Becky Griffin

Becky Griffin helps school and community gardeners succeed! This includes organizing school garden teacher training with county agents, assisting schools with STE(A)M goals, and creating resources on starting and sustaining successful gardens. Becky is a Georgia Certified Beekeeper and works with community and school gardeners to increase beneficial insect habitat. She is the coordinator of the Great Georgia Pollinator Census, happening this year on August 19th and 20th, 2022. She is also part of UGA's Native Plants and Beneficial Insect Working Group.

Blueberry Chill Hours. What are they?

February 24, 2016 by Becky Griffin

Blueberries are a perennial shrub that is relatively easy to grow. Rabbiteye types are popular statewide and their fruit is delicious! You may have read in agricultural science articles about “chill hours.” What are they? Why do they matter? To answer those questions we are going to turn to science so, please pardon the charts!

According to UGA scientists Gerard Krewer and D. Scott NeSmith (Blueberry Cultivars of Georgia) blueberries require a certain number of chill hours each winter to produce the optimum fruit harvest. Chill hours are the number of hours of winter temperatures 45 degrees F and below. If blueberry plants do not receive the adequate amount of chilling, bloom and leaf development can be late and erratic. This can result in a lackluster harvest. To sum it up – blueberries have to have some cold winter weather.

Rabbiteye Cultivar	Chilling Requirement
Premier	550 hours
Climax	400 to 450 hours
Brightwell	350 to 400 hours
TifBlue	600 to 700 hours
Powderblue	550 to 650 hours
Vernon	500 to 550 hours

How do we know how many chill hours we have had in our area? The weather stations of georgiaweather.net have chilling hours calculators. As of February 22nd:

Weather Station	Number of Chill Hours between Oct 1, 2015 and February 22, 2016
Blue Ridge	1357
Atlanta	941
Cordelle	661
Valdosta	369

So what does this all mean? As noncommercial blueberry growers, it can give us some scientific information about our blueberry harvest and it gives us some insight into plant biology. It also gives us another reason to watch the weather forecast and welcome cold winter weather.

If you don’t grow blueberries yet, give it a try! See Home Garden Blueberries for more information. Also contact your local UGA Extension office. Many of them have plant sales this time of year and blueberries are often for sale.

Happy Gardening!

A Valentine’s Day Tribute to Vegetables by Georgia Gardeners

February 10, 2016 by Becky Griffin

As community and school gardeners we love our vegetables and in honor of St. Valentine we asked several lifelong gardeners to tell us about their favorite. The interesting part is how they all waxed poetically about their love for growing food.

Fred Conrad, the Community Gardener Coordinator for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, is well known throughout metro Atlanta for his love of community gardens. You can often see him riding through the Atlanta streets on a tractor!

Fred loves growing tomatoes. He says, “I like the on-going interaction of training them during the season as they grow and how great your hands smell when you handle the foliage. I also like that there is some finesse in growing them, that you can use little tricks here and there to improve your plant health and your harvest.” Doesn’t that make you want to get started on your own tomato planting??

Kyla Van Deusen, a Program Manager for the Captain Planet Foundation, spends her days passionately working in school gardens. She loves connecting children with their food! When asked about her favorite vegetable she told us about a special variety of crowder peas. She says that they “pop up in my garden now 3 years running without re-sowing, and I let them take over a couple of beds where they produce massive amounts of beans that I harvest as they dry and store for winter soups. They are a truly effortless crop.”

Betty Janacek is the Director of Capacity Building in the Friends of the Park programs for Park Pride Atlanta. Betty spends her days connecting people with parks. This often involves helping them build community with food gardens. Betty loves growing English peas. She says “they are easy to grow, are one of the first veggies to ripen, their vines and flowers are pretty and you don’t even have to cook them- you can just pick & eat.”

This Valentine’s Day we hope you spend some time preparing some delicious Georgia grown food and dream of the garden with your special someone.

Happy Gardening!

February Chores for Your Georgia Garden

February 3, 2016February 3, 2016 by Becky Griffin

As we all wait patiently, or impatiently, for Spring there are things we can do this month to be ready. This chore list was taken from UGA vegetable specialist Bob Westerfield’s Vegetable Garden Calendar.

