From the Coordinator

From the MG President

The Year of the Bee

Earth Notes

Broccoli and Rice Casserole

From the Grant Committee

Volunteer hours for the first half of 2009 are due in June. If you are unable to use the reporting web site, please send your hard copy to the office and a member of the Office Management Committee will enter them for you. Please be sure to include contacts in your report.

The Teaching Gardens are looking very good, but the hot days of summer are on the way. If you have signed up to volunteer in one of the Teaching Gardens, please contact the chairperson(s) of the garden and offer to water, deadhead, and weed once a week. It will make the maintenance much easier, and the gardens will greatly appreciate your efforts. These tasks can be performed at any time of the day. Water is accessible from outside the EC and also from outside of the office. Garden debris can be placed in the compost area which has been built by the Girl Scouts. You can choose from four composting bins!

Interviews for candidates for the class of 2009 will be held the weekend of June 27th and 28th. Recruiting Chair, Marianne Martin, will be contacting committee members to schedule greeters and volunteers to monitor and grade the pre-tests.

Garden Contest press releases will begin to go out this week. Thanks to all of the committee members who have volunteered to help make this a smooth year. Judging will be held on August 3rd and 4th. Awards will be presented at the Fall Fest on September 26th.

The June meeting is our Picnic and Plant Swap. We will provide the hot dogs and hamburgers. Members who are attending have been asked to bring a side dish, beverage, dessert, etc. If you have not signed up to bring a food donation, please contact Hope Jones-Gary to see what we still need for the picnic. Pot up those extra plants you’ve been discovering in your beds, and bring them to share. You’re welcome to bring a guest to the picnic. The business meeting will be very brief! We begin at 6:30.

July’s meeting will be held at The Grange in Havertown on the 21st at 6:30 pm. Beekeepers Beverly Rorer and Hazel Delikatny will present the program. We have invited the Philadelphia Master Gardeners to be our guests at this meeting. Click here for directions to The Grange.

HOUSE PLANTS = INVASIVES?

It’s no secret that I enjoy tropical vacations. I was still in my teens when I visited an aunt living in southern California and discovered she had a 6 ft poinsettia growing next to her house as a foundation shrub. That started me wondering about “house plants” in general and what they would look like growing in their natural habitat or in an environment very similar. Since then whenever I travel I check out not only the plants I see in the wild but in the foundation plantings around peoples’ homes. As I started writing this article I saw a problem. I collect tropical plants. I see them as a reminder of an adventure I had, a challenge to keep. How about if I moved to Florida and took my plants with me. Many of them would flourish easily there. I could put the tropical cactus in a tree and there it could live all year round. I could be creating an invasive if it escaped.

Once, I saw a shaded house that had a huge stand of tall Sansevaria as a foundation planting. It was really interesting to see this plant used in this way and it made an ideal ground cover but I was not in Indonesia.

Another home had a trellised Split Leaf Philodendron that had overpowered the trellis and grown across the front of the house and scaled a large nearby tree.

Likewise I saw a hedge of Croton (Codiaeum variegatum) and believe me it made a spectacular five-foot hedge but I was not in its native habitat.

I did visit the home of the Schefflera which makes a tall, light and airy tree that is wonderful for the native weaver birds and their pendulum hanging nests.

I was in the home of the Brugmansia and saw a two story white angel trumpet tree in full bloom and it lit up the dirt street and modest wood homes around it.

The best came when I came across one of my tropical cactus in its native habitat. It was so neat actually looking at and figuring out what lighting, growing medium, and moisture the plant needed. I came home repotted and rethought what I had been doing. The plant had been doing OK but now it is happy and blooms regularly.

I still haven’t addressed the Sansevaria or the Split Leaf Philodendron but I can only hope they won’t escape the gardens in which I saw them. If they do they will be the “invasive” of their areas and I am sure it will have happened with purely innocent intentions and that being doing best for a plant that was loved by whoever owned it.

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The Year of the Bee by Joe Daniels

Some more bee facts to store in the trivia part of your brain.
 
What is a honeybee swarm?  A swarm consists of the old queen, a few drones, and thousands of worker bees that leave the original colony, usually because of overcrowding.  The group settles on a tree branch or other object until worker bee scouts can find a suitable nesting site.
 
How do honeybees make honey?
 
Worker bees collect nectar (water and complex sugars) from flowers and pass it to other workers, which convert it to digestible sugars.  Bees evaporate the nectar's water by working it in their mouths and then depositing it in cells and fanning it with their wings.  When the liquid is reduced to about 18% water, the honey is ready for them to use.
 
