Master Gardener Celebration for River Valley MG 25th Birthday

Some people know how to throw a party! The River Valley group has been in existence 25 of the 28 years of the Arkansas MG program. This group has members from several surrounding counties, but mainly Sebastian (Ft. Smith) and Crawford (Van Buren) counties.  Tonight at their monthly meeting, they honored all the MGs with a cake decorating and best tasting cake contest.  

             

There were so many clever cakes, and after judging the best decorated, everyone got to sample and vote for best tasting. This one by Diane Parker won for best decorated. 

     

And Mary Smith’s carrot cake won best tasting. 

 

Before the sugar high I presented a program on the MG program. After a brief business meeting we then sampled cake.  

A plaque and a Gingko tree were presented to MG of the Year Susan Randolph. We all went outside to take pictures

   
 

The sun was shining, low humidity and temps in the upper 70’s–in Arkansas, in August! Truly hard to believe. It was a great night to be outside. 

   
   

We went back inside for a few more announcements and a game of garden jeopardy. I found the program and made the game, but I neede the internet. I got a cable fro a co-worker and it worked like a charm. It was great fun, with some highly intelligent gardeners! 

  
The blue team won! Tomorrow morning some of us will be back at the learning fields for our first overall planning committee for 2018. 

Arkansas Diamond program and it is still raining!

I know it is hard to look a gift horse in the mouth (and where did that saying come from?!) but I am officially tired of rain!  In my yard we are up to almost 4 inches of rain in 4 days and guess what, it is STILL RAINING!    I leave with 36 Master Gardeners in two weeks for Cornwall and Wales, and I checked the forecast there and it is raining. Maybe we are in conditioning for our trip!  The forecast is for MORE rain the rest of this week in Arkansas, and I am not sure when it is supposed to stop.  I know as soon as it stops we will want more, but a little bit every week is preferable to a lot every day.  It will help water bills and many plants are thriving, but others are rotting.

My fish are in seventh heaven. I mentioned earlier that I had babies for the first time in the ponds history –and I have had it for 15 years or more. Every night when I feed the fish there are more and more of them. I think I have almost 30 babies and 4 adults. Not sure my pond can handle that many mature full-sized fish, nor why they are suddenly reproducing, but I like it for now. 

This afternoon I met with the Arkansas Diamond Committee to plan our plant choices for 2017 and review the program for 2015 -16.  The Arkansas Diamond plants for 2016 are Graffiti Red Penta, Velvet Elvis Plectranthus and Srirachi Pink Cuphea.

Did you plant any of these three, and if so, how have they done?

These were added to the previous list of:

Redhead coleus, yellow lantana, red dragonwing begonia, blue scaevola and cora cascade periwinkle.  How have these done in your gardens?

If you have thoughts on how the program worked or didn’t, how the plants grew–or didn’t, let me know.  The best way to make a program better is to find the flaws and fix them.

While we were in our meeting, one of the things we reviewed was the social media program. Once again, several mentioned that you can’t just rely on Facebook–which is what they did last year along with my article and the public displays.  Today it wasn’t Twitter that we needed but Instagram!  I have insta’d once or twice, but now I have doubled that number!  Who knows where this will end, but I will be connected.  I am tweeting, posting, blogging and I guess “gramming”?  I am also Linked-in, but not sure what that is all about, but I am there!  Whether anyone is seeing what I am doing is another story, but hopefully everything is all inter-connected in some way and we are getting the word out.

I decided to be creative with dinner tonight. Using the leftover roast chicken from Sunday, I made chicken vol au vent.  I took a sheet of puff pastry and made my own pastry cups, then filled it with a creamed chicken base–sort of like chicken-ala-king which I despise.  I added peas to Clay’s because he adores peas and chicken-ala-king.  It was actually quite tasty and Clay was thrilled.  

Tweeting and gardening

I was told today that I was a bit “old school” for only blogging and posting on Facebook. Twitter I am told is where it is at! I have tweeted in the past–a total of 5 or 6 times in about 7 years, but today I have joined the Twitter world in a big way!  If you want to follow me there as well as here, then Like or follow: @janetjcarson     That is my twitter name!  I set this up about 7 years ago, so not quite sure why I didn’t have Janet B Carson, but oh well, it is what it is.

Today Julie and I weren’t tweedledee and tweedledum but tweet-ledee and tweet-ledum and dumb is most appropriate!  We don’t quite know what we are doing, but we are tweeting!   Supposedly I am linked between here, Facebook and twitter–and maybe Linked-in. This social media changes daily, and I think I am a day late and a dollar short in the process.

