Have a Gardening Question?

If you've got gardening questions, Master Gardeners have the answers. Master Gardener interns take an intensive course on everything from integrated pest management to lawn care and landscape design. After a year of volunteering in the community, they earn their Master Gardener Certification. Since the main focus of the MG program is education for the community through volunteers who assist county AgriLife agents, what better way than to answer questions from area gardeners? While a Master Gardener might not have the answer, he or she knows where to find it, with extensive training and research materials.

You can ask a Master Gardener your question every Sunday through March 21 from 2-4 p.m. at Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center in Orange. Certified Master Gardeners, Interns or Trainees from around the State of Texas will be available. The event is free to the public (does not include garden tour). Tours are available for regular fees. If the Master Gardeners don’t have an answer readily available, you can fill out a question card and they'll get back to you with the answer. Shangri La is at 2111 West Park Avenue in Orange and is open Tuesday through Sunday. For more information call 409.670.9113 or visit shangrilagardens.org.

Master Gardeners radio spots

Here's a shot I took a couple of days ago when the Master Gardeners went down to KVLU at Lamar University to record some public service spots in conjunction with the Texas AgriLife folks. That's Master Gardener Intern Kathy Attaway on the left and Master Gardener (and past president) Micah Shanks on the right. Intern Cecil Hightower didn't make it into the shot. Sorry, Cecil - I'll catch you later, maybe in your fabulous garden.

The spots air during the early morning on KVLU National Public Radio, 91.3.

How to Grow Plumeria

To become a full-fledged Master Gardener, we intern newbies are required to volunteer a certain number of hours to the community. As part of my volunteer hours, I, along with others, write and record "Out in the Yard with the Master Gardeners," brief radio spots broadcast on KVLU Public Radio. When I do those spots, I share them with you on the blog. Here's one on plumerias.

If you are charmed by the lovely flowers and heady fragrance of plumerias, spring is a good time to try your hand at growing this beauty. Plumerias are perhaps most closely identified as the flowers used in Hawaiian leis, although they are native to Mexico and Central America. As a tropical plant, it will require protection from frost or freeze in winter.

Plumerias will need at least 4 hours or sun to flower well. Although they can be grown in the ground in a sunny, sheltered spot with an overhang, planting them in a pot allows you to take them inside a garage or other sheltered spot when the temperature drops below 40 degrees.
Plumerias spend almost half a year in a dormant state, so don’t be surprised when they begin to drop leaves and turn into bare sticks. Water your plumeria to duplicate what it would experience in its native lands: a wet season followed by a dry season. During the growing season water frequently, especially during the heat of summer, but don’t let the soil stay soggy. Let it dry slightly between watering. When it starts to drop leaves in the fall, stop watering.

Plumeria seedling take 3 to 4 years to bloom, so unless you are patient, buy an established plant. Feed every other week with a fertilizer high in phosphorus, but stop feeding in September to allow the new growth to harden off before winter. Plumerias root easily; take cuttings sometime between February and May. Allow the new cutting to callous about 10 days before potting. Dip the cut end in a rooting hormone, place in potting soil and keep moist. Too much water can cause the cutting to rot, so pay attention to the moisture level.

Garden Blogs

Thursday night, I had the pleasure of speaking to the Jefferson County Master Gardeners group about blogging. Before the talk, I asked the group three questions: How many of you have ever read a blog, even once? How many of you read a blog regularly? and How many of you have ever blogged, either on your own blog or as a guest blogger? The answers surprised me a bit. Very few people had read a blog even once, let alone regularly. Not one of them had ever posted on a blog. During the talk, I used a laptop and projector to take the group to several blog sites and showed them what they could find, from plant profiles to seed exchange lists to Q&A's. The group was surprised to hear how many garden bloggers there are out there, and how much they had to offer.

After the talk, I asked how many now planned to check out a garden blog. About a third to half of the hands went up. I'm not sure how much they enjoyed my talk; I was battling a head cold that kept me feeling bad all weekend (which is why I haven't posted in three days) and my main goal for the talk was to be coherent. I do, however, consider the answer to my last response a success.



Thanks for reading

What I Learned - Days 9-10

As you can tell by the lack of posting the last few days, I've been busy. It's time to catch up.

Thursday, at the last seminar day of the Jefferson County Master Gardeners course, I learned:

Ideal soils contain 50% solid materials and 50% pore space. To improve pore space and water retention, till 3 inches of expanded shale into 3 inches of organic matter.

Once a plant has a virus, it always has it. Destroy it.

Integrated pest management is critical to the health of plants AND the environment. IPM is a strategy that avoids or prevents pest damage with minimum adverse impact to human health, environment and non-target organisms. The misuse of chemicals is a huge problem. More on this later...