Indoor Chores

This is the time to start your seedlings indoors. Peppers and eggplants take about eight weeks to grow from seed to transplant size. Tomatoes will take about six weeks. For detailed information about indoor seed starting visit our January 2015 post on seed starting by Amy Whitney.

Check in with your local UGA Extension office to see what type of classes are being offered near you. Agents plan their trainings on what you want to learn! There is also an upcoming events page on our website.

Outdoor Chores

Now is the time to repair any raised bed materials and think about adding compost. If you haven’t done a soil test in the past three years get that done now.

Make early plantings of your choice from the following: carrots, collards, lettuce, mustard, English peas, Irish potatoes, radishes, spinach and turnips.

Use “starter” fertilizer solution around transplanted crops such as cabbage.

Replenish mulch on strawberries.

These chores will keep us busy until the temperatures warm up!

Happy Gardening!

Three Tools that Will Improve Your Indoor Seed Starting

January 27, 2016 by Becky Griffin

Starting your garden seeds indoors is simply FUN. It means Spring is almost here. And, it is almost magical to see those green seedling emerge from the soil. Planting many seeds requires organization and we have three tools you need for seed starting 2016.

Three tools you can use:

Tool #1 Bleach

Your seedling trays and pots need to be sterilized. You do not want to start the season with trays contaminated with fungal spores. Simply mix 1 part bleach to 9 parts water soak your pots for a minimum of ten minutes. Rinse well and you are ready!

Tool #2 Masking Tape

When planting many trays of seeds it is easy to forget what seeds went in which tray. If you label on the clear tray tops you may accidentally remove the top and replace it differently – labeling is lost.

A great way to label your plants is to use masking tape on the seed tray side. Using a sharpie marker write your plant names and dates. The masking tape stays secure on the tray and the sharpie marker shouldn’t fade. When the seedlings are ready to transplant the tape is easy to remove. It can’t get much simpler.

Three Tools that Will Improve Your Indoor Seed Starting — Labeling your seeds is very important. Masking tapes and sharpies make this job easy.

Tool #3 Plastic Tweezers

Handling small seeds is tricky. Using your fingers to pick one seed from a group is a challenge. Plastic tweezers are very handy for moving those seeds. They aren’t as dangerous as the very pointy metal ones and can be used by students. They are easily purchased through a educational science website.

If you need more information on indoor seed starting see Starting Plants from Seeds for the Home Gardener or contact your UGA Extension agent. He/she has loads of experience and may be having a seed starting class.

Happy Gardening!

Pollinator Protection Plan for Georgia

January 20, 2016 by Becky Griffin

Because of real concerns about our pollinator population the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked each state to develop a customized pollinator protection plan with recommendations on improving pollinator health. This is not a regulatory document but just guidelines to help our pollinators.

Georgia’s plan is finished! Protecting Georgia’s Pollinators (PGP) was developed as a joint effort between UGA’s Department of Entomology and the Georgia Department of Agriculture. The author committee is made up of Jennifer Berry, Kris Braman, Keith Delaplane, Mike Evans, Philip Roberts, and Alton Sparks. Those of you who are beekeepers may recognize several of these names as people heavily involved in pollinator research.

The draft of the plan was sent to over 35 groups across the state for their input – Georgia Beekeepers Association, Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, the Peach Commission, the Blueberry Commission to name a few. The result is a plan that has a role for all of Georgia’s citizens.

As community and school gardeners we have a vested interest in pollinator health. More pollinators means more food from our gardens. Not to mention the beauty of enjoying the insects at work.

Guidelines from the pollinator plan that we can garden by include:

If possible leave areas of your property permanently undisturbed for soil-nesting bees. Sun-drenched patches of bare soil, roadsides, ditch banks, and woodland edges are prime bee habitats.

Dedicate pollinator habitat spaces in your garden. UGA’s Pollinator Spaces Project has many resources to help with this. Bees need a season-long unbroken succession of bloom. Many plant species bloom in the spring. Remember to plant plants to bloom in mid- to late-summer including Vitex, sages, and sunflowers. Your local UGA Extension office will have information on what pollinator plants grow well in your area.

