UTC offers summertime organic gardening course

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Amateur gardeners who are serious about learning to garden organically have a wonderful opportunity if they are really willing to work at it.

A unique class for organic gardeners is being offered at United Technologies Center in Bangor by Claire Ackroyd, the horticulture program coordinator at UTC.

“At the end of this session,” Ackroyd said, her students “should have the organic basic down, such as crop rotation, and have really learned to build the soil and grow healthy vegetables.”

But, here’s the catch: You have to work at this course, not just take it. And you have to produce, not for yourself, but for others.

“This is an organic gardening class; seed to harvest; 15 weeks; Memorial Day to Labor Day,” Ackroyd said. “The fee is $90 per person, which figures out to about $6 a class, and that’s not too bad.”

What Ackroyd plans is to grow a vegetable garden, the focus of which will be a crop of late-harvesting materials that can be used by the UTC culinary students when they return to class in the fall.

“This is not a chance to get free vegetables, although there will be some sharing and tasting,” Ackroyd said.

“What we will plant are potatoes, corn, squash, carrots” and the like, “and then we’ll have a big, old harvest in the fall for the culinary arts kitchen.”

Ackroyd hopes this course “will appeal to a few people who would really like to learn about organic gardening” from the ground up, so to speak.

And it is a very serious commitment.

“I want people who would like to learn by doing,” Ackroyd said. “I want them to show up, every week, work with me, and grow the crop. You don’t want to do this unless you really want to get good at gardening organically.”

She did say that, “on a very limited basis, if there is a little bit of extra space, for a small additional fee” class members could have “a piece of the garden to grow their own crop, as long as they are willing to meet all conditions” of the course.

The class will be taught “by the current, best, organic process so we’ll never have to argue whose idea” of organic gardening “is better,” Ackroyd said.

One classroom session is planned for Thursday, May 23.

“We will sit down, I’ll give a short talk, and we’ll get clear what we are doing,” Ackroyd explained.

“We’ll discuss the underlying process of organic production” and then the class members will discuss how they want the sessions to progress.

Weekly sessions will be planned “to suit the people who are participating whether we meet morning afternoon, evening or whatever,” Ackroyd said.

At the same time, Ackroyd will be working with a couple of area schools whose students will be helping make a difference in the lives of needy neighbors.

Ackroyd will help the youngsters “”grow a summer salad garden” for, perhaps, low-income elderly “who would like to have free vegetables brought to them each week,” she said.

UTC is going to be a busy place this summer, and you are invited to be part of it by calling Ackroyd at 942-5296.

“I would hope that people who want to take the course would call me as soon as possible,” Ackroyd said.

Ackroyd also told me that the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association is offering statewide organic gardening classes this week which, according to the MOFGA Web site, are titled “Growing Your Own Organic Garden.”

The classes will all be taught 7-9 p.m. Wednesday, April 3, at 18 sites throughout Maine.

A registration fee of $5 per person will be collected at the door to help cover the cost of handouts and a bibliography, which will be distributed at each site.

Ackroyd will be teaching the class at the Bangor Public Library.

The program consists of “a very good slide show and talk,” Ackroyd said of the introduction to organic vegetable production.

“It’s a good way to whet the appetite for organic gardening.”

Other classes in our circulation area include Capital Area Technical Center, Augusta; Unitarian Universalist Church, Belfast; Camden Hills Regional High School; USCA/FSA Office, Dover-Foxcroft; Unitarian Universalist Church, Ellsworth; and Fort Kent High School.

Classes will also be taught at Houlton Regional Hospital Education Center; Katahdin High School, Sherman Station; and Presque Isle High School.

The remaining sites are Brunswick, Bridgton, Monmouth, Portland, Wells, Wilton and Wiscasset.

For more information, or to preregister, call the MOFGA office at 568-4142.

On behalf of the Friends of the Orono Public Library, Dorothy Pratt invites the public to see and hear from Esther Gilbert Taylor, whom Pratt describes as “a well-remembered art teacher at Orono High School.”

Taylor will be the guest speaker during the annual meeting of the FOPL, which begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 4, in the library, which is located at Orono High School.

Taylor’s topic will be “Orono Through the Eyes of an Artist.”

For those of you who are interested in learning about the past year’s activities of the FOPL, and about its future programs, Pratt reports the membership will discuss those topics during the business meeting.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.