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November 29, 2007
New Master Gardener Project Starting at Women's Shelter
Meetings postponed until January.
Linda Chan is starting a Master Gardener project at Northland Family Help Center's Women's Shelter. Ideas include landscaping, beautification, and maybe a vegetable garden.
We will hold a Meeting at her office to go over the blueprints and begin a design on Thursday, Dec. 6 at 5:00 pm at 3500 N. Fanning, Ste. A. It is the American National insurance office directly behind Jack in the Box at the corner of Fanning and Rt 66 on the East side.
We will also hold a Cleanup Day at the shelter on Saturday, Dec. 8 at 10:00 am. This will involve raking and pruning. If anyone has a pole pruner that they want to put to use, please let me know. Hand pruners are also needed. I will bring gloves and bags, a pair of loppers and 2 hand pruning saws.
Please e-mail or call me for directions to the shelter if you can come on Saturday.
If you are interested in this project, please join us on Thursday and/or Saturday. If you are interested but can't attend, please send Linda or me an e-mail. Linda, I and several Master Gardeners from the fall class have visited the site and we have several ideas of what might work for the Shelter.
Linda Chan can be reached at LSFarms@aol.com or 380-2612
Hattie Braun
Coconino County Extension
Master Gardener Program
Posted by maxmaddy at 3:01 PM
November 28, 2007
Save a Firefighter: Create Defensible Space.
Master Gardener Column 12/1/07
A year ago five firefighters were consumed in flames a hundred feet high, thousands of feet above Southern California’s San Gorgonio Pass in the San Jacinto Mountains. A few miles from Idylwild, they were protecting a vacant vacation home. Caused by arson, the fire morphed wild, driven by powerful Santa Ana winds, as it roared up steep, flue-like mountain sides through dry, volatile chaparral, destroying 34 homes and burning 40,000 acres. It was the worst wildfire-firefighting disaster since 1994.
Just as have the Southern Californians, we’ve built our homes into the wilderness. The least of our worries is the elk and deer eating our tulips. The real worry is wildfires. Such a disaster could happen here in the high country. After years of drought our ponderosa pine forest is just as vulnerable to fire as were the parched hills of California.
Closer to home in 2002 the Rodeo-Chediski fire raced through several White Mountain communities wiping out an estimated 467 homes. As many as 30,000 people were evacuated, and fortunately no lives were lost.
As homeowners, we aren’t helpless. We can create defensible spaces around our homes to protect them and also give firefighters a fighting chance to save them in the event of a wildfire. A defensible space is the buffered area around our homes where vegetation can stop or slow the spread of wildfire.
We can create a defensible space first by removing all flammable vegetation within 15 feet of our homes, not just from the foundation but also the eaves and decks. In areas where the danger of wildfire is greater, the distance should be 30 feet.
After removing flammable vegetation, we should prune branches overhanging the roof and chimney and any branches touching the roof so that the branches don’t become firebrands, setting our roofs on fire.
After that, prune branches within 15 feet of our homes and 10 feet above the ground. Remove shrubs, small trees, or other potential "ladder" fuels from under large trees. Left in place, flames can climb these ladders, carrying a ground fire into the crowns of trees where it can run with the winds from tree to tree.
Away from our homes, thin out any trees and brush forming continuous covers, thinning trees to 10 and 12 feet between the edges of the trees’ crowns.
Mow dry grass and weeds around the house to a height of 6 inches or less. This is particularly important during our dry, windy springs before plants have greened and in the fall when grasses have dried.
Stressed, diseased, dead, or dying trees and shrubs should be cleaned out. The remaining larger trees and shrubs should be pruned and thinned to decrease their flammability.
Keep roof and gutters free of leaves, needles, and other debris.
And finally, rake up pine needles. As fire raged near Lake Tahoe last June, one homeowner attributes the survival of his home to the fact that he raked his pine needles. The flames burned into his backyard right up to the line where he’d raked the pine needles.
