News for Delaware County Master Gardeners

Vol. 10 No. 6 June, 2005

From the Coordinator. . . Linda Barry

Our Teaching Garden committees have been working on spring clean-ups and are busy planting and mulching. The June meeting will be devoted to the gardens and completing the work begun by the committees. If you haven't become involved with one of theseTeaching Gardens, but would like to be, contact one of the cochairs. Marion Nelson and Carl Pfeiffer are co-chairing the Terrace Garden, Alyce Zellers and Kathy Hornberger co-chair the Bird and Butterfly Garden, Carolyn DiPaulo and Maru Hollen co-chair the Shade Garden, and Delilah Foldes and Stephen Hinds co-chair the Hillside Garden.

We will be featuring our Teaching Gardens at the Fall Fest on September 24th. The Plant and Seed Pick-Up on May 21st was very successful. More than 50 gardeners attended and took home dozens of vegetable plants, seeds, and flowers. Thanks to the volunteers who planted and nurtured the seeds, toted the flats to the Intergenerational Garden and also helped the day of the pick-up. Left: The Plant and Seed Pick Up at the Intergenerational Garden in Chester.

Interviews and pre-testing for the Class of 2005 will be held on June 25th and 26th. Marty Roelandt and the Recruiting Committee will be scheduling applicants. If you would like to assist this committee on those days, please contact Marty. We have had a very enthusiastic response to the press releases. Thanks for all of your volunteer efforts in so many areas. Second quarter hours should be submitted this month. If you can submit them electronically, that's great, but if not, please send or bring your volunteer log to the office. And don't forget, this is the time of the year to stop and smell the roses!

Penn State Consumer Horticulture Website

Visit Penn State's Consumer Horticulture website.
There is access to pest and disease fact sheets, garden planning, publications and links to Penn State and industry websites.

From the President of Master Gardeners . . . . Alyce R. Zellers

I always enjoy books with gardening tips, old wisdom, and other what-nots so I am including a few from 1,000 Old Time Garden Tips that was published by Organic Gardening. Although the dates are not recent, the wisdom is still applicable.

Enjoy your mistakes! For my part I like to go my own wild way in my garden, and do things wrong and find out my mistakes by myself. Nature will furnish all the instruction any one can ask for. Rose Fay Thomas 1904

In designing the planting it is a good idea to study nature. Walk along the roadside or in the fields and observe how masses are formed by the intermingling of the various trees and shrubs. These have character and grouping that is often artistically perfect. Herbert J Kellaway 1915

The basic law of how-to. Finish one job before you begin another. This advice is trite, but it is of great importance; and there are few cases where it cannot be attended to. J.C. Loudon Encyclopedia of Gardening 1850

Each year's experience shows that the only trustworthy plant label is none at all. That is, every tree, vine,
or permanent plant should be so recorded by its position, that though labels may be lost, though the memory may fail, and thought our place may come into the hands of another, the names of each tree or plant should be so recorded that one can readily refer to it himself and another will have no difficulty. American Agriculturist 1885

Books as brain fertilizer?
"Manuring with brains" like most proverbs, conveys an important truth. We look upon books as quite as essential implements as spades, rakes, or other garden tools. Winter is the time for study and reading. American Agriculture 1878

There ought to be a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Plants. Watering without mulching afterward is not even half a kindness, for the soil is sure to bake unless you stir it the morning after.
The Garden Magazine 1908

One can with success plant anything at any time, if he takes trouble enough.
J. Horace McFarland, My Growing Garden 1915

Blue flowers planted in the rear of the garden increase its apparent size while white, bright yellow and scarlet, by bringing the background nearer, decrease it. Monkshood and the tall blue larkspur are excellent for rear beds.
Ida Bennett The Flower Garden 1904

Great care should be taken to have a liberal sprinkling of white, for the white in the flower kingdom is what the diamond is in the mineral world, necessary as a setting for al other colors, as well as for its own intrinsic worth.
The Garden, You, and I 1910

****Test this out by placing blue flowers in a vase and then adding some white ones. Bouquets are a good way to pretest color schemes for planting.

