Community Gardening

Happy Arbor Day, Georgia!

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ArborDayLogoNationally, Americans recognize Arbor Day in April.  Georgia celebrates Arbor Day on the third Friday of February each year because this is a better time to plant trees.  This year Georgia’s Arbor Day falls on February 19th.  By planting in February,  trees have time for root growth before the heat and drought of our summer months.

Have you considered fruit trees in your community garden?  They add a nice backdrop to your garden, can provide a bit of shade during the very hot summer days, and produce fruit for the gardeners.

Be warned, however, that they can be a lot of work.  There are a few points to think about before you decide if you want to plant fruit trees in your community garden:

1.  You need the right location.  When planning fruit trees for the limited space of a community garden, location is the key.  Fruit trees require at least six hours of sunlight to be healthy and to produce fruit.  Eight to ten hours of sun is optimal.  Also, although the shade a fruit tree provides during  August may be welcome, you do not want to create unwanted shade on vegetable plots.  Dwarf trees may be an answer here.  They are also easier to care for than full sized trees.  Remember what you plant will get bigger and taller!

An apple tree in the Green Meadows Preserve Community Garden.
An apple tree in the Green Meadows Preserve Community Garden.

2. Maintenance.  Realize that fruit trees involve more care than vegetables.  They may need to be properly pruned, thinned and fertilized regularly.  Apples, peaches, and plums will get diseases and insects in Georgia.  Someone will need to volunteer to address this by the use of pesticides, fungicides, and traps.  If your garden does not allow any pesticides, growing traditional fruit trees such as apples, pears, and peaches may not be for you.  Instead, you may want to try other fruit crops such as blueberries and figs.  David Berle and Robert Westerfield’s publication Growing Fruits: Community and School Gardens does a great job of discussing these issues.

3.  You may need more than one.  Many trees need cross-pollination to produce fruit.  You will need at least two different apple trees and depending on the variety you might need two different pear or plum trees.  Most peach trees self-pollinate so one will still produce fruit.

If these points haven’t scared you off, check out these publications:

Home Garden Pears by Gerard Krewer and Paul Bertrand

Home Garden Apples by David Lockwood

Another way to think about trees is their value to pollinators.  There are many “trees for bees” and other pollinators that do well in our Georgia ecosystems.  Did you know that several trees are actually larval host plants for butterflies?  Selecting Trees and Shrubs as Resources for Pollinators is a wonderful resource for Georgia gardeners.

Contact your UGA Extension agent for more information on planting trees.

Happy Arbor Day!

Using Seed Catalogs In the Classroom

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The seed catalogs keep arriving. In my household that is cause for excitement. I save them until I have time to properly enjoy looking through them. What do you do with your seed catalogs after you have looked through them and placed your orders? If you throw them into the recycling bin you are missing out as these gems are full of useful information.

If you are a school gardener, or a community gardener that works with youth, the seed catalogs can be used throughout the year! To start with you can laminate the beautiful photos to use as plant markers.

You can use the information provided in the catalog for lessons:

Seed spacing guides can be used for students to create a garden bed design.

Days to harvest information can be used for students to determine the planting dates of their garden design so that all the produce is ready at the same time.

Seed package cost can be used to calculate the total cost of the garden design.

All of this information can be used to determine how much produce can be grown per square foot (inch, meter).

Marketing plans can be created to sell resulting produce at a Farmers Market.  How much money can be made given the input costs?

Aspiring artists can design artistic seed packets using the information given.

English classes can pick vegetables and re-write the plant descriptions.

Of couse, students can look through the catalog and pick a vegetable they have never tried before and make a plan to grow it.

Happy browsing!

Seed Catalogs Are Arriving!

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It is a great time of year for gardeners.  The seed catalogs are arriving and our gardeners are as beautiful as our imagination, and the photos from the catalogs.  These catalogs are mesmerizing.   The photos are works of art and the vegetable descriptions are literature.  Many of them contain information on vegetable history,  how to plant, and how to use the produce.  Flowers are described by height, scent, color and attractiveness to pollinators.  And, oh so many new varieties to try!

