Roots & Shoots October / November 2009 October 6, 2009 @ 6:30pm MGSOOC General Society Meeting & Location Telly’s Greenhouse 3301 John R Rd., Troy, MI 48083 (Between Big Beaver Rd. and Wattles Road) Speaker : George Papadelis–Education: “Ornamental Grasses” A business meeting will take place, prior to the start of our Educational Program. November 3, 2009 @ 6:30pm MGSOOC General Society Meeting & Location Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church 5631 North Adams Rd, Bloomfield Hills, MI  48304 Speaker : Mary Schwark –Education: “Art for Gardeners:  Historical                                                                         Perspective and Inspiration” A business meeting will take place, prior to the start of our Educational Program. December 8, 2009 @ 6:30pm MGSOOC General Society Meeting & Location Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church 5631 North Adams Rd, Bloomfield Hills, MI  48304 Holiday Potluck Carol’s Corner I was fortunate enough to be asked to judge vegetables again at Autumn Fest . This event is at the Mary Thompson Farm on Evergreen in Southfield and showcases the Southfield Senior Community Garden. If you’ve never been there it’s worth a drive to see. The property is 20 acres and the garden plots take up about 9 acres. They are very impressive. I arrived a little early and the contest entries were still coming in so I took a walk through the gardens. The first person I came upon was busy harvesting for the competition. He was running late but as I watched I noted that more of his veggies were going into his mouth than in his display basket! We both laughed as I gently suggested he reverse that trend and stop eating his harvest or there wouldn’t be anything left for the competition. Then I was taking some photos of a particularly pretty garden when I heard a woman say, “Wait I don’t have the banner up yet!” I walked to her garden gate and was entranced by the flowers blooming everywhere. She introduced herself to me. Her name is Brenda Moon. She told be that this was a Memory Garden for her Mother who has Alzheimer’s. Brenda brings her to the garden every weekend. She said, “Nana gets very excited by all the colors, textures, and scents!” Brenda then apologized to me for the holes in the leaves of her lettuce plants. “Don’t apologize for that”, I said. “I find solace in my garden beds because they are all imperfect, just like me.” She then said “I really didn’t mind the bugs because they’re my bugs!”, and we laughed so hard she fell off the ladder. Brenda told me of the “old man” who gardens the plot next to hers. He is always complaining that he hates gardening but he has to plant things to be able to come to the garden. He uses the garden as a means to have regular social interaction and he spends his time visiting with the other gardeners. Brenda works for one of the Unions and is away on assignment many weeks of the year (she’s always home on the weekends). She doesn’t have many friends because she didn’t grow up here and is away from home so much. The Southfield Senior Community Garden is where is finds her community. One of her community garden buddies is a stock broker, they are at opposite ends of the spectrum politically. They know not to talk politics and have formed a great friendship in the garden! It’s so true that gardening cuts across the barriers of race, religion, socio-economic status and it really hit home for me as I listened to her stories. The last thing she said to me was she has always wanted to take the Master Gardener Volunteer Training Class but hasn’t found the time. I think that she certainly has the spirit of a Master Gardener Volunteer and I hope to see her in class one day! I hope all of you had a great summer and felt fulfillment in your own gardens and with your volunteer projects. Native Plants for Your Yard and Water Quality Michelle Arquette-Palermo from the Clinton River Watershed Council gave our September lecture on planting natives to promote water quality. The Clinton River flows through 63 communities with 1.5 million people and thousands of stormwater drains. The river was historically the dirtiest river in Michigan due to contaminated sediments, industrial and municipal discharges, and flooding. There was bacterial contamination from sewers and septic tanks and stormwater pollution from gas, fertilizer, pesticides and animal waste. Solutions to pollution: 1) reduce, reuse and recycle; 2) scoop the poop; 3) proper car maintenance; 4) healthy lawn and yard care. Lawns should be mown high, and fertilizer and clippings should be swept from paved surfaces back onto the lawn. Fertilizers should be time-release with no phosphorous. Leave natural buffers between lakes, streams and drains. Native plants can enhance water quality because they have very long roots and therefore suck up stormwater before it reaches bodies of water. They can be used to make rain gardens that are specifically designed to capture rainwater. Natives also provide habitat for wildlife, and plant choices can provide food for particular birds and animals. You can consult the Michigan Natural Features Inventory to recreate habitats once native to your area. Since natives have evolved in our climate, they do not need watering in dry periods and require less maintenance in general. They also provide natural beauty. To start a native garden, inventory the area to see what grows there now. You need to check local ordinances to see if it is legal to have a native garden instead of a lawn (and work with local officials to change outdated laws). Test the soil and set goals for yourself – don’t try to do everything at once! Make a budget and decide how much time you are willing to spend on maintenance. Assess the site and make a plant list, and then make a drawing. Michelle particularly recommended the book Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens by Douglas Tallamy. She also suggested reading Landscaping with Native Plants of Michigan. There are many lists of native plants for different garden conditions. —Submitted by Jean Gramlich Prolonging the Enjoyment of the Harvest: How to Make Herbal Honeys Herbal honeys are an excellent way to prolong the enjoyment of your harvest. They are simple to make and incredibly delicious. Why is honey so great? Besides being a wonderful addition to teas, recipes or smeared on toast. Honey has been used medicinally for thousands of years. There's even evidence it was used by the Egyptians as far back as 2600 BC. All you need to make your own herbal honey is a handful of one of your favorite aromatic herbs (dried or fresh), a wide mouthed mason jar and some honey. I recommend buying fresh honey from the farmers market, it's always better than store bought and supports our local farmers. Fill your mason jar about a quarter of the way