Know the beekeepers in your area. If your garden has a bee hive you want to be very careful about pesticide application and you will want to review in detail the section on pesticide users in the plan.

Consider increasing bee nesting sites by providing bee homes. These consist of solid wood pre-drilled with 1/4 to 1/2 inch holes that are at least 3-inches deep. It is important that the tunnels terminate in dead-ends. These are easy to create and a nice addition to any garden.

Educate your gardeners about insect behavior. For example, the flight and nesting behavior of certain solitary bees happens in bursts of extreme activity. In the spring or summer you may see a large number of bees flying out of tunnels in the grass over your garden all at once. These are solitary bees and they are gentle, and their sting risk is extremely low! Enjoy watching them!

If you think insects are a problem in your garden take steps to correctly identify the insects and determine, with the help of your UGA Cooperative Extension Agent, if remedial action is necessary.

If your garden is located in a park or other public space that is maintained by local landscape crews, make sure that if they need to apply insecticide for turf pests that they mow the grass immediately before applying the pesticide. The mowing will get rid of weed flowers that may attract bees.

White Clover — Clover, a bee favorite, is often found in lawns.

Follow all pesticide label directions and precautionary statements. THIS IS THE LAW. EPA is now requiring a “Protection of Pollinators” advisory box on certain pesticides labels. Look for the bee hazard icon and instructions for protecting bees and other pollinators.

Take some time to look at Protecting Georgia’s Pollinators and you will see we all have a role to play. If you need any information about the plan or protecting pollinators contact your local UGA Cooperative Extension Agent.

Happy Gardening!

Using Signs in Your Georgia Community and School Garden

January 13, 2016 by Becky Griffin

Using Signs in Your Georgia Community or School Garden

Have you thought about the best way to use signs in your Georgia community or school garden? Gardeners often use small signs as plant labels but larger signs can be just as useful. They can be an important way to tie your garden together.

A creative, welcoming sign at the entrance can tell who you are:

Using Signs in Your Georgia Community and School Garden — SCAD in Savannah

Since gardeners don’t always work at the same time, signs can be a great way to communicate between gardeners:

More permanent signs can hold announcements, maps and other documents.

They can be a great way to tell the story of your garden:

And, they can be instructional for beginning gardeners:

Signs can also be a way to make sure all gardeners know the rules:

You can brag on your certifications. Many certification programs have an option to purchase a weatherproof sign:

For school gardens, signs can encourage teachers to use the garden by giving them basic lesson facts:

Or they can be inspirational:

Signs for the garden should be weatherproof, easily readable, and securely attached to a post or a building. The next time you are at a large botanical garden like the Atlanta Botanical Garden or the State Botanical Garden of Georgia notice their signs and labels. You will be inspired.

How do you creatively use signs in your garden?

Happy Gardening!

Happy Holidays from the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture

December 23, 2015 by Becky Griffin

We wish you and your family a Happy Holiday season! Thank you for letting us be a part of your inbox during 2015 and we look forward to being a part of your garden in 2016.

-Becky Griffin and the team at Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture.

Rodents and Your Community or School Garden

December 16, 2015December 15, 2015 by Becky Griffin

One of the beautiful things about all types of gardens is the opportunity to see wildlife – birds, butterflies, bats, beetles, lizards – all types of wildlife. A garden is truly an outdoor classroom. Many school and community gardeners work towards having their gardens become certified wildlife habitats.

Sadly, sometimes school or community vegetable gardens get blamed for harboring undesirable wildlife, like rodents. This can be a real problem for the gardeners.

Is the vegetable garden really the problem?

Wildlife need food, water, and shelter. Those things can be found in a garden, near a dumpster, or in buildings. A large population of rodents need a large amount of food and a few seeds from end-of-the-season garden sunflowers will simply not sustain a large population of rodents.

