The Master Gardener Demonstration Gardens

Tucked behind the big red barn in Derwood, Maryland is the Montgomery County Master Gardener Demonstration Garden.  I like to choose a quiet afternoon to visit this favorite spot of mine and I leave with lots of great ideas.  The Master Gardeners who maintain all the well-loved bits and pieces of this demo garden are always trying new things and planting different kinds of vegetables. It's an excellent place for gardeners of all levels of experience to visit.  My last visit was on the day of their bustling open house when I gave a talk on growing and cooking Asian vegetables.  Good thing the speaker before me was running late because I got to take a quick tour led by my friend Erica who blogs at Rogue Eggplant and also on the Grow It Eat It blog.  Check out all there is to learn:

In this African Keyhole Garden, made with the free compost bins our county provides, a central tower is continuously fed with kitchen scraps.  The compost that is created provides nutrients for the plants growing around it.  

Below: a lush headstart on spring vegetables using hoops and row covers.

The cute Children's Garden below is filled with plants with animal names.  

Straw bales, pallets, and plants growing inside!

Above: a lovely little pond.  Below: a theme I somehow missed, but it sure is well-marked, isn't it?!

A beautiful, colorful salad table!

Below: one of several beds maintained by special groups.

The annual spring open house is a wonderful event with plant sales, casual tours of the demo garden, experts on call to help with plant issues, workshops, crafts and activities for kids and tons of giveaways like seeds and this adorable popsicle stick pre-labeled and stuck with seeds below - ready to just push into the ground and grow!

How to grow microgreens

Beet microgreens - research proves microgreens are supernutritious

I hope you get to check out the spring issue of Heirloom Gardener magazine.  My article about how to grow microgreens is inside, along with many really interesting articles and lots of DIY projects.  Here's the shortened 3-step version - because I'm THAT confident anyone can grow a great flat of healthful, delicious, and beautiful microgreens that easily.

STEP 1: Heavily sow seeds onto shallow tray (with drainage holes) of soil.  Cover with a fine layer of soil.

STEP 2: Daily, mist until soil is completely moist.  

STEP 3: Harvest in about 10-14 days by snipping just above the soil line.  

Microgreen salad mix: sunflower greens and radish greens - served with goat cheese medallions

I'm pretty sure my neighbors thought I was crazy...

They must have thought I was crazy at one point.  Or a glutton for heat, mosquitoes, and blazing sun.  Or looney for exiting the shed each night after dark, shovel in hand.  What the hell was I digging all night long anyway?  Or maybe they just thought I was obsessed.  But I'm not the only one though, right?  Hello, gardeners?  

Something has happened to me though.  In the past few years, my vegetable, shade, perennial, slope garden have all gone to crap.  It's part laziness, and mostly trying to keep too many balls in the air.  After discovering a passion for getting my hands dirty, came blogging about it, then writing about it for publications, then an even bigger project with all its related parts.  But no more.  This year I'm committed to getting back into the dirt.  I'm going to dig and dig all night long starting in march.  I'm going to buy a gallon of  bug spray because I'm going to be out every day.  I'm going to be out there taking extreme close ups of every freaking pollinating element in every freaking flower that blooms.  Oh, and will they ever bloom.  Because every two weeks, I'll be out there spraying with fish emulsion.  I'm going to have my local high school deliver a gazillion bags of mulch.  I'm going to turn that crank on my freaking compost tumbler every day.  I'm going to do all kinds of soil tests.  And I'm going to post pictures.  Lots and lots of pictures of roots orange and white.  Of fruits yellow and red.  Of leaves green and purple.  They will roll their eyes at me once again, and I will stand tall, sweating and dirty, with bug eggs in my hair, trowel in hand, thrilled about what I will create.  

