The Mason Jar Mason County WSU Master Gardener Newsletter MG Highlights:

Transcription

1 Mason County WSU Master Gardener Newsletter MG Highlights: Plant sale happens May 9 & 10. Month and year Office Clinic needs volunteers. Rain Garden needs someone to schedule work parties to keep it weed free. Mark yourcalendars: September Sound Gardening Advanced Education Conference in Tacoma. Inside this issue: Minutes from General Mtg. 2 Plant Sale Report 3 Minutes cont. 4,5 Volunteers Needed, Day of Caring, MG of the Month for Jan. 6 Seeds For Thought R. Jeanne Rehwaldt Hi All! Spring is nearly here and I hope you are all ready to get out in your gardens and spruce them up for the season. This edition of the Mason Jar is filled with lots of volunteer opportunities, so don t be shy. Step up and volunteer on a project that interests you. We also have need for volunteers at the office clinic. Please send Michelle an if you want to sign up for a date.. I will be out of the office taking a trip to Mazatlan from April 7-16, periodically checking my , but if you have an urgent need, please contact Michelle or a member of the board to assist you. As I m sure you are all aware, being a coordinator for an entire program and only having one day per week to do it, I am spread really thin. After meeting with our Director this morning, I have decided not to hold Basic Training this fall. The next training will be in the fall of Hold on to your garden gloves and shovels, the busy season is about to begin and I have no doubt you will all be ready! Plant Sale, Garden Tour, Catalyst Park, Pioneer School Garden, Senior Center, Office Clinic...here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy Gardening to all:) Master Gardener Contacts 7 Garden Tour Update, Calendar: April 8 9 Save The Dates PLANT SALE MAY 9 & 10 Garden Store looking for items! Volunteers needed! GARDEN TOUR JULY 12 Docent volunteers needed! Lucas Patzek

2 Page 2 Minutes from March 10, 2014 General Meeting Welcome/call to order by Pat Carpenter/introduction of members and guests Timberland Librarian note the following events that MGs are invited to at the Shelton Timberland Library: March 18 Canning and Preserve Your Own Food, 6:30 8 p.m. March 29 Three Common Herbs for Springtime Health, 10 11:30 a.m. Guest Delphina Liles HOST program, update on Hope Garden Ten students working in the garden; Federal Grant was received in October 2013 Want to build some hoop houses and requesting help from MGs Would like three measuring 12 x14 ; $450 budget for all expenses Need: consult staff about a suitable design for the garden, generate a materials list and build around March 25 th, asking for 2-3 MGs to work with students and help to build hoop houses. Consultation group will meet tomorrow up at Catalyst while MGs are working in the garden. Officers reports Treasurer s report In secretary s file Vice president s report & programs Lisa Henderson Diane from Grub will talk today about kitchen project Pat will talk about grafted maples; learned on YouTube Whitney Gardens tour and then visit the Hatchery gooey ducks; May 19 th all day field trip; need a headcount by April to plan for lunch etc. Talked to Chris / berry farm owner in Matlock; tour set after the June 9 meeting Secretary s report Christy Rowe Nothing to report; minutes will be in the next Mason Jar newsletter Foundation Rep. report Jan Mutter Quarterly mtg. March 14 th and Jan won t be here. Can someone in WSU office do the tele conference to represent our county? Scholarship award time to see if we have any candidates. April 23 deadline. $1000, on to college in the agricultural field In celebration of creating Grays Harbor's first arboretum, Westport Winery is hosting its inaugural Arbor Festival on Sunday, April 13, from noon to 4p.m. As part of this event, the Grays Harbor and Pacific County Master Gardeners will unveil a bench in the winery's new Don Tapio Dwarf Conifer Collection in appreciation for Tapio's considerable service to the community. This dedication will be held at 2 p.m. in the winery gardens. A reception will follow under the winery's solar panels. There is a restaurant on site also. Coordinator s report Jeanne R. Don Tapio (see Westport Winery note above in Foundation Report) Survey WSU statewide program survey -.5 program support credit for doing the survey online and Jeanne will send out the Prem. Guide for The Fair; still don t have a supervisor for Agriculture or Floral; Fair board will pay for supervisors to go to a training; March 31 st for Fundraising for Non-Profits in Tumwater Continued on page 4

