Saturday, March 7, 2015
4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Evanston Ecology Center
Free. Space is limited.
From the most controversial to the merely confusing, our knowledgeable panel will help guide your real-life gardening decisions.
Topics and vocabulary to be discussed might include:
Conventional, organic, OMRI certified, integrated pest management (IPM), 10-10-10 or 4-5-3, N-P-K, rock phosphate, glysphosate, pyrethrin, copper, sulphur, seaweed extract, compost tea.
Heirloom, F1 hybrid, open pollinated, transgenetic, diseases resistance, traditional plant breeding, organic seed, treated seed, grafting rootstock, native, invasive.
Till, no-till, microbiome, Mycorrhizal, peat, coir, browns, greens, micronutrients
From seed selection to dealing with garden pests and diseases, gardeners face a barrage of complex terms and nuanced choices. Our panelists will scratch the surface to help you understand labels and catalogs and then dig deeper to help you make appropriate choices.
Our panelists are:
Lisa Hilgenberg, Chicago Botanic Garden
Lisa Hilgenberg manages the 3.8 acre Regenstein Fruit & Vegetable Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden as well as being a contributor to WBBM Newsradio’s “Gardening Tips” segment.
Leading a crew of four and a team of 30 horticulture volunteers, she curates and interprets a collection of 500 edible plants, and two orchards. Lisa’s love for vegetable farming stems from her Minnesota roots. Her family emigrated from Norway and still manages the family’s century-old farm.
Lisa received her undergraduate Geology degree from the University of Iowa and holds certificates from the Joseph Regenstein School of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Professional Landscaping 1 and 2 and Ornamental Plant Identification and Garden Design.
Veronica Shaughnessy, Illinois Extension Service
Veronica Shaughnessy trains master gardeners and provides programming about horticulture, urban farming, local food, forest preserves, and environmental conservation for the Illinois Extension Service.
Shaughnessy earned a master’s degree in horticulture from Purdue University where her concentration was sustainability in floriculture and was involved in teaching plant propagation and conducting floriculture research. Shaughnessy also holds a bachelor’s degree in horticulture from the University of Illinois where she concentrated on production and management and interned at the university’s own plant care facility. She also has lots of day to day experience—she was an urban farmer for 2 years in Chicago growing hydroponic bibb lettuce.
Shaughnessy is interested in many aspects of horticulture ranging from floral design to green house production to urban farming. Shaughnessy has been actively involved in the urban farming community within Cook County since 2012. Her passion for integrating the needs of the environment with the needs of the community has driven her into the challenges surrounding the building of urban farms, production methods, managing and training staff members with little or no agricultural background, and designing agricultural systems in which produce can be efficiently yielded in an urban setting.
Peg Sheaffer, co-founder, Sandhill Organics and partner Sandhill Family Farms
Sandhill Family Farms is a partnership between the Sheaffer and Miller families. Peg and Matt Sheaffer started the the original farm, Sandhill Organics, fifteen years ago in East Troy, Wisconsin. In 2004, Sandhill Organics found a new home at Prairie Crossing, a conservation community in Grayslake, Illinois. Over the years, Sandhill Organics grew into a successful and widely-respected CSA farm serving families in the Chicago area. In 2012 the two families formed Sandhill Family Farms, a partnership that helps to strengthen the economic viability of the traditional family farm business model.
Today, Peg and Matt run their location at Brodhead, Wisconsin as part of the partnership.
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