If your garden is being blamed for a rodent problem, determine where the rodents coming from and what is attracting them. Could it be leftover food from a playground or picnic area? Are dumpsters being improperly used? Has something recently changed, like nearby land being cleared that would displace wildlife and send them into your area? Are bird feeders spilling an excessive amount of feed? Chances are, a vegetable garden may not be the problem at all.

Setting out traps may help you all get a handle on the problem. You should be able to see just how many, and what type, of rodents you are dealing with. For example, voles eat the roots of any type of plants not just the roots of vegetables. If it is just a few rodents you can just trap and relocate them.

Educate community leaders about your garden

If a community leader or school official is concerned about your garden and rodents there are several steps you can take:

First, demonstrate that you are using proper sanitation in your garden. You are not leaving weed piles and overgrown plots for mice to hide in. You are harvesting the vegetables just as they become ripe and not letting overripe vegetable stay in the garden.
If you have a compost pile show that you are not adding things that attract rodents like whole eggs, meats, or dairy products. You are actively maintaining the compost bins/piles.
Educate the people around you that the soil and watering issues are no different in a vegetable garden than what is found around the traditional landscape plants located elsewhere on the property.
Maintain good relationships with your community leaders or school administrators. When they see what a positive impact your garden is having eliminating it would be unthinkable.

As a bonus, to assist with a property-wide rodent problem consider adding owl nesting boxes to attract these rodent predators. This would also add another wildlife dimension to your property!

An overall rodent problem is not a reason to eliminate a well maintained school or community garden. For more information see the UGA publication Resolving Human-Nuisance Wildlife Conflicts. Or, contact your local UGA Extension agent. Thanks to the many UGA Extension agents who assisted in this blog post!

Happy Gardening!

The Tamper – A Great Gift for the Georgia Gardener

December 9, 2015 by Becky Griffin

The Garden Tamper

It is gift-giving season and we want to share a useful gift that is easy to construct with scrap wood.

We have mentioned using a tamper in several other blog posts. It is a very useful tool to ensure good seed-to-soil contact when working with small seeds like spinach, lettuce, carrots, and collards. The weight of the tamper is all that is needed to compress the soil slightly.

I was first introduced to this tool by Jim Hall, a Cherokee County Master Gardener. He guaranteed a higher germination rate of small seeds by just using the tamper!

Building Instructions

The tamper is easy to construct and makes a great gift for a gardening friend or for yourself! You will need a 2X4 wood piece, a 1X2 (or 2X2) wood piece, and a wood screw.

Step One: Measure and cut 1 foot off of a 2X4. This will be the base.

Step Two: Measure and cut 4 feet off of a 1X2 (or a 2X2). This is the handle.

Step Three: Choose a wood screw that is at least three inches long so it will go through the 2X4 piece and into your 1X2.

Step Four: Drill a pilot hole in the middle of the 2X4.

And into the end of the 1X2.

Step Five: Using your wood screw attach the pieces:

Your final product:

The tamper can be creatively painted or left bare. Using the tool is easy. Place small seeds on top of garden soil. Sprinkle about 1/4th inch of soil on top of the seeds. Gently tamp the soil with tool. The weight of the tamper is enough pressure to ensure seed-to-soil contact. No need to press down.

Happy Gardening!

December 5th is World Soil Day

December 11, 2015December 2, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Celebrate World Soil Day

December 5th is World Soil Day, a fitting end to 2015’s International Year of Soil.

The 68th UN General Assembly declared 2015 the International Year of Soils and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations implemented the program, within the framework of the Global Soil Partnership and in collaboration with Governments and the secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

The goal of the project was to increase awareness and understanding of the importance of soil for food security and essential ecosystem functions. Your local UGA Cooperative Extension office probably offered a class on soil health or composting during the year. There were several offered in the metro Atlanta, Georgia area.

Healthy Soil Resources

Want to challenge yourself on soil trivia? Take the soil quiz from the International Year of Soils website. Want more information on composting and healthy soil? See UGA’s Composing and Mulching publication or visit Food Well Alliance’s healthy soil resources.

Finally, Gregor Skoberne created this YouTube video on worms making compost. This video will make you really appreciate the process of making compost and healthy soil.

Happy Gardening!

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