Digging in Dodge. April 2018 Issue 2. HoNoR Intermediate School

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1 April 2018 Issue 2 Dodge County Master Gardener Association Digging in Dodge HoNoR Intermediate School Photo by Carol Shirk Inside this issue: Class Activities 2 Strawberries 3 Watermelon 3 Cucumbers 4 Carrots 4 Bean Report 5,6 Master Gardening 6 Soils 7 Fun With Soils 8 The Dodge County Youth Master Gardeners at HoNoR intermediate school is the newest group to join Youth Master Gardeners. Our first meeting was at the beginning of October The HoNoR school district was formed in July of 2016 by the merger of three small rural districts along the eastern edge of Dodge county; Herman #22, Neosho J3 and Rubicon J6. All three were K8 districts feeding into the Hartford Union High School district. The intermediate school occupies the former Rubicon school building located on County Road P, about a half mile south of State Road 60. Younger students from the elementary school in Neosho ride a transfer bus arriving just as classes are dismissed at the Intermediate school. School staff has been enthusiastically supportive. This includes the janitorial staff that has had to deal with the inevitable spills of soil samples and potting mix as we study soil structure and plant propagation. We have been given access to space for a vegetable garden to the south of the building and will also be taking ownership of some of the foundation plantings nearby for a pollinator garden. Last fall we laid out the vegetable garden and killed the sod. Hopefully this will give us a head start on any perennial weeds. The garden will be tilled with planting beginning mid-april, weather permitting. Seedlings of early season crops were started March 21 st. Weeds had overgrown the foundation plantings and we removed them and weed barrier that was no longer functional from around fifty linear feet of beds. There remains considerable more of that to be done this spring and summer. We will be planting a selection of pollinator friendly plants, such as milkweeds for Monarch Butterflies and parsley, dill and fennel for Swallowtails. The goal is to provide a season long supply of pollen and nectar. As may be fitting for the newest group it is also the youngest. Of eight active members we have four kindergarten students, two first grade and one each in 5 th and 6 th grade. It has been a pleasure to see the amount of mentoring the older kids give the younger ones. I look forward to watching these young gardeners grow along with the gardens they are building. I want to thank master gardener volunteers Dennis Loomis, Joan Loomis, Lynn Stanton and Thuy Tong for their hard work and help with this project. John Schellinger, MGV

2 P a ge 2 D igging in Dodge I s su e 2 Class Activities Painting pots in preparation for a project on vegetative propagation. Liz Herzmann, DNR Specialist, showing students how bats use echolocation to find their food. Making color wheels to illustrate the concepts of how colors work together. Identifying flower parts.

3 P a ge 3 D igging in Dodge I s su e 2 Fruits and Vegetables S t r a w b e r r i e s B y : S t e p h a n i e W a l l a c e M y f a v o r i t e p l a n t i s s t r a w b e r r i e s a n d t h e l i t t l e d o t s o n a r e s e e d s. S t r a w b e r r i e s c a n b e b l u e a n d p u r p l e! I s n t t h a t a m a z - i n g! S t r a w b e r r i e s a r e t e c h n i c a l l y o n l y t h e t h i c k e n e d p a r t o f t h e s t e m a n d n o t r e a l l y b e r r i e s. S t r a w b e r r i e s a r e b r i g h t r e d w h e n t h e y a r e r e a d y t o e a t a n d c o n t a i n l o t s o f v i t a m i n C a n d t a s t e r e a l l y s w e e t. S t r a w b e r r i e s d o n o t c o n t i n u e t o r i p e n a f t e r t h e y a r e p i c k e d. S t r a w b e r r i e s g r o w o n s t e m s. S t r a w - b e r r i e s h a v e s e e d s o n t h e m. S t r a w b e r r i e s c a n a l s o b e y e l l o w b l a c k a n d w h i t e. S t r a w b e r r i e s a r e t h e o n l y f r u i t w i t h s e e d s o n t h e o u t s i d e o f t h e m. S o m e s t r a w b e r r i e s a r e w h i t e w i t h r e d s e e d s o n t h e o u t s i d e. Why were the strawberries so upset? Because they were in a jam! Watermelon There are a lot of kinds of watermelon. Watermelons are green, red, orange and yellow. Watermelon is a tender warm season vegetable. Watermelon can be grown in all parts of the country, but the warmer temperatures and longer growing season of the southern areas especially favor this vegetable. Gardeners in northern areas should choose early varieties or use transplants. By: Luke Ehmke How to Grow Strawberries Strawberries appear to grow on vines but they actually grow on runners. Runners help strawberries spread across the garden. In one year a strawberry can produce up to fifty runners. The green leaves on the top of the strawberry is the crown. The crown is on the top of the soil surface. By: Skyler Schmidt