This year, one quarter of the potager will belong to my 8 year old who has decided to grow an all yellow garden.  Yellow bell peppers, yellow carrots, yellow tomatoes, etc.  (perhaps she's a little crazy too).  Other new things I'm trying are black garbanzo beans, and a Seminole squash - a Florida native, just like my husband.  Part of this renewed frenzy for the upcoming season comes from the seed catalogs coupled with the annual wintertime amnesia that always helps me to forget last year's failures.  Today my seeds came in and one need only shake the little packet to feel its power to compel.  But part of this energy is a renewed focus on what caused all the related distraction in the first place - the actual gardening.  

This year, my mail man will once again hate me for my regular packages from Wayside and Bluestone.  The inside of my house will again be neglected until November.  My neighbors will once again think I'm crazy.  And it will be awesome.  

Jan, Keter, and other happy things

Above, you see the new happy compost mixer (both human and plastic)! Below, you see the previous compost bin situation. Economical? Well, yes. Raided by racoons? Unfortunately. Neglected? Embarassed to confirm. As you can tell, I really needed some help!

You know, I'm in love with two men - my husband of course, but also the UPS man. Who wouldn't love this strong and wonderful man in uniform? He's capable of lifting 150 pounds of unwieldy cardboard and drops by with smiling face bearing gifts on a fairly regular basis. Well, technically they're not gifts if you had to pay for them in advance, but in THIS case, the compost mixer I received was TRULY a gift from both the Keter company and Jan from Thanks for Today, following my post on the Satanic Boy Scouts (and the follow up) linked to Jan's Gardener's Sustainable Living Project, an annual Earth Day event.

Now that I have my new compost mixer, here's what I'm looking forward to:

deterring the raccoons and neighborhood cats
having finished compost in a contained space that I access and use easily
turning my compost more frequently (with the mixer's handle, it enters "toy" catagory and I might even get a regular helper out of this)

I'm really partial to the 3-bin compost system (an unflattened version of what you see above). I like the idea of filling a bin to the top, closing it off, and then starting to fill another bin while the first bin cooks down, and so forth. I think what I'll do is use the new Keter to collect my browns and greens, and once full, I'll close it off and begin to collect my compost materials in one of the round bins. Once the Keter compost is finished, I'll empty it in the garden, and then move the more recently collected scraps into the Keter, repeating the process of saving more in the round bins.

I envision a much healthier garden with the addition of good compost that's more speedily made. I have high hopes for this tumbler - I have wanted some sort of tumbler for ages! Looking forward to the beautiful blooms and fat veggies that I'll surely have now! Thanks so much Jan and Keter for this generous prize! In other happy things...

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Below, the happy "bouquet" I received from my almost 13 year old this past Sunday.

And another happy thing, in a prelude to the bumper crop I think we'll have this year, strawberries are ripening one by one. In the photo below, you see that the first stop after kindergarten every day is the garden, "Hey mom, let's go check on the strawbs!"

One more happy thing for today, May blossoms!

My afternoon with the Satanic Boy Scouts

Last weekend, I met with troop 666 (along with another troop with a less memorable number) in a beautiful home where things appear plentiful, happy, and very NOT Satanic. Honestly, I had some mixed feelings going into this project of helping the boys earn their merit badge. As a master gardener (intern, officially), I want to spend my very limited time volunteering to improve the lives and environments of people who are much less fortunate. The idea of teaching already privileged children about gardening...well, it needed to be reconciled in my head. But the way I looked at it, gardening is something that should be for all people regardless of socio-economic status. I figure if there are people - any people - who want to learn about gardening and ask for my help, I should provide it if I can. To deny a group of people based on financial status would not be right. And sometimes, it's the children from the more privileged backgrounds that are not provided certain types of opportunities (I can say this because I was one of those children!).

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. I asked the boys why they wanted to earn this badge and got some mixed answers: "I want to learn about gardening", "I need to earn more badges", "My mom made me come", "I had nothing else to do". Ha ha for honesty! I told the boys that I would provide information on everything they needed to earn the gardening merit badge but whispered that I had an ulterior motive - psst...I was really trying to create gardeners and on a future glorious Sunday like that day, I wanted them to think, "I want to go out and work in the garden", and not, "I want to work on another merit badge".