Garden Catalog Tips

Robert Westerfield,  UGA vegetable specialist, gives us some tips on navigating our way through these catalogs and all of the vegetable choices.

The Seed Catalogs are Here!

Tip #1  If you are gardening for high yields or dependable results, use recommended varieties for your area.  UGA’s Vegetable Planting Chart has a list of varieties that have proven to do well in Georgia.  These are the least risky choices.

Tip #2 When trying a new vegetable variety order only a small quantity to start.  Experimenting is one of the great pleasures of the garden.  Succeed or fail, it is fun to try.  Just don’t over-invest in seeds until you know how they will perform in your garden.

Tip #3 Remember the vegetables you grew up with may not necessarily be the best ones to plant now.   There are many improved hybrid varieties that can hold up to our disease and heat issues.  A good example is Silver Queen corn.  While popular, it is definitely not the best variety to grow in Georgia.  There are many new corn hybrids on the market that are much sweeter and maintain their sweetness longer when stored.

Hopefully, these tips will be a helpful guide as you enjoy making your 2021 garden seed selections.  One bonus tip especially for school gardeners – the photos in the catalogs can be laminated and used as plant markers or in gardening lessons.

Happy Reading

Garlic Planting Step-by-Step

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Late October is prime garlic planting time for the Atlanta area.  The bulbs overwinter in the garden and are harvested in the spring.  If you don’t traditionally plant winter crops, garlic is a great one to start with.

Garlic (Allium sativum) is a member of the onion family.  Its use dates back to 4000 BC in central Asia.  According to Seed Savers Exchange garlic was found in King Tut’s tomb, eaten by Olympic athletes, and used as medicine by Hippocrates.  There are over 600 types of garlic grown all over the world.   Why not give it a try?

There are two basic categories of garlic:  hard-necked and soft-necked.  Georgians have better luck growing soft-necked garlic as the hard-necked ones require the long, cold winters and long, cool springs of more northern climates.  There are three types of soft-necked garlic that grow well in Georgia:  silverskin, artichoke, and elephant garlic (actually a type of leek).  Recommended cultivars include Inchelium Red, California Early, and Chet’s Italian – all artichoke types.  If you want to try the silverskin type consider Mild French.

Garlic Production for the Gardener is a useful publication on the types of garlic, planting, and harvesting.  Planting involves just a few simple steps.  Your local UGA Extension Agent will also have information to help you get started.

Garlic D

Step 1:  Start with prepared soil.  Garlic needs rich, loose soil with a pH of about 6.5.  Make sure you add some compost after removing the summer plants; don’t just pull up spent plants and put the garlic in the ground.   If soil test results indicate adding fertilizer, do so.  Garlic is a medium-heavy feeder.  Nitrogen can be incorporated in the soil before planting, either with traditional fertilizers or bone meal.  Side dress in the spring when shoots are 4 to 6 inches tall.  Hold off on nitrogen after April 1st because you want to encourage bulb formation not leaf growth.

Garlic A

Step 2:  Pull the garlic head apart just before you plant.  Use the larger bulbs for best results.  Also, leave the skin on the bulb.

Garlic C

Step 3:  Plant the bulbs about 2 inches deep with the pointed end up.  Space them about 6-8 inches apart.

Garlic Mulch

Step 4:  Be generous with mulch.  A generous amount of  mulch helps keep the soil moisture and soil temperatures even.

Tops may show through the mulch by the end of  October and the bulbs should be well rooted by November.   Since October is one of our driest months of the year, irrigation is important at planting.  Watering may be needed in early spring, but be careful not to over water.  Stop irrigation once the tops begin to dry and fall over.