 
More Surprising Truths about Organic Gardening
 
True or False:  Praying Mantises are useful for controlling insect pests in the garden.
 
A: False. Mantises do not eat enough to effectively control harmful insects.
 
True or False:  Rotenone, because it is organically derived, is a safe pesticide.
 
A: False. Rotenone is dangerous to beneficial insects and aquatic life, and is more toxic to humans than most other pesticides, organic or synthetic.
 
True or False:  Compost and manure tease are great ways to provide nutrients and control diseases.
 
A:  False. While these teas may provide small amounts of nutrients, they have the potential to spread nasty bacteria and their long term benefits are unproven.
 
True or False: Insecticidal soaps are completely benign.
 
A: False. Although soaps are generally considered safe for humans, they can kill beneficial soft-bodies insects and damage certain plants if improperly used.
 
Gillman's takeaway message? "Much of the information on gardening is written by people who are unable to see beyond their biases into the truth behind the practices they use and recommend. I wrote my book to help the gardener, the weekend farmer, and the educated consumer sees beyond dogma and into the truth behind different gardening practices, organic or otherwise."  If you are interested in learning more, pick up the book
“The Truth about Organic Gardening" (Timber Press) by Jeff Gillman, who teaches horticulture at the University of Minnesota and has investigated the science behind many popular organic techniques.

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Square Foot Gardening

I gave up on veggie gardening years ago because it was so labor intensive and time consuming. Now I’m starting over with a new method.

I recently discovered Square Foot Gardening—a method of growing a large number of veggies in a small space. SFG is easy to do and requires very little maintenance. Here’s how it works: a raised bed framed in wood is prepared that is six inches deep. A mixture of 1/3 peat, 1/3 coarse vermiculite and 1/3 compost is used to fill the bed. The peat and vermiculite never have to be added again. More compost is added each time an old crop is harvested to make room for a new crop in a square. And since you have a compost bin, you’re set. You do have a compost bin, don’t you?

The bed frame can be 4x4, 4x8, 3x3 or any other size that fits your space or need. The area is divided into one foot squares and planted with veggies. The number of plants per square foot depends on their size and needs. For example, nine beets, one head of broccoli, four heads of lettuce, or sixteen carrots could be planted in one square foot.

No digging is needed to prepare the bed. There are no long rows to hoe. No fertilizer is needed. There are no weeds to pull. What could be easier? Because of its small size, SFG can even be done in the city.

I located my new veggie garden just outside my kitchen door and very close to a water source for the ultimate in easy access. It takes about 5 minutes a day to tend my little veggie garden. That gives me lots of time for other pursuits—like playing with the rest of my garden.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a veggie garden but are hesitating because you think it would be too much work and take too much time, consider SFG. Check it out at http://www.squarefootgardening.com/ If you prefer to read the book, it’s called Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew.

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Broccoli and Rice Casserole
Tara and Connie Clark

2 c. minute rice
2 pkgs. chopped broccoli
1 can of cream of chicken
1 can of cream of mushroom
8 oz. can of mushrooms
¾ c. diced celery
¾ c. diced onions
1 – 8 oz. jar cheese whiz
1 stick of sweet butter

Mix all ingredients, cover with foil, cut some holes for steam and bake in a casserole dish at 350 degrees for 60 minutes. Take off foil and back for 15 additional minutes until brown on top.

From the Grant Committee:

            Grant committee would like all Master Gardeners to think about the following proposal:

“In a perfect world, given unlimited funds: what do you think are the top three needs that our Master Gardener organization could use in order to become more effective or innovative partners with in our communities? “ 

            At the June meeting we will be passing out a questionnaire soliciting ideas.  For any member not attending the June meeting we ask that suggestions be submitted to any member of the Grant Committee via email: Gail Sklar, Liana Bauerle, Chantal Wildman, Marty Roelandt, or Cynthia Sabatini.

From the Board:

We mourn the passing of Debbie Hatton our good friend and fellow Master Gardener from the Class of 1989. 

She passed away suddenly on May 21st

ES Committee Tip of the Month

Be Water Wise

Approximately 50% of landscape water use is wasted due to evaporation, runoff and unnecessary watering. Be sure to mulch plants, use soaker hoses and water only in the early morning.

NEWSLETTER STAFF:

Editor: Barbara Smith
Web Designer: Kristi D'Amore
Committee: Linda Barry, Joe Daniels, Carolyn DiPaulo, Marianne Martin, Elsie Mueller, Marion Nelson, Cynthia Sabatini, Mary Sambor, Carl Pfeiffer & Arlene Pugh

Cooperative extension e-mail: DelawareExt@psu.edu
Blog Address: http://go.philly.com/gardenerjournal