It is still amazing how much rain we are getting in August. It was pouring down this morning and a steady rain fell until mid-afternoon. I am up to over 2 1/2 inches in 3 days!  Not only are the figs splitting, but the few fruits I have left on the tomato plants have cracked beyond belief.   What I would like to know is how do the ants know about this splitting fruit?  They are in raised beds or planters, the fruits are easily 4 feet in the air, yet the ants are finding them. The tomatoes were so bad, I just tossed them, and these were the first of the big-fruited varieties I have had.  Quite disappointing, but I do see more fruit setting.  What with the original high temps followed by torrential rains, our crop production is a bit diminished.  My poor okra has been vainly attempting to bloom, but stifled by the weather. 

The rain has also hindered potty training Petals. She doesn’t mind the slow rain, but the downpours have her staying inside.  She is also growing up and when it isn’t raining, she longs to explore every leaf, flower, twig and blade of grass, so outside time is not quick.  

On a happier note, I did get to see our adopted friend Tramps.  He is happy and settled in his new home and looks amazing.  What a happy ending!   He has been vetted, groomed and has taken over the household. One happy pet and a happy new “mom”.  I am so grateful they found each other.

So instead of “happy gardening” I will now end with happy tweeting!

 

Vietnam

If you have always wanted to see Vietnam, here is your chance.  Less than 20 cabins are still available on our Master Gardener Study tour in January 2017.  Here is the link to the full itinerary and details: http://www.uaex.edu/yard-garden/master-gardeners/2017Learncationravel-Vietnam%20Cruise%20-%202-3-16.pdf

This will be one of our more unique trips with a whole new palette of plants.

We will travel aboard the AmaDara.  The accommodations and food will be lovely, and all excursions each day are included in the cost of the trip.

AmaDara – Mekong River
AmaWaterways

  Hope you will join us.

A rainy weekend in AUGUST!

I think we are all just a bit dazed by the weather we are having this August.  If you have been outside in the past hour or two, you would not think you are in Arkansas in August. It is delightful outside, with a temperature in the mid-70’s. We have had over an inch of rain the past two days and it has been a slow and steady rain almost all weekend.  Have you seen the forecast? A chance of rain EVERY DAY with a high in the low 80’s!  Our plants think they are living in the rain forest, and some of them are thriving.  The elephant ears, caladiums and hosta have never looked better, without any extra care.  My okra is not sure what to do and is kind of at a standstill with blooms.  The buds are there, but not doing much.  I am still getting peppers and eggplants, but if it rains every day, not sure how much fruit will set.

I harvest figs daily now, and more and more of the fruits are splitting.   but as long as you eat them quickly, it doesn’t affect them. Figs do not have a long shelf-life. You need to refrigerate them almost immediately and eat them within a few days. Even as they soften and age, they are still good to eat but don’t wait too long. I had a nice appetizer of figs, blue cheese and nuts tonight–one of my favorite ways to eat them.  Sweet, salty and crunchy–yum!

The weather this weekend did not bode well for outside activities, so we did focus on the inside.  I got another load of stuff taken to the thrift store, and cleaned out several cabinets.  I helped a friend clean out an apartment that had been a bit neglected this weekend.  We did a bit yesterday and decided what to bring with us today to tackle more.    I cannot believe I did not take before and after photos, but let me assure you the tub was almost black when we started. I had heard you could use oven cleaner on bathtubs so we tried it and look at the results:   And we didn’t have to use elbow grease at all, it just wiped right off! I am a true believer.  You have to protect yourself from the fumes, but if you can get past that, wow!  It also did amazing things on the stove top as well.  We put a huge dent in the clean up this weekend.

Last night we had dinner with good friends who we met 25 years ago tomorrow when Kyle, Hannah and Abbie all started kindergarten. We were all newbie parents of school children and we bonded.  It was our “silver anniversary of friendship”.  When I told Kyle where we were going, he thought we should have invited the “kids” since they were the reason we know each other.  Hannah said much the same.   We had a great time reminiscing on all the things we did as elementary school and PTA parents.  It was a fun evening with great friends and food.

As I was just outside walking Petals I saw the most fireflies or lightning bugs I have seen in our yard in decades. It sure brought back some other great memories.  We used to catch them by the hundreds (or so it seemed) and put them in jars to light our way–and we even attempted to freeze them once, why, I am not sure. Wonder how many kids still do that?  I wonder if the rain has helped them and is a cause for our largess tonight?   I will ask our entomologists tomorrow.  The frogs are in their element and singing their hearts out tonight as well.