3 PLANT SALE - HERE WE COME! May 9th & 10th Wallace Kneeland Park Page 3 Our park dates are paid for! Vender forms are sent! Sale layout is planned and many have stepped up to take lead positions to bring each piece into place. We are on a roll! This year s set up will start at 9 AM on Thursday. Keep alert for the schedule! The next 6 weeks are going to be filled with potting, tagging, pricing and the logistics of getting to the park on time. Every year we do this, we try to streamline our approach and work smarter as the sale has grown in size and profitability. This is our primary fundraiser. It provides the seed money for activities throughout our year and in some cases the total funding. This is truly an It takes a village project. It is a great way to get a nice chunk of your volunteer hours and to get to know your fellow master gardeners. For all of you that are growing plants at home please let Michelle know the kind and some details i.e., perennial, sun, shade, water, color. She is not only making the labels that you can then pick up at the office, she is also creating a file we ll use afterwards to evaluate sales and use as a planning tool. Last year it took approximately 3,000 plants for us to make our $9,800. The more we do now the better off we ll be on our set up day. Jan Mutter is our lead on pricing. She and those helping her are your go to people for figuring out a price based on size, condition and rarity. The goal is to make sure everything is tagged and priced before it comes in. We can do this! Our newest component is the garden store. It will be the very first pop up in the vender row. Its purpose will be to house and display all the non living items we have for sale. It will feature the fertilizer, books, magazines, cards, your craft items, and any gently used garden items or special vintage pieces you might want to find a home for. We needed a way to market these and protect any from the weather that might need that. It will be pretty interesting and exciting to see how this dimension plays out. With good product support, the initial number run indicates we can make $500-$1,000 once we get the store concept established. The hours you spend prepping and making items count towards your goal. Our next plant sale meeting is 4/3, the first Thursday in April. See you there. Below are some tufa planting pictures from this year s work party. Last year we made$640 on 42. This time we made and planted 60 plus a few small ones to sell at the store for people who might want to plant them themselves. PLANT SALE 2014 Save the Date!

4 Page 4 Empty Bowls fights hunger on Wed. March 12 th, 5 7 p.m., Mar. 19 th and April 9. Three sessions. Money goes to Saints Pantry. April 9th pick up bowl and buy soup. April 7 17 Jeanne will be gone taking a much needed break in Mazatlán. Committee and project reports Plant Sale 2014 Margie P. and Mary B. Saint s Pantry past Director passed away and services 11, Saint Edwards Plant Sale getting busier and busier. Dig team went out Friday and got a lot of plants; ten people showed up on Saturday to pot plants. Still have seven more bags that need to be potted. Jan will be lead on pricing the plants. Will s sister will be the Bubble Blower the day of the sale bringing some fun entertainment to the crowd. Working with Lou on procurement. Have 21 wagons donated for the sale days to assist attendees get their plants to their vehicles. Labels: Michelle has been making labels for people as requested; send lists to her to make the labels for the plants you are donating. Need more detail for the labels like sun, shade, good drainage, color of flowers etc. Use common and Latin names. Suggestion was made to the board; after sale, buy crushed rock and have Pioneer School spread over the driveway up for discussion. Would help with the muddy driveway from the parking lot to the greenhouse. Hoop house; Michelle got the plastic this past week-end and will work on a day to get up soon. Where should plants go if you want to donate? Deliver to hoop house so plants can get priced and labeled. If you have plants to donate, also ok to bring one sample of each to get Pioneer to get a label and price and then take labels and pricing materials home to price to avoid transporting trays of plants home to Pioneer to Plant Sale. Thru the Garden Gate classes Bonnie Two classes left March 15 & 22. Little glitch with the composting presenter so Ron Cummings from the conservation district will do the composting piece when asked at the last minute 34 attended the last class; all classes have been very well attended. Several people have come to more than one of the workshop Catalyst/Community Garden Bonnie and Sybil Catalyst / 3 p.m. doing a garden plan at WSU to figure out where everything will be planted; 4 p.m. Catalyst meeting. Starting to work on Tuesdays every week. Clean-up and potluck on Sunday, April 6 th. Everyone is welcome to come and help. Orientation for 16 gardeners was held last Saturday; 5 are new and the others are returning gardeners. Community meetings will be the first Saturdays every month. Pioneer Greenhouse Michelle Hoop House need to set a date and need volunteers to help. Tuesday (tomorrow) after 3 p.m. Greenhouse; tomato planting will be on March 17 th at 10 a.m.; all cleaned up and it has new shelves Questions: how do we handle garbage at Pioneer? Ok to put in the school dumpster but MGs should haul out their garbage if they can Mylar and lights are working ok; one pepper has come up so far Garden Tour Pat Carpenter/Lou Schmidt Next meeting not until April; organized and moving forward Party will be at The Colonial House because we got a special deal - $50 rent. Will be serving ribs and brisket with salads, wine and beer.. (Minutes continued from page 3) Continued on page 5