Pine needles are all right as winter mulch for less-than hardy or new plantings, but they have to be raked up before the start of the fire season in spring.
Even though the cold of winter has set in, now is the time to create a defensible space before the snow flies. It’s smart to get it done well before the advent of fire season. Playing catch up with fire is playing with fire.
Creating a defensible space doesn’t mean foregoing beautiful landscapes. Barren landscapes aren’t the best defense. Carefully planned green landscapes are the most effective defenses, especially if they’re well maintained. Arizona Firewise has several publications to help design a fire-resistant landscape, as well as additional information on keeping our property safe from wildfire. Go to: cals.arizona.edu/firewise/howto.html.
Firefighters deserve our gratitude. Our duty is to help them by making our properties easier to protect. Defensible spaces make it safer for them when they’re protecting our homes during a wildfire.
By Hattie Braun
(Dana Prom Smith is the volunteer coordinating editor for the Master Gardener Column and a Master Gardener volunteer. He can be contacted at stpauls@npgcable.com. Hattie Braun is the Master Gardener Coordinator for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call 774-1868 ext.17 or visit our Web Site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.)
Posted by maxmaddy at 2:50 PM
November 24, 2007
Shoot Out At Thanksgiving
Master Gardener Column 11/24/07
Several years ago meine Überfrau and I had a shoot out at Thanksgiving over the gravy. She asked me to make the gravy and stuffing, writing out the steps for gravy making. I compressed a couple of steps. The gravy clotted with free-floating lumps. “I just knew it!” she said. “You’re always taking short cuts. You’ve just ruined the whole dinner.” A former first-class flight attendant during TWA’s days of glamour and glory, Gretchen likes things “just so.”
A tense time was had by all. The gathering was composed of people who ordinarily don’t sit down together for dinner. An inclusive dinner, we invited my mother-in-law and my former wife. My children, all adults at the time, not wanting their mother to be alone on Thanksgiving, asked us to invite her. We also invited two couples, a veganesque Wiccan priestess who ate all the mixed nuts and her husband, a hummingbird feeder salesman, and an Assyrian Orthodox deacon and his Sephardic Jewish wife from South Yemen. A malaise underlay the gathering until dispelled by Gretchen’s magnificent feast.
Some gardens suffer the same malaise, something is going on in the garden just below the surface, resulting in a garden that doesn’t thrive. As my mother used to say of my academic achievements, “The potential is there, but the actual isn’t.” The alpha and omega of successful gardening is soil, and soil is “what you make of it.”
The best guests for a soil dinner are those strangely-worded creatures called mycorrhizae which are not discreet entities like a rock or a gas tank, but fungal associations or symbiotic relationships between nutrients in the soil and the roots of a plant. Growing in the tips of plant roots, they are little strands of fungi that pass from just outside the root to inside it. Spooky looking, they resemble a diaphanous spider web or that gossamered stuff used at Halloween. Of course, they can’t be seen with the naked eye, lying well below our visual radar screens.
In corporate-speak mycorrhizae are facilitators and in psycho-babble enablers. Although, they can be bought, it isn’t necessary because they’re in the soil already, but to function effectively they need soil amended with organic matter, such as vintage cattle, horse, or chicken manure and compost.
Some mycorrhizae are good and some bad. The good ones are called mutualistic and the bad ones parasitic. If the soil isn’t composted and too much artificial fertilizer is used, especially heavy doses of phosphorous, the mycorrhizae sometimes turn bad or parasitic. Ironically, sometimes fertilizing a garden with artificial fertilizer withers the plants.
Indeed, as in life, good relationships mutually benefit everyone in the relationship. The plants take up the nutrients and release carbohydrates to the fungi all because of the mutualistic mycorrhizae. Everyone wins. The parasitic mycorrhizae suck nutrients out of the plant and don’t deliver carbohydrates to the fungi. Everyone loses. The mycorrhizae facilitate or enable the plant through its roots to take up nutrients from the soil.