I was happy with the message I began with:

• There are MANY methods for all the things I would show them. I would share conventional wisdom and also what has worked for me - and everything I would share would come from my perspective of organic gardening, but my way is only one of many ways.
• No gardener would probably consider themselves "expert" because there are changes in the environment every year, there are gardening inventions every year, there are problems and new solutions every year, and gardeners are always learning and trying new things. This is part of the joy of gardening.

I had packets with information about: parts of a flower, photosynthesis, hardiness zones, seed-starting (indoors and directly outside), nutrition values of veggies and fruits - we also went through how each veggie should be started, soil preparation, container gardening, watering, seed germination, plant problems and diagnosis, IPM, garden pests and organic methods of control, hydroponics, vermiposting, composting, and water gardens. I actually spent an enormous amount of time preparing, organizing, copying, etc. I also brought lots of things to show: my gardening bucket, floating row cover, my seed starting supplies, etc.

There were many topics the boys seemed genuinely interested in and asked excellent questions about:

• The parts of a flower - pollination/fertilization - what I called "plant sex 101". They have obviously had some good science teachers and had many "what if" questions.
• The photos from my post on the tobacco hornworm. They then launched into a discussion about a parasite that injects eggs into a dog's butt and then flies out.
• Interesting vegetables such as heirlooms. I explained how an heirloom is "true to seed" and often carries a story - such as seeds that may be have been brought to the US by slaves.
• They were VERY interested in the possibility of growing purple carrots, and some seemed impressed that I am trying to grow blue potatoes and baby corn this year.
• They were interested in our short talk on weeds. I told them about the hairy bittercress or shotweed I'm dealing with right now, and explained that if you miss the right time to pull them, they'll shoot a gazillion seeds right into your garden if you touch them. They started brainstorming ways to get rid of them - put a bag over it before pulling, put a tarp underneath (smart boys, huh?), light them with a match. I told them my neighbors thought I was crazy enough without walking around with matches lighting all my weeds on fire.
• One kid asked how to produce the most vegetables possible and asked if fertilizer was the answer. Luckily, I had a bottle of what I use in my garden. I covered the label and had the boys sniff and guess what it was made of. This was so much fun - for me at least. After a few good guesses and several scrunched up faces, I revealed that it was fish emulsion and sea kelp.
• During our section on garden pests, I talked about some of the struggles in my garden (slugs, raccoons, etc.) as well as some solutions. I told them that the coyote pee and putrescent egg solids (in the deer repellent) have been working to keep the deer off of my daylilies. We then had a short discussion about whether human pee was good for plants. I ended that quickly by telling them to just pee where they were taught to pee.

I had 3 hours to discuss all the topics and unfortunately, I was only able to properly go into detail with about 1/4 of the materials I brought. Though the tasks for this badge seemed relatively simple to the parents (start 3 veggies from seed, 3 from seedlings through harvesting, germinate 100 seeds, identify 5 pests and solutions for control, build a compost bin or worm bin, etc.), there's a LOT to discuss. Hopefully we discussed enough to get them started and inspired, but having done this one time, all these "basics" really require several sessions to properly teach. I feel bad that we had to speed through many of the topics. I'll have to trust them to read the packets themselves.

I sent a follow up e-mail to the parents with instructions on how to help their kids with this badge. I'm also e-mail support. I plan to send a few follow up messages throughout the season with suggestions, questions, and just to keep in touch. There's a requirement for them to visit a garden and share what they've learned. Instead, I'm going to send them to the Washington Youth Garden at the National Arboretum and create a scavenger hunt for them to complete. Finally, at the end of the 90 days, I will follow up with a meeting where they will all bring photos and share out. I was thinking about bringing bulbs or something as a little prize, and also talking about garden clean up at that time.

