O C T O B E R 2 0 1 2 V O L U M E 1 4 , I S S U E 1 0

Queen Anne’s County Master Gardener Newsletter

The Watering Can

I N S I D E T H I S

I S S U E :

MG of the Month 1

Coordinators Cor-

ner

2

QAC MG News 3

Demo Gardens 4

Bay-Wise 4

Grow It Eat It 5

MG Monthly Meetings

6

Educational Opportunities

7

Book Review 8

Volunteer Ops/Victory Garden

9

Calendar 10-

11

Amy Cawley, Food Solicitor

for the Maryland Food Bank for the

Eastern Shore, is our October

speaker. Her talk will focus on the

"Farm to Food Bank" program. She

will discuss how it works, what the

Food Bank accomplished this year

and how Master Gardeners can

contribute to the program.

Wednesday, October 17 at Tilgh-

man Terrace

(Directions on page 10)

“Farm to Food Bank” Speaker: Amy Cawley, Maryland Food Bank

Wednesday, October 17th, 9:30am

Linda Doub once again has earned special recognition by the Master Gardeners for her work above and beyond this month. Linda, a graduate of the first MG class in 1998, is coordinat-ing the Master Gardener train-ing classes on Fridays at WREC. This is a huge job — coordinating speakers, handouts, equipment, hosts and trainees for three coun-

ties. In addition, Linda is on the holiday party com-mittee, preparing a great event for us on December 12. Linda’s indomitable spirit and perseverance came through for us again, even though she is doing it on one leg, having injured her foot as classes were get-ting underway. THANKS LINDA, for all you do!

MG of the Month: Linda Doub

P A G E 2

T H E W A T E R I N G C A N

UPDATE YOUR

CONTACT INFO!

Please send any changes

to Pat Bowell at

bowell74@verizon.net,

505 Railroad Ave,

Suite 4,

Centreville, MD 21617

or fax: (410) 758-3687

Master Gardener

Coordinator - who will

wear the hat next?

Coordinator’s Corner

Thanks to David Taylor for helping at QAC Fair in August, Pete Gerdom, Stephanie Simpson and Elizabeth Riffe for staffing the MG information table at Kent Island

Farmers Market in October, Jeanne Johnson and Vida Morley for initiating and coordinating Bay-Wise visits for members of Chestertown Garden Club, Connie Metcalf for helping with plant clinics, Sabine Harvey for creating the QAC MG Facebook page and for her great work with the Victory Garden. As al-

ways, thanks is due to all of you, but if we missed a deserved thank you or if you wish to express your appreciation to someone, please let Sabine Harvey or Carol Jelich know and it shall be acknowledged in the next newsletter.

Thanks To:

October! Cool misty mornings, stews and soups, young winter weeds showing up in the gardens, bringing in the pots, cuttings and bulbs for wintering over, leaving some seed heads for winter birds, hot weather just a memory. Hope you have all had some time to be in your gardens in this wonderful fall weather.

Note that our November meeting has been moved to November 28.

In this issue of The Watering Can, be sure to see the notice about the Holiday Luncheon on Page 6, a wonderful book review by Nancy Robson on page 8, and the great news about Sabine Harvey’s Victory Garden on page 9.

Good Gardening!

SUBMIT YOUR HOURS PLEASE 2012 is going by quickly, and Master Gardeners have been busy this year. Take some time this week to write up your time sheets and bring them to the MG meeting, drop them off at or mail them to Extension Office, or email them to Pat Bowell at bowell74@verizon.net. Also contact Pat if you have a question about filling out the timesheets. Let someone on the steering com-mittee know if you need help finding projects to work on.

Funding for our program depends on our ability to show the im-pact we are making in our community, and we do this by reporting our great projects and the many volunteer hours that make them successful.