4 D igging in Dodge I s su e 2 P a ge 4 Fruits and Vegetables. Carrots I like carrots because they taste good. The carrot is the root of the plant. You plant carrots seeds in the garden in spring. They need to be planted one half inch deep and one half inch apart in rows. They then need to be thinned to three inches apart, Carrots need fifty to seventy-five days to grow before harvest. You can eat carrots raw or cooked. They contain lots of vitamin A. I like to eat them raw best. By: Grace Ehmke Fun Activity Cut the top off a carrot leaving about ½ an inch of the orange part and ½ an inch of the green stem and leaves. Press the carrot piece into damp sand or soil in a saucer or a bowl. If sand and soil are not available, you can just use water! Place the dish on a windowsill or another place the carrot will be exposed to sunlight. Soon, new leaves will emerge and you will have a plant! The root will not regenerate, but it is possible to grow new foliage. (Fun Activity: Oregon Harvest for Schools)

5 D igging in Dodge I s su e 2 P a ge 5 Fruits and Vegetables BEAN REPORT BY: ETHAN GROH TIPS Before you start planting here are some tips: -they need full sun, -they need soil with organic matter (compost) well drained. -they need half an inch of water per day, -it prefers temperatures of degrees f. COMPOST BROWN AND GREEN MATERIALS Brown materials and green materials make up compost. Compost is a mix of food scraps and leaves and grass clippings etc. BROWN MATERIAL GREEN MATERIAL - dried leaves and grass clippings - alive leaves and grass clippings - sticks and logs - food scraps (not meat or dairy) - sawdust (not too much) - pine tree needles brown material has carbon - chicken poop Green material has nitrogen What not to put in compost: dairy, kitty litter, meat, and poop of animals that eat meat WHAT WILL YOU SEE IN SAND? - the beans should be about 1 centimeter in one week based on my assignment growth sheet. - in two weeks you should see leaves and little pods on a 21 cm plant. - in three weeks you should see the same things on a 32 ½ cm plant but they might be bigger. WHAT WILL YOU SEE IN CLAY? - after one week you should see little sprouts at least 3 cm tall based on my assignment. - after two weeks you should see 32 cm stems with leaves and little pods on them. - after three weeks you should see 39 ½ cm stems with the same things on them but they might be bigger.

6 P a ge 6 D igging in Dodge I s su e 2 WHAT YOU SHOULD SEE IN POTTING MIX - in one week you should see 2 cm stem sprouts. - in two weeks you should see 25 cm stems with leaves and pods - in three weeks you should see 30 cm stems with the same things on them, but they might be bigger. WHAT YOU SHOULD SEE IN A MIX OF EQUAL AMOUNTS OF ALL THREE THINGS - after one week you should see ½ centimeter sprouts. - after two weeks you should see 28 cm tall stems with leaves and little pods - after three weeks you should see 39 cm tall stems with the same things on them, but they may be bigger. LET S GET PLANTING! Find your sunniest spot then dig a hole about two inches deep in sand ½ to ¾ deep in clay. MASTER GARDENING What is it? It is a class for kids to learn about gardening, work in community gardens, plant their own garden and do experiments on plants. I think all kids who like gardening should be in this club. Thanks for reading. Master Gardening My favorite thing about this class is that we are always doing something cool like planting plants like the beans. The pumpkin is famous because they can be used for many things like making jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. Pumpkins can be used for foods like pumpkin pie and pumpkin seeds. But enough about pumpkins, lets go back to master gardening. You learn stuff about gardening like how to remove prickers properly and you get to go outside and make a garden if you didn t already. Wait until the soil is 70 degrees F or more before sowing seeds. Fact = Plant seeds in a row. By: Shane Joeckel

7 P a ge 7 D igging in Dodge I s su e 2 Soils Your Soil By: Bella Ridley Have you ever wondered how much silt, sand, and clay is in your garden? In our garden we have more clay than silt or sand. Do you know how to find out if how much silt, sand, and clay you have? First, go out to your garden and get some soil. Once you have dug that up, get some newspaper so you don t make a mess on your table. Then, you need a spray bottle full of water and spray your soil until it is nice and moist, remembering you do not want mud. Next, take your soil and form it into the shape of a ball, ribbon it through your hand and let it hang. If it hangs and doesn t break you have more clay than sand or silt, but if it does break you have more sand or silt than clay. Judging by if your ribbon breaks or doesn t break give an idea on what you have in your garden. Finally, take a plastic soda bottle and fill it halfway full with soil and the rest with water, put the cap on and shake it. All of the sediments will settle show you how much of what you have in your garden. The amount of silt, sand, and clay you have in your garden is important to know because that will help you know what will grow well and what will not. Tristan's Soil By: Tristan Tornow, My family and I live in Portage, WI out in the country. We have very sandy soil at our house. In our garden, my Dad brought in back dirt to grow our vegetables. However, behind our house we grow asparagus. Asparagus loves sandy soil! It also loves the ashes from our woodstove. I love helping my Dad in the garden and watching the deer eat from our food plot. I liked the activity in gardening class where we brought soil from our home and we put it into bottles with water and shook them up. After we let the soil sit for a week, it separated into sand, silt and clay. I found out that the soil from my house has a lot of clay. By: Timmy Cameron

8 D igging in Dodge I s su e 2 P a ge 8 Working with soil is FUN! Hand texturing to determine clay, sand, or silt soil. Chris Miller, soil scientist, taught the kids about soil particle size. They ran soil through a series of sieves to show how soil is made up of various sizes.