CANANDAIGUA CITY TREE WALK/TALK


Saturday, July 16, 2011

Time: 10 am

Where: Meet at 126 Charlotte Street in Canandaigua (across from the Army Reserve and near Sonnenberg Gardens)

Canandaigua is a TREE CITY. Chris Dorn, Canandaigua’s Arborist, will be giving us a tour of our urban forest. Join us as we tour the city, studying the many and varied trees. Chris Dorn will explain how city trees are selected, maintained, removed, and replaced. After an easy walk along the city sidewalks we will return to Charlotte Street for some lemonade.


SENECA BREEZE BERRIES TOUR


Canandaigua Botanical members Caroline & Robert Grey, Peggy Kane, Leona Lauster, Laura Ouimette, John Purdy, and Norma & David Rugg, were joined by Dennis & Susan Hess and ten FIRST Lego League Robotics students for a tour of Seneca Breeze Berries on an overcast Saturday morning. The FLL students (and their siblings) asked fantastic questions in hopes of learning more to meet the Food Factor Challenge they will face later this year.
Paul Cooley told us how he got started with this hydroponic farm bought as a kit from Florida. The farm covers one third acre and is enclosed in a deer fence under bird netting. There are 14 rows of rotating styrofoam pot stacks receiving hosed water, nutrients, fertilizer, and fungicide on a regulated schedule. 15,000 plants will provide berries from June to October.
Corell stones in top of each stack



The pump house has a main control which communicates with controls at the end of several rows (under the black boxes) determining when small black hoses are activated.





Paul demonstrates scissor cutting the berries with long stems to lengthen the shelf life of berries.

Wide rows convenient for many pickers

John Purdy supervises

Berries get weighed for purchase

Great thanks to Paul and Kathryn Cooley!

At the stand you can taste test the many varieties of jam.


Strawberry species grown at Seneca Breeze Berries include: Nourse Seascapes, Krohne Seascapes, Albion, Evie-2, and Ozark Beauty. Also grown in the hydroponic stacks are Black seeded Simpson lettuce, Looseleaf mix lettuce, Prizehead early lettuce, Parris Island lettuce, Freckles lettuce, Arugula, Buttercrunch lettuce and salad fresh spinach.

Leona liked the petite ball of basil.


For more information: http://www.senecabreezeberries.com/