As the middle men of a thriving garden, mutualistic mycorrhizae are the sine qua non of gardening. They improve nutrient and water uptake, root growth, and plant growth and yield. They also reduce transplant shock and drought stress.
Amending the soil with organic matter does something else. It helps save the planet, by replenishing the earth rather than consuming it, by cooling the planet through water conservation and foliage rather than heating it with concrete, asphalt, and gravel. It’s thinking globally by sustainable gardening locally. What better way to thank God at Thanksgiving than having a sumptuous feast of manure and compost for the earth!
The Sephardic woman from South Yemen and I got along swimmingly because we both spoke the same Sephardic dialect of Hebrew. She rescued the gravy, vigorously smoothing it out with a wire whisk. The stuffing turned out well. I had read and followed the directions. “For just once in your life, why don’t you do as you’re told?” The shrinks tell us that men often marry women like their mothers.
By Dana Prom Smith
Dana Prom Smith is the volunteer coordinating editor for the Master Gardener Column and a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. He can be contacted at stpauls@npgcable.com. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call 774-1868 ext.17 or visit our Web Site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.
Posted by maxmaddy at 7:10 AM
November 18, 2007
The Benefits of Houseplants
Master Gardener Column 11/17/07
The more convenient our modern world becomes, the more toxic it becomes. Modern technology is to blame, such as our furnishings, building materials, and hygiene and cleaning products. They're called VOC (Volatile Organic Chemicals), a scary sounding acronym. Some of the materials included are adhesives, paints, carpets, synthetic building materials, deodorants, perfume, hairspray, photocopiers, computer screens, and printing devices. Added to those hazards are the old-fashioned polluters such as pipe smoking husbands. Even though they may be relegated to remote areas in the house, as is Dick, my sometimes irritated husband, they still pollute. For instance, the inside of a building may be 5 to 7 times more polluted than the outside. House plants more than ever are the answer to inside pollution.
As winter creeps in through fall's light frosts, I begin moving more tender plants indoors. As my husband trips over my two scented geraniums, he refers to this migration as my "winter jungle." Justifying my need to garden year round, I frequently tell him about the "benefits of houseplants," even reviewing and sharing with him this information. This is often futile as he threads his way through the "winter jungle."
NASA has come to the rescue and discovered what everyone else knew for a long time. House plants are good for us, not only physically but emotionally as well. The best thing that NASA did was to identify the house plants that are good for our bodies as well as our souls. In addition to finding out that house plants actually help improve the quality of air in the inside a house, they also improve our mood. Dr. Bill Wolverton, a NASA scientist, in a 10 year study identified the benefits of house plants. First, they release oxygen for us to breathe and then absorb our exhaled carbon dioxide. Many absorb the toxins in the air. They are particularly good at absorbing those linked to Sick Building Syndrome by filtering dust and dirt from the environment. They have been shown to reduce headaches, sore and dry throats, dry or itchy skin, and fatigue. Psychologically, they reduce stress by absorbing noise. They have actually cut recovery time from surgery.
From the NASA study 9 plants were rated as the best for their environmental benefits. They include:
-- The Acreca Palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens) releases lots of moisture into the air and removes chemical toxins. Beautiful, shade tolerant, it survives neglect. I often forget about mine in the guest bedroom.
-- The Lady Palm (Rhapis excelsa) is one of best plants for improving indoor air quality. Slow growing and is easy to maintain, it's resistant to insects and again likes shade.
-- The Miniature Date Palm (Phoenix roebelinii) is one of the best plants for removing indoor air pollution, specifically xylene. A slow grower, it can get very tall (6 feet) and needs good light.
-- The Philodendron is particularly effective in removing formaldehyde molecules as well as other toxins. Tolerant of shade and easy to care for, I have had the same plant since 1965, and given many of its children to friends.
-- The Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum) excels in the removal of alcohols, acetone, trichloroethylene, benzene and formaldehyde. It needs water because of high a transpiration rate, but tolerates shade. It has graceful white flowers.