The simplest and best way to select the perennials for a garden is this. Set down the twelve months in their order and write down two names for each month- one for the first half and one for the second. I don't' mean that you should restrict yourself to twenty-four kinds of flowers altogether, but I do mean that is more than enough for massing and one's first concern should be for the big masses-not for variety. The reason for this is that the most beautiful gardens are those in which one kind of flower dominates the whole garden at a time, and then gives way to another big mass, and so on; while the weak, petty, restless gardens are the ones that have too many different kinds and not enough of any one.
Whilhelm Miller The Garden Magazine 1908

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Leaving the Leaves

Because we have adopted practices of yard maintenance, autumn has become the season when real damage to the soil occurs. Each year homeowners, and lawn-services they employ, rake up the leaves from their gardens, remove every seed stalk and sweep up each bit of loose organic material and cart it away.

Leaving the leaves to decay creates new soil, encourages the activity of composting worms, insects and microorganisms, protects topsoil from erosion, protects plant roots in extreme weather, holds moisture in the soil, and reduces rain run-off. (To name only a few advantages.)

Yet, in the name of neatness, we pay to throw this resource away. In the process we create noise and air pollution and increase municipal waste removal costs.
Recent advances have municipalities separating leaves from trash, trucking them to a disposal site and allowing homeowners to truck them back home for compost. Recycling at work!

Spring and summer are not overlooked by these neatness enthusiasts. Grass is mowed too short, clippings are bagged and removed, and shrubs are embarrassed by their strange new shapes. Any leaves that escaped the fall clean-up are ferreted out of their hiding places and meticulously bagged.

Having removed all of the decaying organic matter, homeowners reach for chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides to replace the natural processes which would have kept the plants healthy In less technological times, limited energy ensured a degree of neglect to the benefit of the natural environment. Now there are few limits to our garden machines. The once peaceful yard, that provided beauty and recreation is now noisy, poisoned, and chore-dominated.

Without interference from us, nature has its own organizing and cleaning methods - using wind and rain and organic materials. May we learn and help others to learn to let the earth do its work in peace.

HELP WANTED

4-H Indoor Gardening Position Available

A part-time position is available as a 4-H program assistant for indoor gardening, beginning this summer. The job involves selecting and creating hands-on gardening activities for elementary and middle school students to use in the classroom.

Other responsibilities include teacher training and ordering all materials. We have a fall and a spring 4-H indoor gardening program, reaching around 1600 students throughout Delaware County. Work hours are flexible.

Applicants must have a car and valid driver's license and be organized and self-motivated. Computer word processing skills a plus. If you think this is something you'd enjoy doing, please contact Helaine Brown, 4-H Educator.

Too many plants??

Is your garden busting out of its seams? Too many plants?? Please pot up some for the Fall Fest Plant Sale to benefit Master Gardeners. We will be offering plants at very reasonable prices at our first on-site plant sale. If you would like to bring them to the June or July meetings, please make sure it is tagged as to what it is e.g.: Heuchera and if you know the cultivar that would be great and we will keep it until the sale. Burying potted plants usually works out too so they will be established by September. Thank you in advance!!
Fall Fest Plant Sale Committee.

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GREEN THUMB DINNERS

The Green Thumb Dinner group is scheduled next for La Locanda Restaurant located at 4989 West Chester Pike in Edgemont on June 23rd . Their phone number is 610-353-7033.

We always meet at 6:45 pm and all Master Gardeners are encouraged to join us.
Let me know if you would like to join us, so I can reserve the correct size table.
RSVP to Janae Alberts.

Starbucks' "Grounds for Gardeners" Program*

Starbucks aspires to be known not only for the quality of its coffee, but as a socially responsible company, both in the communities where it has retail locations and the countries where our coffees are grown.

To help minimize Starbucks environmental footprint, the company is committed to reducing waste generated in our stores. Starbucks partners have discovered that many of its customers are also gardeners. This discovery led to the Grounds for Your Garden program.

Coffee grounds, mixed with other materials, are an excellent source of nutrition for soil. Giving away used coffee grounds not only makes customers happy, but it reduces garbage in the landfills and contributes to a healthier environment.

Coffee grounds can be applied along with other materials as a side dressing for vegetables, roses and other plants. Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen, but are also acidic. Adding brown material such as leaves and dried grass to the grounds will help keep a balanced soil pH.

Coffee grounds act as a green material with a carbonnitrogen (C-N) ratio of 20-1. They make an excellent addition to compost. Combined with browns such as leaves and straw, coffee grounds generate heat and will speed up the compost process. To counter the acidity of the grounds, consider adding a teaspoon of lime or wood ash for every 5 pounds of coffee grounds.

Worms fed with coffee grounds combined with other materials will flourish.

*Coffee grounds are free to gardeners. It is recommended that one takes his own container when stopping to pick up the grounds.

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