By: Penn State Extension Working soil that is too wet results in soil compaction. Learn how to test your soil to see whether it is too wet to till or plant. As I write this, we’ve had some substantial rain lately, with more forecast in the near future. This time of year, everyone is ready […]
Year: 2015
10 Tips for the April Gardener
Purchase onion sets for planting and set 1 inch deep and 4 to 5 inches apart when soil can be worked. Early spring is a great time to spot spray or hand-dig dandelions. If spraying, choose a product that won’t kill grass. If digging, wait until after a rain, when soil is soft. Apply […]
Winter Survival of Insects – the Right Stuff
Photo and article by Pamm Cooper for UConn Extension During the cold New England winter months, we are blissfully ignorant of all the survival drama going on in the natural environment, at least as far as insects are concerned. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. While we have heated homes, running […]
CLIR: Forever Learning
By Cathleen Love and Betty Heiss The Center for Learning in Retirement (CLIR) became an UConn Extension program in 2013. CLIR’s mission is to provide meaningful intellectual activities for adults from all walks of life, which closely matches with Extension’s mission to provide the knowledge and expertise of the university through outreach and public […]
PEP Facilitators Impact Communities
UConn Extension People Empowering People (PEP) facilitator Gloria Mora from Danbury Children First speaking at the Parent Trust Fund Rally 2015 at the Capitol in Hartford on Wednesday.
Eating Healthy with UConn Extension
In March, four classrooms of 2nd grade students at Morris Street School in Danbury explored tasting new vegetables like green beans, sugar snap peas, carrots and cauliflower in celebration of National Nutrition Month. Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and UConn Extension Educator Heather Peracchio MS, RDN talked about the importance of eating a variety of different color […]
Winter Vole Damage to Trees and Plants
By Joan Allen for UConn Extension A lot of snow cover during the winter can be both good and bad. Good because it’s beautiful and nice for winter sports. It also insulates overwintering perennial roots from temperature fluctuations and extremes. One of the negative impacts is that the snow provides cover for the activity […]
How to Help the Bees and Other Pollinators
By Carol Quish for UConn Extension Bees are extremely important and responsibly for 75% of the foods we eat every day. There are more than 4,000 species of bees in North America, and about 350 in the Northeast. They include honeybees, bumble bees, mason bees, carpenter bees, sweat bees, orchard bees, and the list goes […]
Managing Landscape Pests
Click here to watch UConn Extension‘s Donna Ellis present at New England Grows on Managing Landscape Pests.
Extension Educator Honored
Boucher Receives 2015 AAUP Service Excellence Award It was recently announced that Jude Boucher will be receiving the Service Excellence Award from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) on April 6th at a ceremony in the Old Appropriations room of the State Capitol building in Hartford. Jude is the Extension Educator for vegetable crops […]
Gardens, gardens, everywhere…
….be sure to grow with food safety in mind By Diane Wright Hirsch, MPH, RD UConn Extension Educator – Food Safety It is hard to believe that spring is just around the corner. Though we in Connecticut were all teased with 35-degree temperatures, we are quickly back in the deep freeze, surrounded by ugly, dirty […]
Congratulations PEP Graduates
Congratulations to our recent UConnExtension People Empowering People (PEP) graduates from Meriden and Putnam. A few graduates are pictured below, but many more were also recognized. 3 out of 5 graduates were able to make it to the graduation in Putnam, due to bad weather. Sherry Curran (far left) read a short description of each grad and what they brought […]
Get Ready to Guac and Roll!
By Catherine Hallisey FoodCorps Connecticut Service Member It all started with me holding up an avocado, screaming enthusiastically, “WHO IS READY TO GUAC AND ROLL?!” Unfortunately, my quirky pun did not elicit the response I had hoped for— instead students started groaning, “ewww that’s green” and “where’s the ranch?!” even “I am not touching that!” Although […]
Nutrition Education Award
Congratulations to UConn Extension‘s Heather Smith Pease, who received citations from the General Assembly and Senator Richard Blumenthal for the nutrition education she does at Hartford Job Corps Academy.
