Gourd garden at the Arboretum

Our gardeners were rained out last Saturday but some were able to come together last evening to get a good start on the gourd garden. Weeds were pulled and dirt was dug and hauled and dumped then raked in to prepare for planting. Newspapers were put down on top of the soil, dirt was piled on top to secure the papers in place. Our Master Gardener Debbie showed the gardeners how to unpot the seedlings, to cut a hole through the newspaper to dig a hole for planting. About 30 gourd plants were put in the ground!

Gourd seedlings were given a new home along side some of our daylilies and sunflowers were planted along the back fence. We still have some work to do and more daylilies to plant, but the gardeners took on a big chunk of work and got it done.

Photos will follow.

Thanks to all who could help with this garden!

New Gardens for 2011!

We installed our garden beds and made rain barrels at the CWC fairgrounds on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. Thanks Trident Seafoods for the barrels, Simonson Lumber for the extra lumber and Dan's Sod and Moonlight Nursery for donating the delivery fee for our fresh black dirt supply.

A huge "Thank You!" goes out to the parents who pitched in to guide and assist our members as they put together the first phase of the 2011 gardens.

Members received Great Green Gardener caps - although we were short a few and will need to order more.

Our next meeting will be on May 21st at the Arb to install our gourd garden!

April meeting moved into May!

Our April meeting will be held on May 7 at the fairgrounds. We will start to put in our garden beds and get them ready to warm up for planting at the end of May.

On May 14 we will have a fundraiser plant and seed sale at Northland Arb from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

On May 23, we will plant our gourd garden at the arb!

Gardening season is coming - I promise!

Our March Meeting

We had two guest helpers at our meeting. Thank you to Nancy Schroeder, 4-H volunteer and Shooting Sports/Wildlife Management PDC leader and organic farmer, who demonstrated color and design in the garden. Another thank you goes to Deb Hoffmann, Crow Wing County Master Gardener, who reviewed member garden layouts in preparation for installing our raised beds at the CWC fairgrounds next month.

We had two other activities, making seed pots out of newspaper and making seed tape out of water and flour glue on paper towels.

Next month, it's off to the fairgrounds!

We want to thank all the wonderful parents who are so helpful and learning side by side with our members!

Next Meeting, March 15, 6-8 p.m.

Activities:

Reviewing the garden grid - youth were sent home with a 3 x 6 foot (scaled) grid to plan their garden. Each child will have a review of the garden plan with a Master Gardener and/or Maggie.

Making newspaper seed pots and starting seeds - Learn how to read seed packets, how to plant the seeds and care for them.

Making seed tape - Understanding seed spacing information from seed packets and make seed tape.

Garden design - color and height: This will be led by our guest demonstrator, Nancy Schroeder. Youth will plan a garden by height (their height) and color (construction paper). We will take pictures of their final designs. Gardeners will gain understanding of the relationships between height and space and color design in the garden.

Our February 2011 Meeting

We had our first meeting of the season last night. There were 15 new gardeners - many of them new to the 4-H program. We had a guest demonstrator, Christine Kennedy of All Things Herbal in Pequot Lakes. Her family business began from a 4-H project so we asked Christine if she would come and show us how to make soap. We used melted glycerin for the base and added essential oils, our own dried herbs and food coloring. Thank you Christine!

We talked about fundraising opportunities for the club. Some suggestions were to participate in local spring plant sales at the Garden Expo and the Brainerd Garden Club sale at the Northland Arboretum in May. Another suggestion was to create our own garden vegetable cookbook to sell at the county fair! Gardeners were sent home with a square foot grid to use in planning their gardens for our next meeting in March. We will make newspaper seed pots and seed tape to get the growing season started.

Let the monthly meetings begin again!

Join us at the Land Services building at 5 p.m. on February 8th. We will be talking about some exciting fundraising opportunities for our group, electing officers, reviewing our goals for the year and we'll make some glycerine/herbal soap as our activity. Our activity will begin at 6 p.m. for those families who cannot arrive by 5 p.m.


A new site for interesting garden information: http://www.tinkersgardens.com/?doc=Vegetables
You will notice there is a tab for "Daylilies." Take a look and be prepared to talk about daylilies.


Maggie

Our new season begins in February

For those who love gardening, anytime is a great time to think about new plants and harvests. January is an excellent time to pour through seed catalogs. Planning a new garden is a feast in itself for the imagination! Remember, the flowers you grow in the summer may well be what stocks the bird food shelf in the winter!

Great Green Gardeners will kick off their 2011 growing year in February. We will elect our officers, talk about garden journals and have an herbal soap making activity. We have lots of mint and rosemary and lemon balm saved from last fall for just this purpose. If you have other herbs you want to try in your soap, bring them along. There will be a more complete materials list in a few weeks.

Let your school friends know that we have room in our garden for them to join us at the Crow Wing County Fairgrounds - our new garden space will be at the back of the horticultural building. THANK YOU FAIR BOARD!

Call the Crow Wing County Extension office to sign up new members: 218-824-1065.

Meetings We meet the 2nd Tuesday of each month. Bring a snack or an idea to share with the group.

February: Soap making activity. Land Services, 5 p.m.
March: Garden planning & seed pot making. Land Services, 5 p.m.
April: Set the garden site. Fairgrounds. Date to be determined. Maybe a Saturday morning and picnic.

Let's Get Gardening!

Maggie

There is no fee to join 4-H. Grades K-13 are welcome.

Pumpkins are Too Cool!

Read about pumpkins in this month's U of M Extension Yard and Garden News

Take our gardening survey!

Please take our survey and suggest questions you feel should be included.
Take the survey now!

We have a Champion!

Congratulations to Stafford Thompson for his Grand Champion win at the Minnesota State Fair. Visit his raised bed garden exhibit at the MN State Fair 4-H building!

