

Hi Everyone,

We are hoping to put together a first aid kit and would like everyone's input. Please comment below with what you would like to see inside of a first aid kit for the garden.

Free Class on Companion Planting

Passing on a free class on companion planting via Barb

Greetings:

You -- and your gardeners -- are cordially invited to a FREE workshop being held at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 8 at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden by Franklin Park Conservatory on companion planting. FPC Educational Coordinator, Barb Arnold, will be discussing the what and how-to’s of companion planting. Learn about attractors, distracters and shared space usage. In other words, what plants should you plant next to each other to deter bad bugs and attract good bugs. She'll have handouts, etc.

The Stoddart Avenue Community Garden is located at 445 Stoddart Avenue (1/4 block north of East Main Street and 3/4 blocks south of Bryden) between Fairwood and Kelton Avenues.

Although we have a couple of benches, you might want to bring a folding chair.

Refreshments will be served.