Here are the links to a pdf form and an excel form:

http://mastergardener.umd.edu/files/ActivityLog.pdf

http://mastergardener.umd.edu/Administrative1/index.cfm

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The following Master Gardeners have ac-cepted responsibilities to keep the pro-gram going until a new coordinator is

hired. Please contact them if you have questions/info about these areas and keep dialog flowing! MG Meetings: At present, no one has agreed to lead. Meeting times are set in Centreville at Tilghman Terrace (no August due to fair) July 18, Sept 19, Oct 17, Nov 14 from 9:30-11:30. The Extension office has audiovisual equipment avail-able if requested ahead of time. Since no one has come forward, the Steering Committee decided that hostesses for the monthly meetings would be responsi-ble for picking up audiovisual equipment and the hostess box. Holiday Luncheon: Linda Doub and Karen Wimsatt. Wednesday, December 12th. Prospect Bay Country Club Cost $25— FMI see enclosed flier or contact Linda at lindadoub@gmail.com Newsletter compilation: Sabine Harvey greenbien@hotmail.com and Carol Jelich carol.jelich@gmail.com. Newsletter distribution: the Extension office—Shelia Shorter sshort-er@umd.edu or Susan Wolff. 410 758-0166. Publicity: The steering committee decided that each program chair would be responsible for their own publicity.

Bay-Wise: Kate Greer, Jane Chambers, and Vida Morley. Grow It Eat It: Linda Doub MG Interns: Karen Wimsatt and Linda Doub A Garden Affair: Judy Geggis and Genie Fitzgerald

Volunteer Hours Entry: Pat Bowell. Volunteer hour forms can be sent to the Extension Office or directly to Pat at bowell74@verizon.net Liaison to State Office: Sabine Harvey has volunteered to attend MG State Coor-dinators meeting and state strategic meetings if possible. Anyone may contact State Coordinator Jon Traunfeld, jont@umd.edu or Assistant SC, Robin Hessey, rmhessey@umd.edu at 410-531-5556. Extension Advisory Council (lets Extension office know what MG program needs are) Linda & Jack Doub, Jim Persels, and Sue D’Camera. 2012 New MG Training Classes: will be at WREC on Fridays from September 7th-November 2nd from 9-3. Linda Doub is the contact: lindadoub@gmail.com, 410 827-8613 3rd Thursday Centreville Demonstration Garden Cleanups will continue. Debbie Pusey will advise as to time and location. debbiepusey@verizon.net, 410 758-8623 Plant Clinics Alternate Saturdays At Chestertown Farmers Market: Sabine Harvey, greenbien@hotmail.com, 410- 810-3890. See vol-unteer page for details. Kent Island Farmers Market: Karen Wimsatt, jimandkaren.wimsatt@gmail.com , Thursdays from 3 to 6:30 pm on November 8th and December 13th. ANYONE MAY SEND MESSAGES TO THE WHOLE GROUP BY SENDING TO QACMG@googlegroups.com . Please direct questions or email address changes to Marty Appel, list serve manager. kitraveler@yahoo.com, 410-643-4351.

QAC MG News: Steering Committee Members:

John Ittu johnittu@gmail.com

Linda & Jack Doub lindadoub@gmail.com or jkdoub@gmail.com

Sabine Harvey greenbien@hotmail.com

Carol Jelich carol.jelich@gmail.com

Debbie Pusey debbiepusey@verizon.net

Jane Chambers Earljane@atlanticbb.net

Kate Greer Kway2bay@aol.com

Vida Morley vidamorley@verizon.net

Jim Persels jpersels@yahoo.com

Karen Wimsatt Jimandka-ren.wimsatt@gmail.com

Pat Bowell Bowell74@verizon.net

Susan Seth Seths46@verizon.ent

T H E W A T E R I N G C A N

P A G E 4

Bay-Wise Submitted by Carol Jelich

To join the Bay-Wise Committee or schedule a Bay-Wise visit to your garden, contact Jane Chambers, Kate Greer, or Vida Morley, Bay-Wise committee co-chairs.

MG Jeanne Johnson invited Carol Jelich to speak to Chestertown Garden Club, to kick off an ambitious project to have all the members of the Club schedule Bay-Wise consultations and certifications. Carol and Vida presented to an enthusias-tic group, and the visits are underway! Carol will also present Bay-Wise to the MG training class this month, and encourage them to join the committee and schedule visits.

