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In 2014, a group of Franklin Institute volunteers led by Environmental Scientist Raluca Ellis started an ozone garden behind the museum in a space called Science … Continue reading Welcome to Our New Blog!
As we enter the new year many of our plants at the Ozone Garden have died from the freezing temperatures. Despite this we have still experienced record breaking warm temperatures during Autumn and December of this past year. A recent … Continue reading Frost in the Garden
Last month at the Ozone Garden many of our seasonal plants were dying and it was time for us to remove the plants that had past their prime. We had a large crop of grape tomatoes in the volunteer plot. … Continue reading Removing Tomatoes
At the Ozone Garden, we want to make the best of the fall growing season. Therefore, this past weekend we planted more peas, carrots, and green beans. We saw that another bed of carrots and peas had grown significantly, so … Continue reading Fall Planting Continues
It’s hard to believe that we had 90 degree days just a couple weeks ago, but if the plants are any indicator, we can tell that the tomatoes, basil and chives had a stellar year in the Ozone Garden. The … Continue reading Transition to Fall Plantings
Earlier this week, garden volunteers Sarah and Chris planted some garlic cloves in the bed where the sunflower plant, the oregano, and a nice lavender plant used to be. In order to do this, the lavender had to be repotted … Continue reading Planting Garlic!
One way mint plants expand is by sending out stems called runners horizontally across the soil. Sets of stems and leaves called rhizomes will start to grow vertically at points along the runners. Last year, our mint plant only began … Continue reading Remember the Mint Runners
After we harvested the potatoes, the two beds the potatoes were growing in became overgrown with weeds. Instead of covering these beds with tarp like we had with other beds, we decided to plant a cover crop. Cover crops stop … Continue reading Planting a Cover Crop
Lately, we have had a very large number of flies on the milkweed. Flies like to eat the honeydew that gathers on the leaves as aphids digest the plant’s milk-like fluids. There have been so many flies that more than … Continue reading DIY Fly Trap
In late July, we harvested plants we had grown from seeds for the first time. While the other seed types we planted had not survived, the carrots and onions were ready to be dug out of the ground. The onions … Continue reading Harvesting Root Vegetables
Congratulations to Teagan, Nicolette, and Brigit. After graduating from high school last spring, this was their last summer volunteering in the Ozone Garden. Both Tea and Brigid have volunteered in the Ozone Garden for two summers while Nicolette has been a volunteer for three summers. Altogether, Nicolette, Brigit, and Teagan have volunteered for over 200 hours. Each of them will be heading to college in just a few days. Brigit will be going to the University of New Orleans to study environmental science and humanities. Teagan will be studying botany at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Nicolette be studying … Continue reading Congratulations to Our Departing Volunteers
ozone garden project 