Marshall County, The Garden Gate

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1 12 Marshall County, The Garden Gate Published by: Marshall County Extension Staff, ~Robert Yoder, Ag & Natural Resources Educator ~Maria Casbon, HHS/ANR Secretary DROP BOX AVAILABLE!!! At the South entrance of the county building is a drop-box, labeled payment box. Label whatever you are putting in it for the Extension office and you can drop things off AFTER HOURS! Purdue Extension Marshall County Ag & Natural Resources Purdue Extension Marshall County Health & Human Sciences Find our Website: Address Service Requested PURDUE UNIVERSITY COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE Marshall County 112 W. Jefferson St. Rm. 304 Plymouth, IN Cooperating with U.S. Department of Agriculture

2 2 11 Calendar of Events Getting Your Herb Garden Ready for Winter By: Linda Strain The cooler days that we have already experienced are letting us know that the first frost is really not far away. As much as we often put it off, the time is upon us to prepare the herb garden for winter. We need to bring in our last cuttings for drying, gather the herbs in small pots for indoors that we want to use fresh over the winter and tidy up the garden area and prepare it for its upcoming winter dormancy. You do not want to do excessive cuttings at this time because it tends to promote new growth. You do not want the plant to put its energy into new growth when its energy should be directed to prepare for winter. Any annual herbs that you grew will die at the first frost. They can be pulled up now or kept going if you are still getting viable cuttings for fresh and dried use. Your perennial herbs need your attention too. If you have not already stopped fertilizing your herbs, you should do so now. If you continue to feed your herbs they will actively try to keep growing instead of becoming acclimated for the cold weather ahead. They will winter over in a much healthier state if you allow their growth to stop at this time. You do want to keep watering your herbs in dry times because if they are not getting enough water they will face winter in a more stressed state. October 5, 8, 19, 29 Master Gardener Intern Class at Marshall County Extension Office Rm. 304 from 6-9pm 12 Plant swap & Educational presentation Ponderosa 17 Master Gardener Intern Class at Marshall County Extension Office Rm Master Gardener Intern Class at Marshall County Extension Office Rm. 207 from 6-9pm November 2, 9, 16, 30 Master Gardener Intern Class at Marshall County Extension Office Rm. 304 from 6-9pm 3 Election Day (office closed) 7 Harvest Dinner 11 Veterans Day (office closed) 23 Master Gardener Intern Class at Marshall County Extension Office Rm. 207 from 6-9pm 26 Thanksgiving Day (office closed) 27 Office Closed December 3 Master Gardener Intern Class at Marshall County Extension Office Rm. 207 from 6-9pm 5 Breakfast Meeting at Ponderosa 9:00am 10 Master Gardener Intern Class at Marshall County Extension Office Rm. 304 from 6-9pm 24 Christmas Eve (office closed) 25 Christmas Day (office closed) Our October meeting is our annual plant swap! If you have beds to thin and plants to share, please bring them to our Plant Swap at Ponderosa Parking lot at 6:00 pm on Monday, October 13th. You never know, a new favorite for you may be available to take home. See you on the 13th!

3 10 3 GARDEN (Flowers, vegetables and small fruits) Cont. Remove plant debris from the garden to protect next year's planting from insect and disease buildup. Compost plant refuse by alternating layers of soil, plant material, and manure or commercial fertilizer. Have garden soil tested for fertilizer needs every three to five years. Plowing and incorporating organic matter in the fall avoids the rush of garden activities and waterlogged soil in spring. Fallprepared soils also tend to warm faster and allow earlier planting in spring. Carve a Halloween jack-o'-lantern. Dig tender, garden flower bulbs for winter storage. Gladiolus corms should be dug when leaves begin turning yellow. Caladiums, geraniums and tuberous begonias should be lifted before killing frost. Dig canna and dahlia roots after a heavy frost. Allow to air dry, then pack in dry peat moss or vermiculite, and store in a cool location. Complete planting of spring-flowering bulbs. Inside this issue Getting Your Herb Garden Ready For Winter Plant Swap & Educational Presentation..3 Women In Ag Marshall County Extension Board Annual Meeting Viceroys Wannabe Monarchs Viceroys Wannabe Monarchs Cont October Garden Calendar October Garden Calendar Cont October Garden Calendar Cont...10 Calendar of Events...11 PLANT SWAP & EDUCATIONAL PRESENTATION 2015 Master Gardener Officers President: Donna Napier, Vice President: Barbara White, Secretary: Norma Goodsell, Treasurer: Carol Nelson, Board Members Marion Ellis Jr. Amy Heinke Darlene Hlavacek The Master Gardeners will be having a plant swap on October 12th at 6:00 p.m. at the Plymouth Ponderosa. Karen Richey, Health and Human Science Educator, will be hosting an educational lesson on the do s and don ts of food preservation. Hope to see many of you there!!! We would love your help! If you are interested in contributing in a future newsletter, please let me know by the 15th of each month by ing mcasbon@purdue.edu or ryoder@purdue.edu. Thank you!