Demonstration Garden Clean-up Submitted by Debbie Pusey

Thank you to Kit Foster, Cheryl Huyck and Susan Seth for helping out with September’s work at the Centreville Li-brary Rain Garden. The garden was in better shape than we expected, but still needed a lot of weeding and prun-ing. Oh, if we could only get rid of the wiregrass! We managed to again fill the pickup truck left for us by the QAC De-partment of Public Works. In October, we will work at the new raised bed garden at the 4-H Park. The garden has done very well for a first season, but I’m sure we will need to do some weeding and possibly some prun-ing to make sure it is ready for the win-

ter. We’ll meet at 9:00am as the morn-ings are getting cooler. We usually work for about one and a half hours – that’s our limit! As always, we appreci-ate anyone who can help out, even for a short period of time.

Thursday, October 18th: Raised bed garden at the 4-H Park

Thanks to Sabine Harvey for creating a Queen Anne’s County Master Gardener Facebook page! This will provide an-other way to share information about our program. If you are on Facebook, be sure to ‘like’ our page at https://www.facebook.com/QueenAnnesCountyMasterGardeners?fref=ts

Find Us On Facebook

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The Victory Garden at Kent County Middle School has, once gain, been growing strong! So far, we have harvested almost 900 lbs of food and of course we are not done yet.

More than 500 lbs of veggies have been donated to the Kent County Community Food Pantry. We have also been very lucky that we are allowed to serve the harvest in the school’s cafeteria. This past month, the entire 6th grade, about 120 students, got to feast on yellow and red watermelon. We hope we can harvest some more for the other grades.

As always, Master Gardeners are welcomed and encouraged to help with this project. For more info contact Sabine Harvey at greenbien@hotmail.com

You can also see lots of pictures and activities on Facebook: “School and Community Gardens in Kent County”, https://www.facebook.com/pages/School-and-Community-Gardens-in-Kent-County/134646973218491

Grow It Eat It

The QAC GIEI program is looking for new speakers for 2013.

If you are interested, if you simply want to learn more about the program, if you are a new MG and want to get involved, please contact:

Sabine Harvey, greenbien@hotmail.com

State Wide GIEI Meeting Tuesday, December 4, 10-2

4-H Office, College Park

2013 will be the year of the

ROOT VEGETABLE!

Date Topic Time Place

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 Farm to Food Program Amy Cawley. MD Food Bank

9:30am to 11:30 am Tilghman Terrace

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

* Week later due to Holiday*

Planning for 2013 9:30am to 11:30 am Tilghman Terrace

Wednesday, December 12, 2012 * Week early due to Holiday*

Holiday Luncheon Prospect Bay

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Master Gardener Holiday Luncheon Wednesday, December 12th - 11am to 2pm

Prospect Bay Country Club

Social Gathering 11~11:30

Lunch 11:30~1pm

Presentations 1pm~2pm

Menu: Vegetarian Salad or House Salad (with choice of Salmon or Chicken)

Soup: Carrot/Ginger Iced Tea - Water - Self Serve Coffee

Apple Crisp / Whipped Cream

Feel free to bring a guest: Cost $25 Per Person

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - RSVP by: Dec. 3rd - Make Checks Payable to: Linda Doub

Mail to: 320 Overlook Drive, Queenstown, MD 21658

Your Salad choice of:

__Vegetarian Salad or House Salad with: __Salmon or __Chicken

$25 per person x _______ Total Cost Enclosed ___________

T H E W A T E R I N G C A N

P A G E 7

Looking to add some flavor to your home garden? This hands-on workshop will equip you with the knowledge to grow low-maintenance fruit species successfully in your own backyard.

Speakers: Jon Traunfeld, Director of the University of Maryland Extension's (UME) HGIC

Dr. Jerry Brust, UME IPM Specialist

Dr. Karen Rane, UME Plant Pathologist

Russ Moss, Baltimore City Forestry Board & Baltimore City Farms

Elizabeth Hill, UME Urban Agriculture and Food Systems Educator

Topics: Fruit species and varieties that work well in Central MD Site preparation and maintenance Common pests, diseases, and sustainable solutions Sunday, November 4, 2012 12:30 pm – 5:30 pm Baltimore Center for Maryland Agriculture 1114 Shawan Road, Cockeysville MD 21030 Some workshop sessions are outdoors—please dress appropriately. Event will occur rain or shine.