Garlic should be ready for harvest between mid-May to mid-July.  Look for the tops drying and following over.  When 1/2 of the tops are in this condition it is time to harvest.  Don’t leave the bulbs in the ground too long or they may rot.  Be very careful when harvesting not to damage your crop.

Allow the heads to dry in a warm, dry place.  Keep them out of direct sunlight.  After the garlic has dried store it in a cool, dry, dark place to keep it fresh as long as possible.  Garlic braiding is a unique way of storage.

A community garden plot can yield a year’s worth of garlic so you’ll be able to enjoy those delicious Italian meals all year long.  Garlic bread, calazones, tomato sauce, garlic chicken….

Happy Gardening and Mangiate bene!

Facts about the Asian Giant Hornet

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From UGA’s Entomology Department:

A flurry of recent press coverage has created a surge of interest in the Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia. The coverage is not traced to any recent event. The insect was found last September 2019 in Vancouver Island (Canada) and again in December 2019 in Washington state. But to date, this invasive insect is not present in the state of Georgia, nor indeed, east of the Mississippi.

The Asian giant hornet is a “true” hornet and the world’s largest, ranging in size from 1.5 to slightly over 2 inches long (38-50mm). The stinger is nearly ¼-inch long and stings are extremely painful. Each year in Japan, 30-50 people die from being stung by these hornets. The venom is not the most lethal among bees and wasps, but due to the insect’s large size, the dose is larger than any other stinging insect Americans typically encounter. Human sting deaths are biased toward individuals who are prone to anaphylactic reactions or to individuals who receive large numbers of stings. One or a few stings from an Asian giant hornet should not be life-threatening to an average individual.

The Asian giant hornet is not necessarily aggressive towards humans, livestock or pets but will sting if provoked. However, this giant killer can inflict a devastating blow to honey bee colonies, with several hornets capable of annihilating 30,000 bees within hours. There are three phases to an Asian giant hornet attacking a honey bee colony. The first is the hunting phase where individual hornets will capture bees at the entrance of the colony, cut off their heads, and form a “meat ball” from the thorax. They then return to their nest to feed their young this protein-rich meal.

The second phase is the slaughter phase. Hornets will mark a particular colony with a pheromone to recruit their sisters to the site. Then numerous hornets will descend upon the colony, killing all of the workers by ripping their heads off, dumping their bodies onto the ground below, and returning to their nest with their prey.

Once the bee hive is dead, hornets enter the occupation phase. Hornets take over the hive, collect pupae and larvae, and return to their own nest to feed their carnivorous young. The hornets now guard the hive entrance as if it were their own nest. The aftermath of an attack will be piles of decapitated or ripped apart bees in front of a colony. The visible key to an Asian giant hornet attack is “decapitated” or “ripped apart” bees, and not just a pile of intact dead bees, which could be the result of pesticides, starvation, or something else.

This is the hornet that incites the famous bee defensive response of “cooking” hornets to death. Asian honey bees grab an invading hornet, pile around it and raise their thoracic temperatures to the critical temperature that is lethal to wasps but tolerable to bees. Unfortunately, American honey bees, of European not Asiatic descent, do not have this behavior.

The Asian giant hornet’s life cycle is typical of that for other social wasps and yellowjackets. A solitary female emerges from winter hibernation and founds a subterranean nest, at first performing all nest duties including foraging and incubating the young. The colony steadily grows until workers eventually take over all foraging duties. New queens and males emerge in late summer and mate. Eventually the males and workers die, leaving only the newly-mated queens who overwinter in isolation.

At this time there have been no confirmed cases of this hornet’s presence in Georgia or anywhere outside of Washington state. Other wasps and hornets already residents in our state that may be confused with the Asian giant hornet are:

  • Cicada killers, Sphecius speciosus, size range 0.6 – 2 inches long (15 – 50mm)
  • European hornets, Vespa crabro, size range 1-1.4 inches (25-35mm)
  • Southern yellowjackets, Vespula squamosa, size range 0.5inches (12mm)
  • Baldfaced hornets, Dolichovespula maculata, size range 0.75 inches (19mm)

The Asian giant hornet and cicada killer may be similar in size but very different in coloration. The Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health have put together an “Asian Giant Hornet and its SE US Lookalikes” photographic fact sheet (link below) which is extremely helpful for distinguishing between the different species in our state.

