October, 2018 Project Reports Awards Banquet--Beth Roof Charlene Woeste Plant Sale--Karen Woeste/Beula Dvorak/Phil Pfister This fall, two new perennial beds were started at Lowe Park. The purpose of these flower beds is to keep a variety of sun perennials available for the yearly May Plant Sale. Each variety of plant may have from 5-8 plants, to encourage further seedlings each year. Currently, there are approximately 70 different types of plants in the new flower beds. We still need to put up a fence around the larger area. Master Gardeners will be able to donate plants to the beds by contacting Karen Woeste. Community Outreach Gardens -- Beula Dvorak See end of this report Creative Garden Series--Linda Eggleston and Kathy Hughes The 2019 series will be held at the Cedar Rapids Public Library on Tuesdays in April (excluding the first Tuesday). There will be 3 speakers, as usual, scheduled on the remaining 4 Tuesdays. This will give some flexibility to speaker schedules. We are now brainstorming speakers and will be contacting them soon. Demonstration Gardens (Lowe Park--open position) Expert Ed--Linda Hayward The 10 Expert Ed committee members met on October 8 th to plan for the 2019 year. Several speakers have been contacted Audrey Tran Lam (Good Neighbor Program), Nile Dusdieker (a presentation about Orchids), and Mike Anderson (a presentation about trees). Dates for these are not quite set. The Summer Webinars will be shown in the fall as in past years. Last webinar was shown on October 23, 2018 - Compost 101 and Growing Roses - 37 attended. The attendance to the webinars has been higher this year than in past years. Garden Walk--Phil Pfister Hortline--Doug Smith Number of client contacts and total number of questions for October are not available yet. Hortline budget for 2019 will is being worked on and will be sent in by November 8 th. Hortline Committee meeting will be held by the third week of November. Several topics will be discussed. Results will be in the next monthly report. Hortline is on winter hours now until February 28. We will be in the office from 10 to 12 Monday through Friday. One New Intern has done Hortline training this week. He will be scheduled as a Scribe in the near future. We have the Fall Celebration on Thursday November 8 th and will be recruiting new Hortline volunteers for training. Lowe Park Greenhouses -- Phil Pfister Over the next week or so, the greenhouse will be sealed up as well as possible to prepare it for winter. A work session has been held to check over and treat the plants that are being overwintered as stock Monthly Project Reports October, 2018 1
plants for propagation for the various events. A work session has also been held to repair the 3-bin compost turning unit. The unit has been relocated to the north side of the hoop house. The site where it previously sat will be where the Doris McElmeel memorial pergola will be placed. This project has been delayed several times. We are currently looking for a contractor who can install the footing for the pergola. New Bo Learning Gardens--Tina Allison Noelridge Park Greenhouse and Gardens -- Diane Stevens, Kathy Rhodes The months of September and October were spent inside the greenhouse transplanting cuttings from the gardens for the 2019 growing season, potting ornamental grass divisions, potting of bulbs to place in the cooler for spring, and trimming with cutting back of plant material. The Master Gardener's Herb Garden was cleared and put to bed for the winter. September volunteer hours at Noelridge totaled 105 with 48.4 of those MG hours. The October total was approximately 76.4 hours with 21 of those MG hours. Also at Noelridge in October, was the deflossing of milkweed seed pods for the Monarch Research Station and Planting for Pollinators project. There were 97.5 hours volunteered for this project of which 61.5 were MG & Intern hours. Volunteer opportunities at Noelridge have ended for the year. Plant Exchange -- Kay McWhinney On hiatus for 2018 Planting for Pollinators--Becki Lynch Project Independence--Karla McGrail We had group work day in early October and planted several ground-hugging shrubs and some ornamental grass on the difficult rocky hillside bordering the community garden. At this time, we had not yet had a killing freeze and the gardens were still colorful. School Gardens 101 (formerly From the Ground Up)--Deanna Thursby Our team is beginning to plan for next year, by preparing a budget and recruiting new members from the Master Gardener fall intern class. Speakers Bureau--Deb Walser Speakers buruea library talks educated 20 to 30 people at the Hiawatha library. November talks are at Ladd library on Wednesday and Marion library on Thursday Stipends and Scholarships--Mike Anderson, Sue Usher Nothing to report Winter Garden Fair--Julie Clemens WGF is going great. Most presentations have been scheduled for end of November thru December and into January. All class information has been sent to Kirkwood for publication Over 70 classes have been scheduled 34 vendors lined up so far, Linda is contacting additional vendors Tables have been lined up from A1 rentals Monthly Project Reports October, 2018 2
Johanna is working on the Registration site We will have door prizes, Janice has filled out paperwork for the gaming license WMT iheart Outdoor Living Show--Sue Usher, Barb Wing Nothing to report. Monthly Project Reports October, 2018 3