On Sunday, we started with 10 boys and lots of excitement around the big table. We'll see how many make it to the finish line!!! Gardening may seem easy to novices but the requirements of this badge are really a big task. I hope they all make it!

Shaping young minds

I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside...

Wait no, that's a throwback from my childhood. Let me hear it from all the Whitney lovers in the blogosphere!

Jan from Thanks for Today is hosting an annual Earth Day event called the Gardener's Sustainable Living Project. Check out her blog to see how others are being eco-friendly or taking action to create a more sustainable lifestyle. I do things that many of you do as well in order to live a more green lifestyle - shop locally whenever possible, garden organically, water with harvested rain, compost my kitchen scraps, and basically just reduce in lots of ways.

My entry for Jan's project is about a larger way I'm contributing this Earth Day. Though there is lots of paper in the photo above, I think it will be put to good use as I'm leading the merit badge for Boy Scout Troop 666 (I shit you not). This is a job I'm doing as a Master Gardener (still earning my initial hours).

Like Whitney, I do believe the children are our future and despite my slight hesitation at the rather satanic troop number (if you never hear from me after Saturday, you'll know why), I'm so excited to talk to the young boys about photosynthesis, building soil, growing vegetables, vermiposting, organic methods to control pests, etc. I'm trying not to go into this too naively, and I've been told sometimes there's a rush to simply check off tasks to earn numerous badges, but I DO hope to put my teaching and counseling skills to build some genuine excitement about gardening. I figure if I get just ONE kid to see the joy in growing his own food, that would really make it worth my time. And scout's honor, I don't even care if that sounds naive.

Science Expo Project: coloring carnations

Fun for the youngest plant scientist ~

Want to try this at home? This is all you might like to know:

• Use about 20 drops of food coloring (or a good squirt if you're not watching and your 5 year old is not patient!) per 3/4 cup water (approximate - no need to measure).
• Carnations will be fully colored in about 24 hours.
• After they're colored, you can change the water. Carnations will be fresh for a good 10 days or more.
• BONUS: cut a slit in the stem. Place in 2 different colored cups of water. Predict what will happen.
  
  
  
  

GBBD - September 2010 and monarch caterpillars

September has been good to my garden, bringing lots of new blooms. You'll actually notice many little tour guides in these September photos. The end of this post shows a couple of our new pets - visitors for the interim before their fall vaca in Mexico (thanks to my friend Grace for the inspiration and instruction)! But for now, stop and smell the roses! See that little refrigerator looking thing next to the side of the road? Big brother is watching you (and will ensure you at least SLOW your driving to take a peek). Seriously though, the roses in the first several photos aren't fragrant - but they ARE reliable summer-long sources of color. The fragrant roses are in hiding at this point in the summer.


Better slow your roll, happy blue car, or this little roadside furnace will send you a tsk tsk ticket in the mail!

Some oregano blooms left out for the pollinators.

DO YOU HAVE VERBENA? It's a MUST. Verbena growers know what I'm talking about.

With dwarf butterfly bushes available, everyone has a chance to grow these in his/her garden.

Asclepias and Russian sage.

A pretty but jacked-up buckeye. Good old moonbeam coreopsis in the background.

The gaura still going - all summer long. Its twin's stems are turning red. Lamb's ear still green and lush - and great foil for any perennial.

Sassy the cat on the prowl.

This bee must be new at the pollen-gathering thing.

This clematis is on its third rebloom.

My backyard downspout clematis - also currently covered in reblooms.

Morning glory - can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Am I right?!

Gomphrena 'strawberry fields' - the annual I coveted this year. Can you see why?

Check out May Dreams Gardens to see what else is blooming in the gardening world!
Now for some fun... *******************************

Fixing up a little home with a jar of water, a few milkweed cuttings, and some carefully searched for caterpillars.

Transferring the specimen to its new, safe, well-stocked home.

Yes, I've read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but I didn't realize exactly how voracious these little guys are. Updates to come!