At this time, we need to be vigilant but not over-reactive since, again, there is no evidence that the Asian giant hornet has journeyed East. However, sightings and/or disturbances to honey bee colonies should be reported. If you think you have seen an Asian giant hornet, found evidence of an attack (decapitated or ripped apart bees) or have a specimen, please contact your County Extension Agent immediately. They will be able to collect your information and any specimens for identification. You can call 1-800-ASK-UGA1 to find an agent near you. For photos and more in-depth information about the Asian giant hornet, please check out the followin

Georgia Department of Agriculture
http://www.agr.georgia.gov/invasive-pests.aspx

Washington State Department of Agriculture website  https://wastatedeptag.blogspot.com/2019/12/pest-alert-asian-giant-hornet.html

Plant Reproduction Basics

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To better understand how we can ensure that the seeds we collect will result in the plants that we want, let’s go back to high school biology and review plant reproduction basics!

The male parts of the flower are called the staman, made up of the anther and filament.  The pollen sits on the anther waiting to be moved to the female part of the same or a different flower.

The female part of the flower are called the carpel made up of the stigma, style and ovary.  Pollen lands on the stigma (this is pollination) moves down the style to find an ovule in the ovary (this is fertilization).

Some pollen is light and is presented on high anthers.  Wind moves this pollen to female flowers and corn is a wonderful example.  Some pollen is very sticky and needs an insect or other agent to move it to female flowers.  This is true of goldenrod.

Describes pollination and fertilization
This visual explains pollination and fertilization.

Is this starting to sound familiar?  This is very basic and plants have evolved many tricks to make their pollen more available for pollination.  Some plants have evolved with specific insect pollinators.  Flowers, you may know, exist to assist the pollinator in finding the pollen.  To a bee’s eyes some petals seem to have landing stripes leading straight to the pollen and nectar. It is a fascinating topic!  The Community Seed Network has information on a few different pollination types.

For our purposes this basic model will work.  Next time we will look at plant types:  hybrid vs. open pollination.

Happy Gardening!

Increase Your School Garden Scope by Saving Seeds

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School gardens routinely grow food crops, create pollinator habitat, and even replicate historic gardens. They are an integral part of school curriculum used to teach botany, math, nutrition, history, literature and even geography.  However, the one area lacking in the hundreds of school gardens that I have visited is seed saving. Seed saving can be an important horticultural part of the garden as well as an additional avenue for tying the garden to school curriculum. With a bit of botany background, proper seed saving is not difficult and will be a fun part of your garden!

Bean seed

Until modern times seed collecting was the only way a gardener had seed for the next year. Seed was shared with neighbors and passed down from generation to generation (heirloom seeds). Seeds were taken across oceans and over the American prairie and they are an important part of our agricultural history.  Your students may have heirloom seeds stories to share.  In my area of Southern Appalachia seed saving is part of many family heritages.

Seeds 101

Bean seed

Hybrid plants are not appropriate for seed saving. They are bred to amplify a certain trait such as disease resistance or larger fruit and are produced by cross-breeding two plants with different genetics.  Tomatoes are a great example.  Most of the tomatoes grown in backyards are hybrid tomatoes with names like Better Boy and Early Girl.  Although these varieties produce delicious tomatoes, they are not appropriate for seed saving.

Hybrid plants produce seeds that are genetically unreliable or not true-to-type. These seeds are undesirable for seed saving.