Community Outreach Gardens For the most part, the Community Gardens are put to bed for the winter. It has been a successful year for our community gardens, with some bumps and burps along the way as is true with all gardens & gardeners. Our greatest need is for some additional MGs and/or Interns to join our Community Outreach Gardens Project team so we can most effectively provide some regular informal education and support at the gardens. It s just gotten to be too much for just a couple to schedule and provide all that is desired. We welcome new members, with the anticipation that each will become an active member involved with one or more of our growing number of community gardens. I am happy to visit with anyone about more specific needs/activities of this project. Contact me at bdvorak4@aol.com or 895-8206 or message me at 319-540-1247. The rest of this report is the summary of our successful completion of our ISU grant received this year. Thank you to each and every Master Gardener who contributed any kind of work towards the fulfillment of the ISU Grant for our Donation Community Gardens again this year. To my best calculation from information received at least 24 MGs and at least 47 additional community members participated in the garden work for this grant project. Thirteen community gardens were involved: 1. Marion Uptown 2. Catherine McAuley 3. Wellington Heights 4. Olivet Missions 5. New Bo 6. Hiawatha Elementary School 7. Tanager Place 8. Horizons 9. Dept. of Corrections 10. Old MacDonald's Farm 11. Prairiewoods 12. Southeast Linn Community Center 13. Lowe Donation Garden. Old MacDonald's Farm, Dept. of Corrections, Horizons, Southeast Linn and Lowe Donation Gardens were new this year. Master Gardeners provided a variety of educational sessions at Old MacDonald's Farm, Catherine McAuley, Wellington Heights, New Bo, Hiawatha School, Tanager, and Dept. of Corrections, reaching over 750 individuals over the growing season. Over 6020 lbs. of produce were donated to food pantries or low-income individuals from these gardens. HACAP is a major partner to dispense produce to their 160 food pantries as well as their mobile food pantry which travels to food deserts throughout Linn County. Several individuals contributed from their private home gardens as well as the community gardens. To each and every one of you a big THANK YOU! Monthly Project Reports October, 2018 4
Some comments from some of the garden volunteers or leads: Southeast Linn --- One food pantry client who is in her 80 s took some fresh kale to try. The next week she was excited to tell us that it was the first time in her life she d eaten kale and she loved it! Another client got on the phone to her husband as she was leaving food pantry just so that she could tell him about all the fresh produce she d received. HACAP --- The homeless man who came in dire need of food, the food pantries were closed so HACAP provides emergency food boxes. Usually these boxes contain only non-perishable food, but with our donations, they were able to add some fresh vegetables to his food box. Hiawatha Schools - I am getting more teachers and parents to take ownership of the gardens. One teacher attended School Garden 101 with me and some parents took turns this summer maintaining the gardens and harvesting. Dept. of Corrections ---Participants have learned that they don't need a ton of space, equipment, or money to start their own gardens. A main hurdle for our participants is financial stability. They often can't afford to buy healthy food such as fruits and vegetables because they are more expensive and it is not cost effective when trying to feed an entire family with little income. Our participants saw how the space was maximized to yield the most produce. With their involvement they saw that to prepare, plant, maintain, and harvest produce, it did not require more than basic affordable equipment. They also learned of free community resources that allow them to create their own access to healthy food by growing their own produce at home. Master Gardener ---- A success was just seeing the eagerness of the Dept. of Corrections residents to work in the garden, learn about what was growing, and hearing them talk with excitement how their chef had used some of the vegetables from their garden. Tanager Place --- A success was getting the youth involved in the selection of what to grow and then the entire growing process, including eating fresh vegetables prepared by the cottage staff in a variety of ways. Catherine McAuley Center ---- Getting some of the immigrant clients involved in the garden project was exciting as gardening experiences were shared and we all learned about gardening in their home country, some of the produce used there and how different it was for them now gardening here in Iowa. SE Linn Community Center --- The "Produce Basics" sheets provided us were great as many of our clients do not know just what to do with produce when they do get it. So even when available, it doesn't get taken for this reason. A Master Gardener Intern from Lowe Park --- I was always amazed at when dropping off the produce at HACAP that many of the mornings in the time it took for the receptionist to carry my bags of produce back to be weighed ad then back to give me the weight, someone had taken the produce directly from the scale to a truck that was being loaded to deliver to a food bank. The speed at which fresh produce is gotten into the hands of consumers is amazing. Dept. of Corrections --- While the participants of the garden project learned a lot about planting, growing, and harvesting fresh produce, many did not know what to do with it after it was harvested. As Monthly Project Reports October, 2018 5
our participants have less access to fresh, locally-grown produce, figuring out how to use it to feed their families was another challenge. Participants had an opportunity to get a hand-on experience not only in the garden, but also in the DCS residential kitchen. They worked closely with the kitchen staff, learning how to clean, process, and cooked the produce they grew themselves. They learned many ways to prepare fresh vegetables to create exciting and delicious meals for their own families in the future. They also learned they could access fresh produce from their local food banks if they did not have space or time to grow their own garden. Food Pantries - We love to get fresh produce for clients to enhance the nutrition and variety of the meals they can enjoy. Many of us just take having fresh fruit or vegetables on our table regularly for granted without often thinking about how many living in our own communities don't have that same easy access. We will soon be writing a grant request for the 2019 growing season. If you would be interested in getting involved in this project, do make contact as indicated above. Monthly Project Reports October, 2018 6