-- The Dracaena fragrans 'Janet Craig' is one of the best plants for removing trichloreoethylene. A beautifully dark green plant, it tolerates neglect and shade.
-- The Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) is the best at removing air pollutants, especially formaldehyde, and for adding humidity to the environment. It requires water and misting, but mine does well with just the moisture hanging in the bathroom.
-- The Ficus 'Alii' is a new variety of ficus that helps purify the air. A sun lover, it grows easily and is resistant to insects although as with other ficus it drops leaves.
-- The Rubber Plant (Ficus elastica) is especially good at removing formaldehyde and other chemical toxins. It is bred for toughness and will tolerate dim light and cool temperatures.
Some other helpful plants are ivy, spider plants, chrysanthemums, gerbera daisies, snake plants, bamboo palms, and dragon tree. An 1800 square foot home should have 10-15 plants in order to filter the air and replace the oxygen. If this has whet your appetite, you can find more information at www.plantsforpeople.org. The site has more information about research and case studies from the workplace. Happy winter gardening.
Loni Shapiro is a Coconino County Cooperative Extension Master Gardener. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call 774-1868, Ext. 17 or visit our Web site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.
Posted by maxmaddy at 4:36 AM
November 16, 2007
Olivia White Hospice Garden Project
On Wednesday and Thursday we spent our last official week in the garden for 2007. Wednesday Kathy Pate, Cynthia Katte, Hattie Braun and I finished mapping the trees and shrubs in the garden. The plan is to have a completed map in the spring as a garden reference for donors and those interested in what the plants are. This has been a season long project with many helping, but it is finally reaching completion.
On Thursday, after a cold early morning the day turned out to be a great gardening day. David Hockman worked on fencing the aspen trees after one was destroyed by a deer. Karen Kent and Linda Daugherty finished mulching the roses. Leslie Penick tried out our new shredder/chipper. Elsie Ellis cleaned and filled bird baths and made sure the sunporch plants had enough water. I spent my time continuing to work on burying the drip system.
We have had a very successful season with many people to thank. When I look at the list I find it hard to believe we really did it all, but we always have many eager, generous and creative volunteers.
Garden Season Tasks Completed 2007
Drip water system installed in all gardens south of home
General clean-up, mulching, composting, watering and weeding of areas planted
Pruned, fed roses, and continued to work on Rose Garden structure
Planted many new trees, plants and bulbs
Set-up new birdhouse areas and maintained weekly
Replanted sensory pots/troughs/raised beds and color pots
Added 4 new hanging pots to the gazebo
Added several new color pots throughout the garden
Provided hanging baskets for Hodge Podge
Repaired several benches
Put up birdhouses on trellis and planted vines for screening
Moved greenhouse
Continued work on Tea Garden – plants and hardscape
Continued work on Faerie Garden – terracing, added art items, planted
Began work on Native Garden - added pathway (3/4 complete), began creating beds, pruned large ponderosa to create more space, moved oaks
Improved educational materials for residents
Completed Rose book for home with all roses in garden cataloged
Began re-mapping the garden with plans to create a book with donors next season
Involved residents as appropriate, by working with one resident in her room on planting activity, socializing with several families each week and sharing information about the garden
Harvested food for the home – tomatoes, zucchini, crookneck squash, lettuce, beans, potatoes and peppers
Assisted with burial of Olivia White’s ashes and plaque in garden
Fundraising
Adult & Children's Baskets sold at Hodge Podge
10% Day at Warners