Registration for this event is $15. For event information and registration, please visit: baltimore.umd.edu/Urban_Agriculture

Plus sample a local novelty—Paw Paw ice cream! Further information: http://baltimore.umd.edu/Urban_Agriculture/

Educational Opportunities

Native and Easy to Grow Fruits Workshop

REGISTRATION FORMS for MG Advanced Training can be found at: http://

mastergardener.umd.edu/AdvancedTraining/RegSpr2012.pdf, or pick one up at the

a monthly meeting. Questions? Contact Robin Hessey at rmhessey@umd.edu

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I’m not an agronomist, and I have a feeling you’d really need to be one to properly assess this book. But I’m to-tally on board with the notion that you need to feed the soil and all its critters before it can feed the plants that grow in it. That’s the premise of the just-published Building Soils Naturally; Innovative Methods for Organic Gardeners by Phil Natua (Acres USA, 2012, $19.95). Nauta, who taught organic horticulture at Gaia College and was a director of the Soci-ety for Organic Urban Land Care, as-serts that feeding the soil well not on-ly helps maintain the health of our planet, it grows vegetables and fruits that are so nutritionally dense that they don’t rot for weeks. I find that last claim a bit suspect, though it does make sense to me that the more nutri-tion available for fruit and vegetable uptake from the soil, the more nutri-tionally dense they will be. Twinkie-effect aside, the book is well orga-nized, is written in a breezy style and has lots of great info.

There are three sections: The Soil and Its Inhabitants, Six Steps to Creating Healthy Soil, and Garden Action Strat-egies. Within those sections are short chapters on such things as Soil Nutri-ent Testing (and choosing the best testing facility), Calcium and Phospho-rous, Other Major Nutrients, and Gar-den Health Management Plan. Each chapter has a short review list so you can quickly check to see what chapter might be most helpful to your particu-lar question if, like me, you have trou-ble keeping every single bit of chemis-try, Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) and the chart of Reams-Based Ideal Nutrient Levels in Soil in your head.

Natua restates – but enlarges upon -- much of the currently accepted wis-

dom in the spiral-bound Master Gardener tome that’s laughingly called the ‘handbook,’ though Building Soils Naturally is a much more detailed look at soil ecology and chemistry and includes soil nutrients’ effect on Brix (a measure of the dissolved solids in plant juice, including sucrose and fructose, vitamins and min-erals, protein and amino ac-ids and more), which has got to affect the density of vita-mins and minerals in their fruits.

Nauta also takes issue with some current conventional wis-dom. For example, he says that soaker or drip hoses that target individual plants deprive the or-ganisms in the un-watered soil and affects nutrient uptake; he prefers to overhead water since research at University of Nebraska shows it loses only about 4% to evapora-tion. (I would think the real per-centage loss would fluctuate de-pending on ambient temperature, wind velocity and sun exposure, but never mind.). Regardless, over-head watering, which is what Na-ture does, makes sense, provided you’re strategic and not profligate with it. For example, in our garden during drought, the dust from the surrounding coats the leaves of everything. A good overhead soak-ing very early in the morning every ten days or so washes off the leaves, clearing stomata, while giv-ing the plants and the critters in the surrounding (mulched) soil critical hydration. It produces visible bene-fits – even though the sprinkler wa-

ter is chlorinated town water and does more to keep things alive than to grow stuff. The wa-ter I haul from the rain barrels every five days or so and pour only on the plant roots actually helps things grow. There’s a visi-ble difference.

I question some of Nauta’s asser-tions, but as I said, I’d need to be an agronomist to do a proper job of it, in which case I might agree with them. And I find that taking issue with assertions usually means we do further research and pay closer attention, good things in gardening and in life. I highly recommend Building Soils Naturally. The bibliography runs to 43 books, some of which look like they’d be really good additions to a serious gardener’s (and a serious planet-dweller’s) library. .

Building Soils Naturally Submitted by Nancy Robson

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Volunteer Opportunities

GARDEN AFFAIR CHAIR

NEEDED!!

Next year the Gar-den Affair will be held on Saturday, May 4, 2013. It was moved to the first Saturday in May. The first plan-ning meeting is scheduled for Mon-day, November 19, 2012, at 9:30 am at the Extension office, and all are welcome to attend the meeting. Could you volunteer to chair or co-chair this important event on the MG calendar? Please contact Susan Seth if you are interested. Remember:

NO CHAIR = NO AFFAIR

PLANT CLINIC Karen Wimsatt is look-ing into continuing into the fall at Kent Island Farmers Market, and is open for suggestions and volunteers to help. If you need some hours, you could help develop a topical display on houseplants, fall fertilizing, lawn care, or other topic of interest to you, or volunteer to help staff the display. Contact Karen Wimsatt, 410-643-7404. or jimandka-ren.wimsatt@gmail.com.