Spud Sale Fundraiser

We will be digging our potatoes on Friday night. Seed potatoes were donated by the Wild Bird Store and Little Farm Market in Brainerd. Thanks to Shelly and John for their support of our club and thanks to Nibbe's for growing the spuds!

Potatoes will be for sale at Nibbe's roadside stand, 9925 Saint Mathias Rd., Brainerd and the Wild Bird Store and Little Farm Market, 516 C St. NE, Brainerd (next to the Goodwill Store).

It's Fair Week!

We have all pitched in to man the exhibit behind the grandstand. Great job everybody!! Isaac helped me put up the sign and banner on Wednesday. David and Ellie have been on sight with their parents to help with garden tours. Tonight Debbie and I were at the exhibit and were able to introduce many children to the wonderful smells of herbs - Lemon Balm, Thyme, Chocolate Mint - YUM!

I asked the kids if they wanted to help me make dirt and off we went to the rotating compost barrel. One, two three, push! Over it rolled, helping to mix up all that lovely decaying mess inside. We were making dirt!

One young man told me vegetables made him throw up. I gave him a little bit of Ellie's red leaf lettuce. "There's a vegetable I can eat!" he told me. "I didn't throw up!"

I hope we have some new club members in the making!

We had many blue ribbon winners and even some for their gardening exhibits - some State Fair Trip winners too. At least three of our Great Green Gardeners will be going to the State Fair this year. Congratulations guys!!!

Putting up the fence

Last Thursday, many of our club members along with three Master Gardeners installed a fence around around our county fair exhibit. Still to be installed is the gate and an area with chicken wire to display how to discourage small creatures from entering the garden space.

Produce to the food shelf

Today we made our first delivery to the food shelf of 2.5 pounds of fresh picked vitamins in the bodies of peas, beans, broccoli and lettuce! Way to go gardeners!

Master Gardener Dick Raymond's Visit to Our Gardens

Submitted by Maggie

Dick Raymond, Crow Wing County Master Gardener, took time last night to visit the Great Green Gardener’s gardens at the CWC fairgrounds. Dick is a fascinating speaker with decades of knowledge – beginning with teaching from his mother when he was just a young boy.

Some things we learned last night are how to use Epsom Salts as a garden fertilizer, that Cilantro seeds are called Coriander (used in pickling – yum!), how to plant tomatoes to grow strong stalks – the horizontal planting method – and when and how to prune back plants.

Mr. Raymond stressed to us that the job of a plant is to return to seed. If you intend to harvest seeds from your plants, then let them grow until they flower and seeds form. If however you want fruit or just leaves from your plants, then prune them so more growth energy is put back into the plant and not into its seeding.

THANK YOU! Dick Raymond for all that you shared. We learned a lot from you. We hope you will come to visit us at the fair this year and see how our gardens have grown by then!

Garden Tour with Master Gardener

Submitted by Maggie

Our first garden tour with Crow Wing County Master Gardener Dick Raymond will be on July 6th at 7 p.m. at our gardens on the fairgrounds. Bring your plant diaries, plan to take notes and if you can, take photos to post on the blog. See you there!

The First Day of Summer - June 21, 2010

Posted by Maggie

Make Your Own Plant Markers

Posted by Maggie

Since our gardens will become an exhibit for the fair, we will want to clearly identify our plants. I did a little research on the internet to see what others have done. I found the following idea on gardenweb:

I have been using plastic knives as markers for years. Take a plastic knife (VERY INEXPENSIVE for a good size pakage just about anywhere) and, using a permanent marker, label, and stick into the ground. It is weatherproof and, if you are feeling creative, go to your local party store and buy different knife colors. I love purple, so all my markers are purple knives. All my gardening friends have adopted this method. TRY IT...you'll love it.

Do any of you have any great ideas? Remember, these markers have to be readable, hold up in the weather and stay put!

June 16, 2010 - Planting

Posted by Maggie

Debbie Monchamp met me out at the fairgrounds with herbs she collected from Bailey's Nursery in St. Paul - http://www.baileynurseries.com/

They were giving away plants to community gardens. The herbs she brought for us are Lemon Balm, Basil, Thyme, Savory, Fennel, and two fun mint varieties, Chocolate and Banana!

Important to know about herbs - they should be kept clipped back and in most cases, not allowed to blossom. So, when you are visiting your garden space, please bring scissors with you, snip a bit of this and that to dry or freeze for later use - or use it fresh! Best to collect herbs as well as fruits and vegetables, early in the morning.

Here is link to information on drying and freezing herbs: http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/nutrition/00018.html

Ellie and Stafford and Terri arrived a little later and we gave them a chive plant to put in one of their gardens. As a hardy perennial, we can leave it in the raised bed over winter or it can be transplanted into a home garden in the fall.

The Fennel is planted in one of the straw bales since it isn't very friendly with other plants. The mints are planted in pots since mint loves to take over any garden. They are hardy perennials also so we will be able to divide some in the fall to transplant in our own gardens if we so choose.

We also planted the potato barrel! I can't wait to see how it does.

Ellie's cauliflower is beginning show heads (actually called "curds")! I have not seen cauliflower growing before. Very impressive!

Tip for Ellie: Blanching Cauliflower

The heads are covered, or "blanched", for two reasons. Covering the heads helps protect it from rotting. It also helps to produce the white color and improve flavor.

Blanch the heads as soon as the curd gets 2-4 inches in diameter. This is done by covering the head with the large leaves just below the head. Use garden twine to tie the leaves loosely around the head. The object is to protect the head from light and water, while letting air in. As the head grows, loosen and re-tie the leaves, as necessary. http://www.gardenersnet.com/vegetable/cauliflower.htm