Notecards created from paintings and sold at Hodgepodge, home, office, RN conference, Arboretum and 1st Friday Art Walk, Run for Your Life. Displayed at Eastside Library, Arboretum and Artist’s Gallery
Planned and held Tea Raffle/Auction on August 18
Material Donations:
Tea Pot - Mary Lou Parliman
Tea Pot & sign - Cynthia Katte
Catch tray for bird seed - Loni Shapiro
Pig Watering Can - Loni Shapiro
Tea Pots for the Tea Garden - Cynthia Katte
Annual plants from greenhouse - Mary Lou Parliman and Jacki Hainsworth
Materials for garden repairs - Allen Katte
Drill kit - Cynthia & Allen Katte
Rod Iron Faeries (2) - Karen Peters
Forsythia shrub - Sarah Cromer for Robert Maganá
Gladiola bulbs - Nick & Stella Lipinski
8 trees (6 aspen/2 popular) - Aspen Group, Butler and Lone Tree, LLC
$50 ($25 each for perennials/herbs) - Deborah Rusiski
Dragon Fly Rain Gauge - Paola San Martin
Pruning Shears - Sharon Super
Frog on a Stick - Cis Hawk
Spring Fairy for Olivia White $100 - The Hunter Family for Olivia White
Fall Fairy for Olivia White $150 - The Hunter Family for Olivia White
Sedum variety/artemesia - Jean Hockman
Compost - Dana Prom Smith & Karen Meyers
Penstemon Palmeri & Columbine - Catherine Sickafoose
Variety of perennials for the Faerie G - Joanie Abbott
Chipper/shredder - Betty & Ed Marcus
A variety of items for raffle/auction - Loni Shapiro, Cynthia Davis, Viola's Garden, Target, Charles & Betty Smith, Foxglove Gardening, Pasto's Restaurant, Abbey Garden Tea, Harriet Brown, Mary Carter, Moore From the Heart, Evelyn Haven, Norvel Owens Mortuary, Lynn Overend, Roberta Rogers, Catherine Sickafoose, Mary Swanson, Vista Landscaping, Jan Torney, Dana Prom Smith, Arboretum at Flagstaff
Labor Donations:
Garden volunteers…..
Laura Davis - Norm Erickson - Loni Shapiro - Nancy Palmer - Cynthia & Allen Katte - David Hockman - Marcia Lamkin - Ed Decker - Karen Kent - Leslie Penick - Cynthia Davis - Evelyn Haven - Marion Lopez - Judy Chen - Hattie Braun (consultations) - David Hill & Zane (spirits) -
Paula Andress - Linda Daugherty - Jillian Combrink - Chris Hochuli - Collene Barnhart - Carol Scholing - Kathy Pate - Erin Fink - Charlie Seby and Mom
Groups………
Olivia White Hospice Home staff, residents and families - Flagstaff Youth Corps / Emily & Mark Manone - Grand Canyon Youth / Reed Allen - Coconino County Adult Probation Community Service / John Gordon - Coconino High School / Sally Axe - Crew of 8 from GORE - Crew of 8 from AmeriCorp - Joanie Abbott (Foxglove Gardening) and a crew of 3 – installing the drip irrigation.
Fundraising……..
Trudy Hope (10 % day) - Jackie LaFave-Perkins (10% day) - Doug Grant - Heather Rogers -
Marie Mitchel (Tea) - Sue Broyles (Tea)
Plans for 2008
In addition to general clean-up, weeding, watering and planting:
Continue work on Faerie, Native and Rose gardens
Stain gazebo
Finish mapping and create a book from map with donors of trees, shrubs and
hardscape items listed for reference
Shelve greenhouse and begin to use in spring
Improve educational materials for Tea & Faerie Gardens
Create a compost area in garden
Begin designing and work on a rock garden south of gazebo
Create a sandbox area and a scavenger hunt game for visiting children
Set up more formal resident involvement procedures
2nd Annual Garden Party/Anniversary Celebration Fundraiser
Warner’s 10% Day
Enter Xeriscape/Native Garden contest ?
Enter County Fair ?
Over the next couple of weeks I will continue in the garden weather permitting - burying lines for the drip irrigation. I may also need to water if this drought continues as the drip is turned off for the season. If you need MG hours or just want to help give me a call or e-mail (522-8635/ maxmaddy@infomagic.net) and I will let you know when I will be in the garden. Thanks again to all of you who stepped in and helped this season. We will begin meeting in January for continuing planning for next season. Times for those meetings will be posted on the blog. Beside planning and just getting excited about our next season, we generally have something fun to do and some great food. Come and join us.
Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. Ovid
Loni Shapiro
Posted by maxmaddy at 5:40 AM
November 10, 2007
Hydrogeology of Northern Arizona
This seminar might be very interesting for those of you who would like to know the current state of our aquifer. Sorry that there is not location for the talk listed. Please contact Michael Hoenig if you are interested in attending. His email is mjh248@nau.edu.
This week's seminar speaker will be Don Bills of the U.S. Geological Survey here in Flagstaff. Don is a hydrologist with the Water Resources Division at the Flagstaff Science Center and his talk is titled, "Hydrogeology of Northern Arizona." Below is a copy of the abstract and the web address of the USGS website where you can find the complete report on "Hydrogeology of the Coconino Plateau and Adjacent Areas..."
http://az.water.usgs.gov/index.html
Abstract
Two large, regional ground-water flow systems occur in the Coconino Plateau and adjacent areas: the C aquifer and the Redwall-Muav aquifer. The C aquifer occurs mainly in the eastern and southern parts of the 10,300-square-mile Coconino Plateau study area, and the Redwall-Muav aquifer underlies the entire study area. The C aquifer is a water-table aquifer for most of its occurrence with depths to water that range from a few hundred feet to more than 1,500 feet. In the western part of the Coconino Plateau study area, the C aquifer is dry except for small localized perched water-bearing zones decoupled from the C aquifer to the east. The Redwall-Muav aquifer underlies the C aquifer and ranges from at least 3,000 feet below land surface in the western part of the Coconino Plateau study area to more than 3,200 feet below land surface in the eastern part of the study area. The Redwall-Muav aquifer is a confined aquifer for most of its occurrence with hydraulic heads of several hundred to morethan 500 feet above the top of the aquifer in the western part of the study area and more than 2,000 feet above the top of the aquifer in the eastern part of the study area near Flagstaff. In the eastern and northeast parts of the area, the C aquifer and the Redwall-Muav aquifer are in partial hydraulicconnection through faults and other fractures.
Posted by maxmaddy at 7:56 PM
UNDERSTOOD BACKWARDS, LIVED FORWARDS
Master Gardener Column 11/10/07
After I signed onto Social Security at 62, I began receiving “get ready” advertisements. First were cheery notes from the Neptune Society. Then, when I went on Medicare, they escalated. After my triple by-pass, they flourished. Insurance companies sent angst-laden, lachrymose messages, reassuring me of their profound concern about my eventual death and my survivors’ anguish as though these concerns had somehow slipped my mind. If I planned ahead, cemeteries offered bargain prices for graves, morticians for embalming, and Arkansas casket companies for caskets. All suggested financing, but no one proposed “buy now, pay later.” Finally, at 80 I got an advertisement from a crematorium. Immediately, images of the gaping, flaming maw of Don Bendel’s mile-long kiln flashed through my mind. Soon, I’ll see vultures circling in the sky, dropping leaflets of condolence.
However, lurking in this necrological avarice is a truth. Preparing for inevitabilities frees a person to focus on present. In addition to our memories, today is all we have. Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Today’s a flash in the pan without hope of living forward. I learned from my heart attack that if I wanted to live longer, I had to change what I ate. Oddly, some heart attack survivors continue to smoke and eat heart clogging foods. Perhaps, Freud was right about death instincts.
The same message is now being delivered to everyone. Unless we change the way we consume our planet, we are in danger of going coronary with floods and droughts. After ravishing our planet, we can hardly expect a tête-à-tête intimacy. Organically enriching the soil, as in composting, is the price for continued bounty.
Although the coming of spring cannot be proven, we assume it as an act of faith. Since the future is unknown and unknowable, save for our beliefs, planning for it is full of ironies. Albert Camus, the French philosopher, novelist, partisan of the French Resistance in WWII, and Nobel Prize winner of a generation previous, wrote: “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t a God and die to find out there is.”