Open-pollinated plants are the type of plants we want for seed collecting.  They are pollinated naturally and will produce seeds that are true-to-type if they are isolated from other varieties. So, it is important for the school gardener to choose only one variety of the seed producing plant.  For example, do not plant Calypso beans in the same area as Hidatsa beans.  They could possibly cross-pollinate resulting in seeds not true-to-type.  A garden of only Calypso beans will produce true Calypso bean seed! Larger gardens follow the recommended isolation distance for seed saving for most beans that is 10-20 feet.

With the smaller space of a school garden, it is best to choose one variety of the seed producing plant type for seed saving.

SEED SAVING AND YOUR SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Lesson ideas are numerous:

  • Pollination – what exactly is pollination and fertilization
  • Pollinators – how is pollen spread
  • History – heirloom seeds
  • Geography – how did crops spread around the world
  • Math – how many seeds produced per plant/fruit/bean pod
  • Genetics – Hybrid plants and gene traits
  • Cultural Studies – choose plants with cultural significance such as Chinese long beans or tomatillos
  • Literature – research how seeds came from Europe and Africa to become part of our agricultural system

Seed Savers has a website full of seed collecting information. Your local land grant Cooperative Extension office can assist you in choosing varieties of plants that will work well for seed saving and will grow well in your area.  Over the next several weeks we will explore seed collecting in more detail so grab your seed catalogs and start planning your spring seed collecting garden.

Monarchs Migrate Through Georgia

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It is the time of the year when Georgians look to the sky to watch for signs of Monarch migration. These butterflies are on their way to the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico to overwinter on the oyamel fir trees of the area. The fir trees provide the perfect climate with a combination of optimal temperature and humidity to ensure the butterflies survive the winter. It is amazing to realize that this super-generation of migrating butterflies endure the hazards of the trip to go to a place that they have never been before.

Fall Monarch Migration Routes  Source:  USGS National Atlas

Reports around Georgia are that Monarch populations are high. A poll taken of insect enthusiasts showed that 83% have seen Monarchs heading south this year. Thirty percent of the respondents indicated that they are seeing a higher number of Monarchs than last year. This is terrific news as Monarch population numbers have been inconsistent over the last several seasons.

To increase the chances of seeing this phenomenon and to assist the butterflies create a fall migration garden. Monarchs will descend from their high migration path looking for food resources. Research shows that migrating butterflies respond to tall flowers that are easily accessible. Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum), goldenrod (Solidago spp.) and Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia) are all proven Monarch attractors in the fall. Several of our fall-blooming native aster plants (Aster spp.) are perfect for these butterflies as well. The butterflies do not need milkweed (Ascelpias spp.), their larval host plant, at this time of the year. But be sure to include milkweed in your summer butterfly garden.

To follow the Monarch migration and to report your butterfly populations visit Journey North (https://journeynorth.org/monarchs). This organization has tabulated the reports of citizen scientists for many years and is a great resource for school groups. Monarch Watch (https://www.monarchwatch.org) provides online information for learning about these insects and their habitat needs. Contact your local UGA Cooperative Extension agent for more information about butterfly gardening and habitat building. If you miss seeing the fall migration spend time getting your garden ready for the Monarch return in the spring!

Happy Butterfly Watching!

Serve Squash Year-Round – A Guest Post from Bob Westerfield

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October is Farm to School Month and this year Georgia is celebrating with Oh My Squash! You can visit the project webpage for more information on how to participate. Many of you may be growing a late crop of squash for this campaign so I thought it was worth reposting Bob Westerfield’s article on growing squash. He is a UGA horticulturalist and our go-to guy for vegetable production.   Bob writes:

To most Southern gardeners, fried yellow squash or grilled zucchini are staples on the table during the summer. Serving up home grown winter squash in the fall is worthy of bragging rights.

While normally easy to grow, the endless choice of varieties and numerous garden pests have made growing squash a little more challenging. Squash come in an endless assortment of shapes, sizes and colors. Choosing the right variety can seem daunting. The squash vine borer, a persistent pest, has caused some gardeners to give up on growing squash.

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