The last day, we were supposed to meet at the Jefferson County Master Gardeners Test Garden at the airport but the weather had other ideas. The rain was heavy, so the morning was cancelled. Still,I sloshed around for a while, looking at the garden where I will be volunteering at least 20 hours of my time for the next few months. I learned the test garden includes a greenhouse, rainfall water harvesting system and composting. The more I learn about the Master Gardener program, the more I realize what a great resource it is to the area. This week, I'll post more about the program.

Master Gardeners Day 1

Today was the first day of the two-week Jefferson County Master Gardeners class. I was so excited about finally getting to take the class that I didn't sleep well last night. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, but it was much more - and better - than I could have imagined.

Today, we covered a lot of ground, from Earth Kind Gardening to plant growth and development.

Three things I learned today:

Glucose is the beginning of all growth, including plants. Such a simple formula - CO2 + H2O = H12O6 -with such life-altering impact.

Anything that contains a seed with maternal tissue around it is a fruit - including tomatoes and a pecans.

One pollen grain is needed for each egg (Yes, plants have ovaries and eggs) to be fertilized. Some have hundreds of eggs.

I also learned that, like the wonderful Dr. Dennis Franklin, who taught the Plant Growth and Development, I am a plant nerd. Yeah for me!

Choosing the right tomato

Now that tomato production has passed its peak, are you taking note of which varieties did best for you? Were some tastier than others, more meaty and less mealy?

The Jefferson County Master Gardeners and the Agri-Life people planted 19 varieties at the test gardens this year. Then, members conducted a taste test. Their choices for the best tasting three varieties were Wild Tomato, Celebrity and Better Boy. That's Celebrity pictured here.

Which tomatoes do you favor?

Becoming a Master Gardener

For years, I've wanted to take the Master Gardener short course, but never could manage to meet the schedule. This year is the year!

The course - the first step in becoming a Master Gardener - is offered only once a year. For 2009, that's July 20-31. The all-day classes - 9 am-4 pm - will be presented at the Texas AgriLife Extension Office (across from the courthouse) at 1225 Pearl Street, Suite 200.

It costs $150, and that includes all the classes and a 500-page manual. You'll get that back in knowledge alone that will help you avoid making costly mistakes.

Study topics include soils, plant growth, landscape design, herbs, perennials, pesticide safety, fruit production, butterfly gardening, budding and grafting and other aspects of horticulture. Texas A & M professors and local experts will teach the classes. After you take the course, to get your Master Gardener certification, you'll need to volunteer a certain number of hours in gardening-related activities in the community.

Want to be a Master Gardener? There's still time to sign up. Call Texas AgriLife Extension at (409) 835-8461. Space is limited.

Fresh produce!

Yeah!

It's almost opening day for the Jefferson County Master Gardeners Farmers Market. The market opens at 8 a.m. sharp Saturday out at the Master Gardeners Test Garden at the Southeast Texas Regional Airport, but people begin lining up long before that to get fresh produce directly from the farmers.

Look for string beans, new potatoes, squash, beans, blueberries, corn , onions, and maybe even tomatoes. According to Arthur Newman, market director, the weather has been so weird this spring that the timetable for produce to be ready might have shifted from what we're used to.

Gardening and kids

Most gardeners can pinpoint the moment they fell in love with watching things grow. Many of us were born into gardening families and never knew any other way. Our parents or grandparents always had a vegetable garden and fruit trees to keep food on the table and a flower garden to keep beauty and joy in their hearts. As children, we shared the bounty, learning what fresh peas, corn and strawberries still warm from the sun should taste like. Sitting on the front porch shelling peas or slicing fresh peaches, we drank in the sweet scent of gardenias, climbing rose bushes and jasmine.

The world needs more gardeners – and you can help carry on the legacy of the gardeners in your past by instilling a love of gardening in a young person’s life. Where to start? At home, of course, by providing your child or grandchild with a few simple tools that will fit their hands. Let them pick out some seeds and plant them so they can see the magic unfold. Buy them a seedling and teach them how to pot it, place in the right location and water it.

Or, invite the Jefferson County Master Gardeners to your school. Last week, my 11-year-old grandson Jordan proudly showed me a rosemary seedling in a plastic bag that the Master Gardeners provided his class.

“Where are you going to plant it?” I asked.

“Actually,” he said, using one of his favorite words of the moment, “It has its own environment,” explaining the evaporation/condensation cycle going on inside the plastic bag. I complimented his knowledge and suggested that the seedling would need to go outside soon, so perhaps we could plant it over the weekend. Remember how eveything needs three things to grow: food, water and light? I reminded him. That led to a discussion of the difference between fluorescent light and sunlight. Anything that convinces a 12-year-old to have a conversation with his Gram is a welcome blessing.

On April 2, the folks over at the McFaddin-Ward House provided an opportunity for youngsters to get started gardening with its “Green Thumbs” program for children ages 6-12. Future projects will be creating and maintaining a child's garden at the house, 708 N. 4th Street. For more details on their gardening and conservation programs for kids, call (409) 832-1906 or visit mcfaddin-ward.org