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Delaware County Master Gardeners |
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News for Delaware County Master GardenersVol. 11 No. 8 September, 2006 |
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I hope that you've had a wonderful summer, and are looking forward to fall gardening. Our Fall Fest on Saturday will be a wonderful kick-off to the season. We have hundreds of plants donated for the Plant Sale, and many treasures available at the Frugal Gardener table. Our presenters are prepared for the educational sessions, and we have great demonstrations going on during the session breaks, as well as tours of the Teaching Gardens. Warren Goll will have mums to give as door prizes, and Louise Hartley and Faith Price will be contributing their culinary masterpieces to taste, featuring fall fruits and vegetables. The 4-H program will have a flower pot-painting program for youngsters who attend. Do join us for the day, or for a part of the day. Set up will begin at 7 am for those who would like to volunteer to help. Tracey C., Class of 2005, has donated a color printer and scanner to the Hortline. The Hortline Committee will have a bake sale table at the Fall Fest to earn some funds for ink cartridges, and other supplies that they may need. Thanks also to Tracey for applying for and receiving two airline ticket vouchers from US Airways' "Flights for 50" program. This program recognizes employees who volunteer for nonprofit organizations with donations of travel. We will use these tickets as a fund-raiser. More information will be available next month. September 30 is the deadline for us to report volunteer hours and contacts for this fiscal year. We have thousands of hours of service, but some of you have not yet entered your hours. Please consult your calendars and date books, add your time served and either enter it into the website, or send the tally sheets to the office. Barbara Meahl has been entering all of the hours sent to the office. The Budget Committee will be working on the 2007 budget beginning in October. All committee chairs and co-chairs should submit a budget request for next year by October 3, the next MG Board meeting. Include as many specifics as you can. If you have questions concerning this process, please contact Liana Bauerle or me. Don't forget to put our Holiday Party on your calendar. We have invited Chester County Master Gardeners again this year, and anticipate a great event. At this time we will award certificates for members with 500, 1000, and 1500 volunteer hours, as well as honor Perennial Master Gardeners from the class of 1996 with 10 year pins, and Master Gardeners from the class of 1991 with 15 year pins. Thanks
to all of you for your continued support.  The love of Bombus hortorum September is usually the time when gardeners lament the loss of summer and all the planting associated with this. I lament the loss of all the insects; one in particular is the bumble bee. As kids, my sister and I would pinch the fox glove flowers shut when they were in there but then always let them back out. They are the most placid of all the bees and if you plant Echinops or Echinacea (two favorite bee flowers) you can pet their "fur" when they are harvesting nectar. They usually raise a back leg in slight protest but continue about their business. I have never been bitten by one, just hornets, yellow jackets and honeybees. Here are a few facts about Miss Bumble Bee. There are fifty species in North America and they have few predators other than skunks who are willing to put up with the sting. They are gentle and slow moving due to being rather round and furry. (not at aerodynamic as wasps and yellow jackets) There is a large Queen, female worker bees and a tiny male/drone. Just the Queen and workers have a stinger but not the male. They live in small nests and never swarm and they produce only enough honey to feed their young Bumble bees' hairy coats help them stay warm but in addition to that they are able to control their body temperature by detaching the muscles used to move their wings to rapidly produce body heat. This is why you sometimes find a motionless bumble bee on the ground or on a flower. It is not dying; just temporarily unable to fly due to it is raising its body temperature with its wing muscles. Once temperatures drop near zero, the queen goes into hibernation and the workers and drones die off. In the warm days of spring the Queen comes out of hibernation collecting nectar from early spring flowers. She again starts another colony in a space usually no bigger than half a grapefruit. Important Facts To Know About Bumble Bees.
Every Autumn as the first frosts begin the mated young queens seek out a place to hibernate in safety. If you come across a live but sleepy bee in a pile of leaves in Winter don't damage it. Its not dying, just in a deep cold sleep like a hedgehog. Put it back where you found it and cover it gently against the cold. In the first warm days of Spring you may see the large queens flying busily about the early bulbs and flowers. These large slow bees are searching for nectar and pollen to turn into honey and food for their newly hatching brood. So the organic gardener plants lots of pollen producing flowers and leaves an unmowed patch of early dandelions in the wild garden or hedgerow to feed the young queens Come the first sharp drop in temperature and frosts the old queen, her workers and the independent drones will die. Only the newly mated queens will survive in hibernation to begin the cycle again the following Spring. Their large size and heat-conserving hairy coats also help them stay warm. These features enable them to live in northern latitudes and alpine altitudes. Bumble bees are sensitive to habitat disturbance. In England, several species are thought to have become extinct in past decades due to land clearing and agricultural practices. So before frost and cold weather set in, please take some time to admire the bumble bee as well as your late summer bloomers. If it were not for Bombus hortorum's industrious pollination, those flowers might not set seed or fruit for next year. Oh, and one last fact on the bumble bee. When
do bees fly with their legs crossed?? …………..When
they can't find the BP station. Couldn't resist.