Hostesses for Monthly Meetings: We are still looking for a hosts/hostesses for the MG Monthly meet-ings. Contact Jim Persells or Susan Seth if you want to volunteer.

On September 22, St. Brig-id’s Farm in Kennedyville organized its 5th annual “Field to Fork” Dinner. The dinner is held on the farm, in an empty pasture with dairy cows grazing nearby. All food, including cheese and wine, comes from local farms. Proceeds of the dinner go to local organiza-tions and this year that honor was be-stowed upon the Victory Garden at Kent County Middle School. Thanks to a record number of people attending the dinner (140) and a silent auction, St. Brigid’s Farm will be donating $5,000 to the garden!!!! I am absolutely speechless and do not even know how to begin to say thank you. We are looking into building a high tunnel next to the garden and/or building an outdoor classroom. If we do expand the garden with a high tunnel, I could certainly use some extra MG volunteer hands in the garden. Actually, I could use some extra help regardless. There is such a wide array of volunteer opportunities:

Watering Weeding Planting Publicity/taking pictures Starting vegetable transplants Working with students

If any of this sounds interesting to you, please contact Sabine Har-vey, greenbien@hotmail.com For more info about the Victory Garden go to Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/School-and-Community-Gardens-in-Kent-County/134646973218491 For more info about St. Brigid’s Farm go to: https://www.facebook.com/pages/School-and-Community-Gardens-in-Kent-County/134646973218491 or http://stbrigidsfarm.blogspot.com/ Sabine Harvey

Victory Garden Receives $5,000

T H E W A T E R I N G C A N

P A G E 1 0

Tilghman Terrace 104 Tilghman Ave

Centreville, Md. 21617

From South of Centreville Follow 213 N. into town. Turn right at first light onto Water street and * * pass the PNC bank on your right. Tilghman Ave will be the next street on your right. Turn right onto Tilghman Ave. Street park-ing is available as well as in the back. From North of Centreville Follow 213 S. into town. Turn Left on E. Wa-ter St. ** Follow directions above. Parking on street and in the rear of building.

Directions to the

monthly meeting!

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 5 MG intern

Training, 9-3.

Wye REC.

6

7 8 9 10 11 12 MG intern

Training, 9-3.

Wye REC.

13

14 15 16 17 Monthly

Meeting, Farm

to Food; Steer-

ing Committee

meets after

18 19 MG intern

Training, 9-3.

Wye REC.

20

21 22 23 24 25 26 MG intern

Training, 9-3.

Wye REC.

27

28 29 30 31

October 2012

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tive

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ltimo

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19 2013 Garden

Affair Plan-

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QAC Ext. Of-

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28 Monthly

planning meet-

ing NEW DATE

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November 2012

University of Maryland Extension

Queen Anne’s County

505 Railroad Ave.

Suite 4

Centreville, MD 21617

Vision Statement: A healthier world through environmental stewardship

Area Extension Director

University of Maryland Extension

Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne's Counties

QACMG Website:

http://queenannes.umd.edu/QACMG/

index.cfm

University of Maryland Extension

505 Railroad Avenue, Suite 4

Centreville MD, 21617

Phone: (410) 758-0166

Fax: (410) 758-3687

November Newsletter

Deadline:

Wednesday, October 24

It is the policy of the University of Maryland and University of Maryland Extension, that no person shall be subjected to

discrimination on the grounds of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital or parental

status, or disability. Equal opportunity employers and equal access programs.

New Home Horticulture/Master Gardener for Queen Anne’s County

I am happy to announce that the search for a Home Horticulture/Master Gardener is complete ! We are pleased to welcome Hilary Ennis to the Queen Anne’s office. Hilary will be leaving her current position with the Delaware Exten-sion Program where she worked as a research assistant to the fruit and vegetable specialist. Hilary will begin working for us on November 19th. We encourage you to stop by and meet Hilary.