 

 

 

Diseases

We have definitely had a wet summer in Arkansas. We have seen a lot of insects, diseases and weeds, and I have seen two diseases that were new to me–and I have been doing this a long time.

The first was on figs. Fig splitting can be caused by uneven moisture, just like with tomatoes, but I got some pictures in with the bottom end of the fig turning white and rotting.  This is a problem called souring.  It can occur from a small beetle entering the fruit or rain.  In this case, think of the hard, pounding rains we have been getting. When moisture enters the eye it can sour–ruining that fruit.  You may see some tiny bubbling  coming out of the fruit and a sour, fermented smell.  The key is to harvest frequently, removing any damaged fruits. If you leave them on the tree, ants, wasps and other insects will be attracted which is not something you want.  I guess we don’t see it too often since we rarely have frequent rains in late summer in Arkansas.

The second interesting picture came in yesterday.    I looked at it on my phone and thought it was a buttonbush fruit.  When I sent it to my computer I knew it was a hawthorn tree, but had never seen the fruit looking like that–and not a spot on the foliage.  The problem is Cedar Quince rust.  This disease is closely related to Cedar-apple rust but whereas that disease causes spots on the foliage and fruit, cedar-quince rust mainly attacks the fruits.  It can also cause swollen galls on the stems the fruit is attached to and occasionally galls on a leaf which is a resistance reaction to the leaf infection.  The cedar host is predominately junipers, and mainly Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana).  In the spring, the junipers will have this orange growth on it–  The spores from this will fly and attack members of the rose family including apple, crabapple, pears, quince, hawthorn, serviceberry, mayhaw, flowering quince, cotoneaster, and photinia.

Young branches and fruit (not leaves) are usually infected and symptoms vary widely among the various hosts. On hawthorn, the pinkish aecia (fruiting body tubes) occur mainly on branches, thorns, and fruit. Hawthorn and serviceberry fruit often becomes heavily covered with these fruiting bodies called aecia. Here is what it looked like earlier this summer on a mayhaw in Saline County:   If you see infection on small branches, it will usually become a perennial cankers that expand each growing season. Often the most infected branches are girdled by the canker during the second season, causing that branch to die back.  When you see the disease the damage is done and sprays are ineffective. All you can do now is prune out cankers and remove as much of the infected fruit  as possible.  Good sanitation this fall will also help.  Sprays are only effective when the disease is active on the cedar trees, so timing of a general fungicide in the spring can prevent infection of your apples, mayhaws and hawthorn.

Foodies!

We have become a nation of foodies.  When the food network first came on television, our family got addicted. It introduced us to new ways to cook and new foods to try.  Pretty soon things like polenta and lentils were as common place as mashed potatoes and rice.  We learned how to sous vide food and how to make pasta with a raw egg inside from scratch.  Then came the local foods movement and organics gained ground, and now more people than ever are growing their own fruits and vegetables, and canning and preserving their own foods.  Kale used to be a vegetable they couldn’t sell at the grocery store, now they can barely keep it in stock. Kale salads, kale chips and kale smoothies are commonplace. Is it any wonder that this trend has carried over to baby food and pet food.   If you don’t have any infant/toddler children around, or dogs, you may have missed out.  Now instead of little round jars of green beans, bananas, apricots and peas, you have squeeze tubes of organic brown rice and white beans with vegetables, or mangos, apples, carrots and kale, or pears, mangos and avocados! We are now into gourmet baby foods.  For those whose “children” are their pets, let’s not leave them behind. My dogs ate salmon with lentils and white beans this evening and we have sweet potato and salmon waiting in the wings.   It is not just the specialty companies who have bought in, even our tried-and-true Purina has a grain free and protein packed alternative–Salmon, egg and pumpkin!  

Are our children and dogs healthier than the children and dogs a decade or ten ago? I am not sure we have researched that enough, but as parents or pet owners, don’t we feel a bit better thinking that we are giving them the best?   I think we as consumers have bought into it hook, line and sinker.  If we had not, there would not be the endless choices and combinations, with new products arriving daily.

There is no doubt that fresh fruits and vegetables taste better and are preferable to the canned counterpart.  Cooking fresh foods without preservatives is always better.  If we can encourage low-fat and healthy foods we will all be better off, and encouraging folks to garden is a trend I am all for.  I recently saw basil seeds being sold along with the jarred spaghetti sauce. 

Who knows where this trend will go next.  Let’s just hope that these babies raised on kale and lentils, won’t graduate to happy meals!