Yet, planning ahead is a form of art as well as an act of faith. Art is first agitated in the artist’s mind long before it is ever crafted into an artifact. As with life, it begins with conception. Gardeners who’ve bedded their gardens down for the winter begin planning during the winter for the unknown of spring. Their minds’ eyes are canvases on which they express their wintered imaginations. As a “movable feast,” to use the Prayer Book’s phrase, gardens can be fashioned anew each year as the gardener’s insights grow with experience.
Louis Monza, the primitive painter, once said to me during an interview that his paintings began in his dreams. He would get up in the middle of the night to sketch what he had dreamt, and finally, in the morning, begin painting. Gardeners have the same opportunity with their limitless palettes. Monza drew from his unconscious processes in the depth of the night and painted in the daylight what he most deeply felt during those midnight watches.
Art is a confession of the artist’s faith just as a garden is an expression of the gardener’s. Sadly, some gardeners’ faith is bleak with graveled expanses, weed-choked yards, and neglected beds, expressions of a faith gone sterile, hunkered down, barren of hope, without love of the soil.
As Saint Paul wrote, “So faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” The gardeners’ greatest is a love of life and living things. Gardeners even pray for worms, those squirrelly, elusive creatures who enrich our soil. After the wintered midnight of the gardener’s creativity, spring’s day dawns and the gardeners can once again express their faith with their palettes and canvases, shaping their gardens’ designs, refurnishing the soil, and choosing the plants, bulbs, and seeds that best express their dream in the renewal of life.
By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call 774-1868 ext. 17 or visit our Web site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.
Posted by maxmaddy at 7:50 PM
November 9, 2007
Olivia White Hospice Garden Project
As the season winds down our crew at hospice has dwindled. There were only 3 of us yesterday. I continued to work on dead heading and general clean-up and watered some of the trees and shrubs. Leslie Penick helped by gathering large piles of pine needles to finish mulching the roses next week. David Hockman repaired the Rose Garden walkway. Betty and Ed Marcus donated a nearly new chipper/shredder to the garden. Leslie and I went to pick it up and learn how to operate it. It requires good upper body strength to start, but should be very useful with our new compost pile. Next week we will put it into action, after purchasing some goggles and ear plugs.
Next week may be our last official day in the garden - unless this weather continues.
Thank you this week to:
Betty & Ed Marcus for a shredder/chipper
Leslie Penick for gathering mulch and helping with the chipper/shredder
David Hockman for repairing our Rose Garden walkway
Plans for next week include:
Continued dead heading and beginning to use the chipper/shredder
Continuing to bury lines for the drip
Watering as needed
Putting up the last of the fencing for the aspen
We hope to see you on 11/15 in the garden. Parking is at the First Congregational Church on Turquoise just past Switzer Canyon Road. If you have questions please contact Loni Shapiro at 522-8635 or maxmaddy@infomagic.net.
Thanks,
Loni Shapiro
Posted by maxmaddy at 5:04 AM
November 4, 2007
Oliva White Hospice Garden Project
On Thursday we had a small crew of our regulars working on cleaning up the garden and finishing installing emitters for our drip system. Linda Daugherty came from Ash Fork again and helped plant the last of the fall bulbs, installed drip emitters, and helped make a tree out of a plum bush we have. Karen Kent brought her husband Gary and the created a compost area behind the house with cinder blocks. Karen also supervised the pruning and staking of our plum bush into a tree. This is not the ideal time for pruning (better in Spring when we will revisit), but minimal work was done on growing parts of the tree. Bottom branches were removed, now that the trunk is larger, so that its energy can go into growing the higher branches. We are trying staking to one side as the trunk is growing south from the tree, and will revisit that again in the spring.