10 Tips for the March Gardener
Make plans to attend the UConn Garden Conference on March 19, 2015. Go to http://2015garden.uconn.edu Send your soil sample to the UConn Soil Nutrient Analysis Laboratory before April 1st to avoid the spring rush. Add limestone, fertilizer or organic materials as recommended but wait until mid-April to fertilize the lawn. Start seeds of annual flowers […]
Creating a Birdseed Bag Tote
Photo & Article: Susan Pelton for UConn Extension This has certainly been a very cold winter and so many of the feathered species that remain in Connecticut rely on backyard feeders for a good amount of their nourishment. If you are providing for the birds in your yard (as we are) you are probably […]
Spring Bedding Plant Meetings
The UConn Extension Spring Bedding Plant Meetings were held the first week in February in our Torrington and Vernon offices. We had good attendance of 35 in Torrington and 37 in Vernon, in spite of the weather! #UConnExtension’s Rosa Raudales spoke on Feeding Greenhouse Crops and Monitoring Water Quality. Yonghao Li of the CT Agricultural Experiment Station […]
Plant Defenses Against Insects
By Pamm Cooper for UConn Extension Historically, insects have been the most important bane of the plant kingdom. The fatal attraction that exists between plants and insects has woven an intricate balance between good and evil, survival and devastation, and benefits versus harm. While insects play a significant role in pollination, and while over 90% […]
Price Study of CSAs in CT
2014 Price Study of Community Supported Agriculture Operations in CT By Molly Deegan and Jiff Martin, UConn Extension extension.uconn.edu *For more information about this study, contact jiff.martin@uconn.edu Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): an arrangement whereby customers pay growers in advance of the growing season for a guaranteed share of the season’s harvest. Background: In summer 2014 […]
Panoramic View of Extension Office
Winter is a pain, but still beautiful! Cool panorama of our Extension Center in Haddam by Joel Stocker & his drone, taken on February 12, 2015. http://bit.ly/1E7SlCd
Master Gardener Signature Outreach Projects
The UConn Extension Master Gardener Program is an educational outreach program that started in 1978 and consists of horticulture training and outreach component in the community. Master Gardeners are enthusiastic, willing to learn, and share their knowledge and training with others. What sets them apart from other home gardeners is their special horticultural training. In […]
Connecticut Seeds for Connecticut Gardens
Photo and Article By Dawn Pettinelli About now, many of us gardeners have a stack of seed catalogs several inches high and have started combing through them acquiring all kinds of ideas and a long wish list. Before finalizing you orders, spend a bit of time going through any leftover seeds from the previous year. […]
10 Tips for the February Gardener
Visit our booth at the 2015 CT Flower and Garden Show, February 19th-22nd, at the Connecticut Convention Center. Bring ½ cup of soil for a free pH test and your gardening questions for free advice. Provide houseplants with increased humidity by misting often or placing plants over a tray of moist pebbles. Clean the leaves […]
See RED on Valentine’s Day
By Alice Henneman, MS, RDN Nebraska Extension Educator See “Red” on Valentine’s Day and throughout the year. Red fruits and vegetables contain many health-promoting phytochemicals including lycopene and anthocyanins. This color group may help promote: A lower risk of some cancers A healthy heart Memory health Urinary tract health Red fruits and vegetables include: […]
Privacy and Mobile Devices
By German Cutz, Ed.D. for UConn Extension Your Private Information: At Risk on Mobile Devices With easy access to mobile devices your personal and private information are at risk. Ninety five percent of Americans use one or more cellular phones, tablets, laptops, GPS (Global Positioning System), and other mobile devices. Most cell phone users […]
EAB Quarantine Extended to All of Connecticut
The quarantine for the invasive, non-native emerald ash borer (EAB) was extended to include all eight Connecticut counties effective December 5, 2014. This was in response to the detection of EAB in Middlesex and New London Counties. EAB is already established in numerous towns in New Haven, Fairfield, Hartford, and Litchfield Counties. The movement of […]
PEP Respect Campaign
Check out this great video that one of our People Empowering People (PEP) graduates created on respect.
Climate Adaption Academy Looking for Input
The Climate Adaptation Academy (CAA) is developing a list of challenges that municipalities and residents are facing as a result of climate change and we need your help. CAA is a partnership between Connecticut Sea Grant and UConn’s Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR) and was developed after talking to a variety of […]
Reducing Storm Damage to Your Greenhouses
By John W. Bartok, Jr. Agricultural Engineer, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT. 2013 39 pounds per square foot – That’s the weight of snow I had in my yard in Ashford after the January 2011 snow and rain storms. The Connecticut Building Code calls for a design load of 30 pounds per square foot (psf) […]
Soil Workshop
UConn Extension‘s Richard Meinert and Dawn Pettinelli attended a soil workshop on the west coast in November. Dawn writes: the 2014 International Annual Meeting of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) and the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) was in Long Beach, California. The theme of this year’s […]
Greenhouse Vegetable Workshop
UConn Extension hosted a workshop on December 16th on Growing Container Grown Greenhouse Vegetables. Over 65 attendees listened to five University speakers and two farmers share their insights on greenhouse vegetables.
Food Safety During a Power Outage
Visit the UConn Extension Food Safety website for all of our food safety preparations and tips for storms and power outages.
The Science of Cheese-Making
UConn Extension‘s Dennis D’Amico recently traveled to England to focus on the science of making cheese. Listen to his interview with NPR.
International Year of Soils
The U.S. Department of Agriculture kicked off its celebration of the International Year of Soils to highlight the importance of healthy soils for food security, ecosystem functions and resilient farms and ranches. “Healthy soil is the foundation that ensures working farms and ranches become more productive, resilient to climate change and better prepared to meet the challenges of […]
Trees Rock
The town of Hamden was a recipient of a weather station available through a partnership with UConn Extension, as part of a pilot program that UConn is developing for school grounds managers. Middle school science teachers were excited to hear about the weather station and asked if they would be able to access the weather […]
The Hickories
UConn Extension’s Scaling Up Program created a video series on farmers in Connecticut. This film features Dina Brewster of the Hickories in Ridgefield.
Three Connecticut Projects Selected for RCPP Funding
“More than 600 pre-proposals were submitted nationwide. With so many strong proposals, the project selection process was extremely competitive,” said Lisa Coverdale, Connecticut State Conservationist for the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service. “We are so very proud that three from Connecticut have been selected for funding. This is such an amazing opportunity to work with some […]
Massaro Community Farm
UConn Extension’s Scaling Up Program created a video series on farmers in Connecticut. This film features Steve Munno of Massaro Community Farm in Woodbridge.
Provider Farm
UConn Extension’s Scaling Up Program created a video series on farmers in Connecticut. This film features Kerry and Max Taylor of Provider Farm in Salem.
Beltane Farm
UConn Extension’s Scaling Up Program created a video series on farmers in Connecticut. This film features Paul Trubey of the Beltane Farm in Lebanon.