5 Page 5 Other items for discussion New project at new Senior Center site - Pavilion Gardens Board approved with the stipulation that the MGs would not be providing funding. Mari Ann Borgert and Jeannie Crandall from the new class submitted a plan. They will meet with the Senior Center, will do two fundraisers and would ask that their time counts towards their volunteer hours Apparel order status Christy will place orders on Thursday and the order should be back in two to three weeks Membership cards- now on sale - $20 Michelle has the cards. Benefit? Get one free TTGG class, get to pick out five plants ahead of time at the Plant Sale and 10% off the Garden Journal Master Gardener for January: Sherry Clemons Native Plant planting for the Plant Sale, sandwich boards for the Garden Tour Jeanne advised that Andrew Kinney has been getting a lot of phone calls since his TTGG workshop presentation and has done some house visitations. There is interest in resurrecting the pruning team. Residents would apply, the MG pruning team would go out and prune, teach people how to prune and encourage the homeowners to donate to the program. Consider doing this in the fall? If you want to be involved, send Jeanne an . Around the table sharing- What are you looking forward to this spring-what s new for your garden? Meeting adjourned at 11:30 p.m. Respectively submitted by Christy Rowe, Secretary Dates to remember Mar. 13 th Thurs. Catalyst Garden Committee mtg. 4 WSU Mar. 15 th Sat. TTGG Class-Composting & containers Memorial Hall Mar. 17 th Mon. Tomato planting with Michelle? Pioneer greenhouse Mar. 22 nd Sat. TTGG Class-Vegetables & Tomatoes Memorial Hall Mar. 27 th Thurs. Board Meeting-new day 1 WSU Mar. 28th Fri. Work Party at Pioneer 12:30? Mar. 30 Sun Work Party at Pioneer MAYBE 10 a.m.? Apr. 2 Wed. Work Party at WSU office / Rain Garden 10 a.m. 2 p.m. Apr. 3 rd Thurs. Plant Sale Meeting 5 Memorial Hall Apr. 6 th Sun. Community Garden Potluck Workday 10 Catalyst Apr. 10, Thurs. Catalyst Garden Committee Mtg. 4 p.m. at WSU Apr. 14th Mon. Next General Meeting 10:15 Library April 19 th Pioneer Greenhouse Planting 10:00 a.m. April in the Garden, from Through the Garden Gate Garden Journal If the soil temperature is 50 degrees F, it s ok to direct seed carrots, leeks, chard, greens beets and more peas. Plant gladioli, dahlias, calendulas, pansies and hardy transplants: alyssum, phlox and marigold Sketch out a timetable for planting your vegetables and annuals during the April spring showers Fertilize and prune spring blooming shrubs after flowering is complete One year s seedling, seven years weeding. Get out and pull / hoe those baby weeds now!

6 Page 6 Volunteer(s) needed for Extension Office Garden We really need someone to step up this year and take on scheduling maintenance of the Extension office garden. I have scheduled a day for weeding and planting and I will purchase the seeds and set the planting map (unless anyone feels inclined to do so). We have decided to plant just a few crops around the office and possibly some edible flowers to make an easily maintained garden. I can do a lot with helping to water most days since I will be there at the office anyway, but I will not have the time to manage another garden completely so I would really appreciate it if someone would step up and volunteer to be in charge of scheduling maintenance for the office garden. Possibly someone from the new class? That does not mean you need to be there every day to water and harvest and take care of the plants. You will help with planning (if you want) and planting and you would be in charge of setting up a schedule for water and weeding and making sure that it is getting done. You will be responsible for being at the office some days for a short time, especially soon after planting if you do not schedule other MGs to do it, but if this seems overwhelming at all, I will be able to help out a great deal. Please let Michelle Lapp know soon if you are interested. Update: Nancy Dillon has agreed to oversee the garden beds around the office, with the exception of the Rain Garden. Thank You!! Day of Caring Projects - From Michelle Lapp United Way's Day of Caring is coming up on June 17th this year and I was hoping to get in applications for projects at the gardens. If you have any suggestions or would like to help out for the day, please let me know. It would be great to have a project and crew at Pioneer school garden, Catalyst Park FB/Orchard area garden, and the children's garden. If you have and idea or want to head a project, I would greatly appreciate it, as I can only be at one garden during that day. I think this will be a great opportunity to get some serious work done in a short period of time! Master Gardener of the Month of February - Sherry Clemmens Congratulations Sherry for being nominated as the Master Gardener of the Month for January. Sherry has lived in Shelton for twenty nine years and became a Master Gardener nine years ago. She has always enjoyed gardening and owned her own business for a number of years called Garden of Weedun doing small landscaping and yard beautification for customers. She has shared her love of gardening with her two wonderful grandchildren. Granddaughter Isabella loves flowers and grandson Riley loves vegetables. She loves her flower beds and vegetable garden at home and says all flowers give her joy. But, the fragrant ones are the top of the charts! Right now, Sherry has a jasmine in a container that she has had for over ten years. The fragrance of her blossoms give me such pleasure! In addition to her love of gardening Sherry also likes to crochet, knit, cook and make items out of used glass such as beautiful bird feeders which she sold last year at the Master Gardener Plant Sale. Sherry is an asset to the MG program because she is always willing to jump in and help with projects and fundraising events. She volunteered to be in charge of buying plants from the Mason Conservation District s plant sale and potted all seventy three plants. She also recently taught herself how to make sandwich boards and has completed three boards for the Garden Tour. Sherry also devotes her time weekly to work at the Catalyst Park Food Bank Garden. Thank-you Sherry for your devotion and giving your time to so many MG projects and always with a smile on your face.