Leslie Penick also helped with the pruning, emitters and compost. My Mom, Elsie Ellils, came and did her usual cleaning work - birdbaths, sweeping and she cleaned our tools before putting them back in the shed. Nancy Palmer came and added bulbs to the Faerie Garden. She also helped me continue to put away breakable items from the garden. Our greenhouse is full of hardscape. Next spring we will begin to floor and shelf it for plants.
Thank you this week to:
Nancy Palmer for planting bulbs in the Faerie Garden and putting away breakables for the winter.
Linda Daugherty for planting the last of the dafodils
Karen and Gary Kent for creating a compost bin
Karen, Linda & Leslie Penick for adding emitters and pruning our plum bush into a tree
Dana Prom Smith for more of that black gold for one of our raised beds.
Plans for 11/8/07 - 9am-12pm:
Repair sand and edging along Rose Garden walkway (post drip installation)
Continue installing drip emitters in the Rose Garden and surrounds
Most of our drip emitters are installed but the lines need to be buried
Continue to mulch and dead head the gardens as needed for winter
Continue fencing the aspen
We hope to see you on 11/8 in the garden. Parking is at the First Congregational Church on Turquoise just past Switzer Canyon Road. If you have questions please contact Loni Shapiro at 522-8635 or maxmaddy@infomagic.net.
Thanks,
Loni Shapiro
Posted by maxmaddy at 6:56 AM
Hoop House Gardening in the Summer: Insect Control
Master Gardener Column 11/3/07
Last February the Arizona Daily Sun published a column in which I highlighted my experience growing greens for much of the winter using a Quonset-style greenhouse or “hoop house.” This time, I want to share my experience with using the hoop house for insect control on my kale crop. As many gardeners know, kale is a magnet for many insect pests.
Why do I grow kale? First of all, it is high in vitamin A, calcium, iron, and potassium. In addition to its nutritional value, kale is delicious to eat, beautiful and very hardy. Started from seed and planted in the garden in August 2006, my kale plants are still producing well over a year later.
This spring, when my kale started to go to seed, I cut off the florets. Rather then sticking the florets in the ground to root and start new kale plants, I decided to eat them. To my delight, they proved to be more delicious and succulent than my freshly picked broccoli. As I cut and enjoyed the kale florets, the plants quit flowering and sent out new tender, delicious leaves.
I had a healthy kale crop all summer and fall unlike the crop I planted the year before. Those plants were overcome by the grasshoppers and aphids. What did I do differently this year? I modified my hoop house to keep those pests out.
Gale-force spring winds wrecked havoc on the plastic cover of my hoop house causing the seams to separate and creating gaps for insects to enter the house. At the first sign of insects, I removed the damaged plastic from the top of the hoop house, but left the plastic intact around the base. I draped cheesecloth over the top of the hoops and secured it with clothespins. I purchased the cheesecloth at a local fabric store. Because cheesecloth comes in a 36 inch width, I had to sew two widths together. Seam binding over the seam made sewing the loose weave of cheesecloth easier.
This combination of plastic and cheesecloth not only kept the insects out, but protected my plants from wind and kept the soil from drying out. A few grasshopper nymphs managed to find their way into the hoop house but I quickly caught each one and released them outside to feast on the native plants that grow abundantly in the rest of my yard.
With my sprinkling can in hand, I could walk around the hoop house and water right through the cheesecloth. A hard rain created gaps in the weave of the cheesecloth, some big enough for grasshoppers to get through. I added another layer of cheesecloth over the first. Cheesecloth costs less than a dollar a yard.
Aphids are an infuriating pest on kale. My hoop house protected my plants from aphids; only one kale plant and several surrounding radishes were affected. I had let the radishes go to seed and they acted as trap plants for any aphids that managed to sneak into the hoop house. After I pulled up these radishes and the one infected kale plant and composted them, I only found a few aphids on a leaf or two when I harvested my kale and broccoli. These I could easily wash off. That was the extent of my aphid problem.
Will the kale last another winter? Only time will tell. I’ll keep you posted.
By Rebecca Snow
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call 774-1868 ext. 17 or visit our Web site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.
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