4 4 9 Strawberry plants need protection from winter's extremes, but applying winter mulch too early may cause crowns to rot. Apply winter protection when plants are dormant but before temperatures drop below 20 degrees F, usually late November or early December. Rake or shred large, fallen tree leaves such as maple, to prevent them from matting down and smothering grass. Raking smaller leaves, such as honey locust, is optional. Continue mowing lawn as needed. September and October are good months to apply broadleaf weed killers to lawns. Be sure to follow all label directions, and choose a calm day to prevent spray drift. GARDEN (Flowers, vegetables and small fruits) Harvest root crops and store in a cold (32 degrees F), humid location. Storing produce in perforated, plastic bags is a convenient, easy way to increase humidity. Harvest Brussels sprouts as they develop in the axils of the leaves from the bottom of the stem. Brussels sprouts will continue to develop up the stem. Harvest pumpkins and winter squash before frost, but when rind is hard and fully colored. Store in a cool location until ready to use. Harvest gourds when stems begin to brown and dry. Cure at degrees F for two to four weeks. Harvest mature, green tomatoes before frost and ripen indoors in the dark. Warmer temperatures lead to faster ripening. Asparagus top growth should not be removed until foliage yellows. Let foliage stand over winter to collect snows for insulation and moisture.

5 8 5 By: B. Rosie Lerner, Extension Consumer Horticulturist, Purdue University You want to remove any blackened stems of herbs to reduce the chance of carry-over of any plant disease. You can cut your plants back to about two-three inches above the ground and then surround them with a 3-inch layer of organic mulch. You should wait until after the first freeze before doing this. The mulching will keep the soil in the herb bed a more consistent temperature. HOME (Indoor plants and activities) Keep poinsettias in complete darkness for 15 hours each day - for example, between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. - for eight to 10 weeks until red bracts begin to show. Pot spring-flowering bulbs to force into bloom indoors. Moisten soil and refrigerate 10 to 13 weeks. Transfer to a cool, sunny location, and allow an additional three to four weeks for blooming. Houseplants, especially those grown outdoors during the summer, commonly drop some or many of their leaves in response to the lower natural light intensity in autumn and reduced light intensity indoors. Water indoor plants less frequently, and discontinue fertilizer as plants slow down or stop growing for the winter season. YARD (Lawns, woody ornamentals and fruits) Keep plants, especially newly planted stock, well watered until ground freezes. Have soil ready to mound roses for winter protection. Do not mound or cover roses until after leaves drop and soil is near freezing, usually late November or early December.

6 6 7 Monarch Butterfly Viceroys Wannabe Monarchs Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so English cleric Charles Colton wrote in It was one of the bits of wisdom that he included in his book Lacon; or Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those Who Think. Now almost 200 years later, this bit of wisdom might still be true. Apparently marketing executives think so. They spend millions of dollars on advertising campaigns where well-known celebrities hawk products and services. That is because many of us want to imitate those celebrities and are willing to part with cold, hard cash to do so. Think Michael Jordan and Air Jordan basketball shoes or Elizabeth Taylor and White Diamonds perfume. Then there is Eric Baldwin for Priceline.com and the Capital One Venture card that has also been promoted by the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and Jennifer Garner. Imitation isn t something that we humans invented. You might just say that we merely imitated what was a general practice in nature. Imitation has been around for millions of years in the animal and plant world. While some people imitate other people as an ego boast, imitation in the rest of the living world is a matter of survival. In general terms, imitation in the animal world boils down to one of two types: I want to be seen or I don t want to be seen. Either way, the benefit is to avoid becoming a meal for something. It is an eat-or-be-eaten world out there. Alfred Lord Tennyson summed it up in Canto 56 of In Memoriam by writing Tho nature, red in tooth and claw. Animals employ a number of tools including flying, jumping or running to escape ending up in the gut of some hungry predator. Some animals are able to defend themselves by biting or stinging. Other animals just hide from danger. A few resort to trickery through resemblance to something they are not. This is the use of protective coloration. Biologically, such protective coloration is called mimicry. In the world of insects, one of the best-known examples of mimicry is between the monarch and viceroy butterflies. The monarch is one of the most widely recognized butterflies in North America. This distinctive brown butterfly with the black stripes migrates northward from its wintering site in the mountains of Mexico each spring, and individuals two or three generations later return each fall. In between these two trips, some of which cover 2,000 miles, adult female monarchs oviposit eggs on milkweed plants that serve as food for their caterpillars. Milkweeds aren t the most hospitable of host plants because they produce an antifeeding chemical called cardiac glycoside. A few species of insects, including the monarchs, can tolerate this bitter substance when eating the milkweed. Not only do the monarch caterpillars tolerate the chemical, they store it in their tissues so they become bitter-tasting to potential predators. The cardiac glycoside is passed on to the butterfly when the caterpillar pupates. As a result, monarch butterflies are bitter-tasting to a bird that tries to eat one. That bitter taste lingers in the mind of the bird as does the color pattern of the butterfly, and, as a result, it will not try to eat another one. That is protective coloration for the monarch. Another butterfly that resembles the monarch in color and marking is the viceroy. The viceroy is a bit smaller and has a black line across the hind wing that is lacking in the monarch. However a bird that had a bad experience with a monarch as food will also avoid the viceroy. This historically had been called Batesian mimicry that is defined as a good-tasting insect mimicking a bad-tasting insect. For the system to work, the monarch model must be more numerous than the viceroy mimic. That is so predators learn quickly that the food item is bad-tasting without devouring the good-tasting mimics before the lesson is learned. Some scientists argue today that the viceroy also has a bad taste, and that means the system is really what is named Mullerian mimicry where two species that taste bad benefit each other. Either way, it is clear that the two species are mimics of each other. I suspect it is not just because the viceroy is trying to flatter the monarch by wearing the same outfit! By Tom Turpin, Professor / Insect Outreach / Instruction Development Specialist