7 Page 7 CONTACTS: Office: 303 N. 4th Ave Shelton, WA Ext. 680 Fax Extension Staff: Lucas Patzek Interim Director Ext.680 lpatzek@wsu.edu R. Jeanne Rehwaldt Master Gardener Coordinator Ext. 688 rehwaldt@wsu.edu Michelle Lapp AmeriCorps Ext. 687 Michelle.lapp@wsu.edu Master Gardener Ext 687 Gardener.master@gmail.com Foundation Representative Janet Mutter Janmut@msn.com Executive Board President Pat Carpenter patandlexi@gmail.com President Elect Karen King isabellaeagle@gmail.com Vice President Lisa Henderson lshend@hotmail.com Secretary, Mason Jar Co-Editor Christy Rowe christyrowe7@gmail.com Treasurer Margie Plebuch quilted2@aol.com Directors at Large Sybil Jones sybiljones@hughes.net Erika Stewart akirgarden@hotmail.com

8 Page 8 Mason County Master Gardener s Garden Tour 2014 Last year saw the return of the Mason County garden tour after a four year hiatus. The event was a huge success and we feel the 2014 tour will be the same. This year all six gardens are conveniently located within the Shelton city limits which means less driving and more time for garden browsing. The gardens range from two small, artsy, densely planted gardens to a two acre estate with stately trees, mature shrubs, a large greenhouse and on site ceramic studio and gallery. Several of the gardens have vegetables and fruit trees and all have interesting plants. Catalyst Park which is the site of the Master Gardener s Food Bank and Community Garden will be on the tour. Come see what the hard working Master Gardeners have done to transform a weedy acre to a productive, vibrant garden. We think everyone is going to be delighted and will come away with ideas they can use in their own gardens along with an appreciation for the passion people put into their gardens here in Mason County. Mark your calendars for Saturday, July 12 th, hours are 10 am to 4 pm. Tickets are $12 and include a map and garden descriptions. Tickets will be available June 14 th at these locations around the county: Sage Bookstore and Lynch Creek Floral in Shelton, Hunter Farms in Union, Laurie s Gifts and Liquor Store in Hoodsport, and The Salmon Center in Belfair. Tickets are also available at the gardens on the day of the tour. Look for the pink signs around town. For more information call Master Gardener office at ext.688 or Pat Carpenter at MG Vest Order Update: The manufacturer advises that the pink vest are on backorder. The gray vests should be done by the first of April; the pink vests will be ready by mid-april. If you have any questions, please Christy christyrowe7@gmail.com. Garden Inspirations

9 March / April 2014 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri 28 Pioneer Work 12:30 30 (tentative) Work Pioneer to finish (if not don3 3/28) 6 Catalyst Park Work Party and 10 am - 2 pm? 13 Westport Winery Event Honoring Don Tapio 12-4 pm 31 Clinic: Jeannine P. 7 Clinic: Pat C & Regina J 14 Clinic: Volunteers Needed!! General MG 10:15 am Clinic: Bonnie Day Clinic: Volunteers Needed!! Garden work party WSU Ext. office / Rain Garden Plant Sale mtg.,5 Memorial Hall Board meeting 10 am 4 5 Sat