In case you have not been receiving MG news flashes via email from Linda, please add Linda Barry's email address (lrb16@psu.edu) to your email address book to avoid having her emails sent to your spam folder.
We were saddened to learn of the death of Joe Myers, a Master Gardener from the first class in Delaware County in 1989. Joe was the perennial Master Gardener, the first President of our association, he was active until 2002. Joe had a long list of volunteer activities that included: Hortline, Presbyterian Children's Village, Community Gardens in Chester, presented composting and pruning workshops, created a garden with Elwyn residents, participated in a Hort Therapy program at the Juvenile Detention Center in Chester County, helped to build raised beds and other gardening structures for the Cooperative Extension office when it was located in Rose Tree Park and also for the community gardens, helped to build a greenhouse at Pulaski School in Chester, set up displays for the Flower Show and organized Arbor Day events with area scouts. Joe demonstrated all the wonderful qualities that most gardeners possess - a love of nature and his fellow man. In his memory, we will donate to the Media Presbyterian Church Building Fund, his family request, and also to purchase a memorial bench that will be placed in Smedley Park to honor Joe and our other deceased MGs.
A free nine-hour training course on tree biology, identification, planting, proper care and community work will be offered Tuesday evenings Oct. 3, 10 and 17 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Cabrini College, 610 King of Prussia Road, Radnor. It is designed by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to increase the region's tree cover. The course was developed by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and Penn State Cooperative Extension. The course is free but registration is required. For
information, contact Julianne Schieffer, 610-489-4315
or jxs51@psu.edu
Over the past few months I have had the opportunity to meet many Master Gardeners and Staff across the Commonwealth. I have enjoyed getting to know you and learning about the programs you support. I am always impressed by your commitment to our program and your desire to see it grow. That is also my desire. I have approached this in two ways, helping the staff and faculty at the University level understand the scope of the Master Gardner Program across the Commonwealth and provide support and guidance to your Master Gardener Coordinators. Understanding the scope of the Master Gardener Program has been a challenge. We have not had a state wide report in going on 3 years therefore I am not able to provide concrete information on the Master Gardener Program when asked. I have developed a team report that will help us to understand the scope of the program and I am appealing to you for your help. Yes I am talking about the dreaded Activities Report your Coordinators ask you to submit. If they do not have accurate information on your activities, numbers of hours you volunteer, and contacts you have made we do not have accurate information to use as ammunition for support. Please keep this in mind when your Coordinators start encouraging you to submit your volunteer hours! It is also my opinion that we do not share our accomplishments with each other like we should. Congratulations
to Berks County for receiving the Search for
Excellence, Innovative Project Award for the
"Charles Evens Cemetery Tree Identification
Project" at the Northeastern Regional Master
Gardener Conference. What began as a request
from a cemetery to identify the trees on their
property grew into a three prong educational
program. First Master Gardeners were able to
learn and sharpen their tree identification
skills by identifying the trees, second a tree
walk brochure was developed and made available
for visitors and third educational training
sessions were held for area teachers, scout
masters, and home schoolers on tree identification
methods and utilization of the tree walk. This
is a great example of Master Gardeners seeing
the potential in a simple request and developing
a far reaching educational program. Thank you
for your vision and commitment to the Master
Gardener Program. Enjoy the summer gardening
season!
FALL FEST FRUGAL GARDENER SALE Do you have any magazines, pots, books, containers, garden art, tools or other gardening items that you would like to donate to the Frugal Gardener sale table for the Fall Festival? If so, you can drop them off at any time to Linda Barry between the hours of 8:30 to 4:30 Monday - Friday. If that is not convenient for you please call Lisa Augustine at 610-734-0193 and she will make arrangements to pick the items up. Please donate clean items in good condition. Thank you for your support!
ALL CHAIRS! Rewrites Due By Oct. 15 If you chair any MG committee, it's that time of year again. Time to correct (or not) the entry for your Volunteer Opportunity handout. Check over your handout from 2005. Please correct any wrong information (email addresses, locations at work, chair change, etc.) and if the nature of the work has changed (expanded or perhaps been cancelled), please indicate that also. If you chair a new committee that is not in the Volunteer Opportunities handout, please give me a short description of your committee's work and days/time, if applicable. Please send these to me by October 15th. If I do not get any response by that date, I'll assume your entry is still fine as it is. Please email your revisions to me, Marty Roeland. . Please put MASTER GARDENER in the subject heading line. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities: If you need hours or would just like to come and help out with the seniors, give Joe Daniels a call. (added helpers always needed).
Other Opportunities:
If anyone needs some hours or just wants to help out give Joe Daniels a call .... all applications accepted. Cookbook
Committee -
Green Thumb Dinners - Come out and join the fun
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This page last updated Wednesday, July 1, 2009
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