Office and unusual packages

I had another day in the office and we got so much accomplished, but you check off one task, and more take their place.  It does feel good to check things off though.  We got our luggage tags in for the Cornwall/Wales trip and I will get them out tomorrow so folks have them in plenty of time before we leave. It is nice to have a common tag on the bags of all our travelers, and with their names readily visible, it makes room delivery and bag checks much easier once we are on our trips.

My lunch meeting got moved today, so we ended up ordering Chef Shuttle so we never even left the office–the steamed buns were a different lunch, but quite tasty. While we were waiting on our lunch I got word that I had a package delivered at the warehouse. I walked over to get it thinking it was some trial plants.  It was in a “live” type package but everyone wanted me to open it so they could see the giant ear of corn. I could not imagine it was really an ear of corn, and it wasn’t–it was THREE ears of corn.   I have never had fresh corn delivered in the mail–fresh fruit yes, but no vegetables to date.  This is a new variety called ‘Jaws’ and it is twelve inches long.  It looks perfect, but with our late lunch, I did not feel like cooking tonight, so it is in the refrigerator waiting for tomorrow.  Ples gave me some pointers on how fisherman make their catch look larger–  It does look huge doesn’t it!  They say it is so big, it won’t fit in most cooking pots!  Not sure if that is a good thing.  I will let you know how it tastes tomorrow.

We have now had two days in a row without a raindrop–but predictions are that more are coming tomorrow.  If not, I may have to water–at least the pots on the deck!

Office and lunch

For the next few weeks I will spend a good portion of them in the office, trying to get ready for traveling.  Once I leave for Cornwall/Wales at the end of the month, it is a lot of traveling from that point forward, so it will pay off to catch up now.  I did get some PowerPoints done today for workshops in the coming weeks, and I continue to write.  We did go by and take lunch to Holly today. She is feeling much better and improving day by day. It was good to reconnect for a short while.

Then it was back to the office for more work.  Have the rest of you been plagued by allergies lately? I seem to be smitten with something–not sure if is pollen or mold, but I normally don’t need allergy pills this time of year, but lately I have been miserable, so I am taking them.

Another down side with all the rain is mosquitoes.  They are everywhere!  When I take Petals out in the evening they are swarming both of us.  I am trying to be diligent to look for anything in the yard that could be collecting water, but they are awful! 

If you can find any standing water, you can put a drop of cooking oil out or use the mosquito dunks or granules in the water to prevent them from reproducing. They can hatch in 5 days or less. 

These products are safe for birds and other animals, and are specific to mosquitoes.  If you have to be outside from dusk on, I would recommend putting on protective spray.

Today was our first time with no rain, but I thought we were going to get a shower–the skies darkened, thunder was rumbling, but we at least did not get rain. There is a chance of rain every day this week.  I can’t believe our weather this summer.

More rain, Garvan and caterpillars

We were supposed to start shooting our TV spots at 8 a.m. at Garvan today but when I woke up it was raining.  It was in Hot Springs too, so we decided to postpone until noon–I was worried we might cook that late, but it was not too bad. The temps were mild but we did have high humidity.  Parts of the garden look great, while others may be struggling from too much rain–the heat and drought lovers in particular.   We had five spots to shoot today and we had plenty to choose from.  The Sunpatiens look great in full sun and love the rain.  the bat-faced cuphea is a fun plant and was loaded with blooms in spite of the extra water, since it can take it dry, but the elephant ears are huge and adore the moisture.  The dianthus have kicked back in with blooms and the newly planted flowering onions Millenium look great in the wildflower meadow.   Other showstoppers in the wildflower overlook are numerous colored coneflowers , rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan) and gaillardia.  A few plants would prefer it a bit drier like these artemisia, and some of the Rudbeckia could use plant stakes–they have grown so tall with all the rain that the weight of the blooms is causing some floppiness. 

The true showstopper today though was the family of monarch caterpillars all over the milkweed plants.  We saw a dozen or more and one adult monarch which never did land on a flower for me to get a picture.    (After writing this, I decided I needed to check my plants again, just in case they magically appeared overnight. I see no caterpillars, but I am convinced–or hopeful, that I have monarch eggs) 

I also saw something I have never seen before at Garvan–blooms on a croton plant. Croton is a houseplant that can add a lot of color in the summer garden. The more sunlight the plant gets, the more colorful the foliage.  These leaves look great, but it was loaded with flower spikes. The flowers aren’t going to stop traffic, but they are happy plants.

Regardless of the weather, it is always a great time to visit Garvan Gardens and explore.

I made it home in time to play with Petals.  I am trying to teach her something every day.  She is getting good at retrieving and letting go of the toy.  When I sat down at the computer to write, she picked up her toys and went to sleep with them!  Too cute!