full with your herb and fill it with honey. Then stir using a spoon or chopstick to get all the air pockets out and saturate all of the herb. You can use your herbal honey as early as a day or two, but I suggest letting it sit for at least a couple weeks. That's it, it's really that easy. Enjoy! Recommended Herbs for Honey Making Here are a few herbs to try but please experiment with your favorites and don't limit yourself to this list! Lemon Balm Lavender Peppermint Rose Petals Rose Hips WARNING: Raw honey contains botulinus spores. These spores can cause botulism in small children. Pregnant women should also be cautious. —Submitted by Christina Austin Organic Gardening Notes Peak Phosphorus “Peak phosphorus”, just like “peak oil”, means that, because phosphorus is a finite resource, its production will peak and then begin to decline. Why should this concern us? Phosphorus in Agriculture and Horticulture The phosphorus that’s applied to farm fields and gardens is mined. It’s applied in the form of rock phosphate powder or as super-phosphate, which is made by treating rock phosphate with acid. This phosphorus isn’t pure, elemental phosphorus – which is dangerous because it ignites spontaneously – but a phosphate, a compound of phosphorus and oxygen. Phosphorus is essential for all plant and animal life in several ways; for example it’s a crucial component of “ATP”, the cell’s main form of energy storage. A Finite Resource When you buy NPK fertilizer, the percent phosphate content is shown by the second of the three numbers on the bag. The phosphate was most likely mined near Tampa, which supplies 65% of America’s phosphorus. The world’s largest producer is China, America is second, and the third is Mauritania, in Western Morocco. And that’s pretty much it – there aren’t many other places where phosphorus is mined. Phosphorus – at least cheap phosphorus – is a finite resource, just like cheap oil. It will run out in about a hundred years. More to the point, “peak phosphorus” -- the point at which production will peak after which it will begin to decline -- will occur in the next ten years, if it hasn’t already happened. When phosphorus production begins to decline its price will skyrocket for two reasons. First, demand will continue to increase as world population increases because there aren’t any substitutes for phosphorus. Secondly, more expensive mines will be brought into production. There is lots of phosphorus in sea-water; like salt it came from the land. But extracting it would be extraordinarily expensive. Phosphorus Contamination One result of cheap phosphorus has been over-use on row crops. This leads to run-off into streams, which – together with excess nitrogen – results in algal blooms in waterways, depletion of oxygen, and the “dead zones” in the sea such as in the Gulf of Mexico. Plants and animals concentrate phosphorus, for example one authority cites 0.12% phosphorus in the soil and 0.7% in alfalfa, a more than five-fold concentration. Consequently a second source of contamination is certain forms of animal husbandry such as concentrated swine and poultry operations and spraying manure slurry on dairy farm pastures. The irony here is plain: local, harmful over-abundance of a resource that will become increasingly scarce in the near future. Keeping Phosphorus on the Farm The straightforward way of preventing phosphorus run-off from farm land is to reduce soil erosion radically because, obviously, the soil takes phosphorus with it. The rate of soil formation is less than 0.5 tons per acre per year. The average rate of soil erosion by water and wind on arable land in America is more like 4 or 5 tons per acre. Much of the erosion occurs on fields that shouldn’t really be plowed because they are steeply sloped. So far the best approach to preventing soil erosion is no-till, coupled with winter cover crops. This way there are crops growing for most the year whose roots will help to keep the soil in place. Phosphorus Recycling Nature recycles phosphorus very efficiently, although it must be said, not completely. Prairies and forests have managed the job for millennia; this is a standard of recycling that will need to be considered as peak phosphorus begins to bite. Consider the household: one-half of the phosphorus we ingest in food and drink leaves the house as urine. The University of Alberta in Edmonton is experimenting with a reactor that separates phosphorus from the liquid part of the waste stream and produces a phosphate compound in crystal form that could be saleable to farmers and gardeners. There are more direct ways of urine recycling: The Swedes are producing two-way toilets that separate urine from solid waste at source. (The very existence of such a thing points up the absurdity of using 1.6 gallons of pure, potable water to flush away a resource that will be increasingly valuable.) Separated urine can be safely applied to gardens and compost piles. Farm application of source-separated urine in years to come would require two parallel sanitary sewer systems. Don’t dismiss the thought out of hand; very expensive phosphorus, like very expensive oil, will make the unthinkable thinkable. Another form of recycling is sewage sludge, which of course contains many more plant nutrients in addition to phosphorus. The major problem with sewage sludge is toxic heavy metals, largely from industry, that enter the waste stream. This problem needs to be solved. The Chinese, “farmers for forty centuries” as the book title has it, maintained their soil fertility with what is politely called “night soil”. Many cultures that didn’t recycle night soil allowed their soil to degenerate and their agriculture to fail. Finally, I believe that the separation of livestock operations and arable farming will eventually give way to mixed farming – back to the future, if you will. The rapidly rising cost of phosphorus fertilizer will point up the absurdity of livestock farmers struggling with contamination caused by excess phosphorus while arable farmers are paying top dollar for the stuff. —Submitted by Peter Bray Notes from Nutcase Nursery Hasn’t it been another wonderful ride! Truly a season to test us all. And just when you thought you had it all figured out. I have to admit that back in the days when I had to spend an awful lot of time related to my job, I suffered from a bout of depression every autumn. For years I worked in an office with no windows. During the winter I only saw daylight on Sundays or an occasional Saturday. Also sometimes, when there was a crisis, in the director’s office. He had windows. I had a classic case of chronic Seasonal Affective Disorder. I hated that the days got shorter and the weather more brisk. I suffered from vicious sinus headaches on the cool, crisp, sunny afternoons. I loathed the fact that, soon, all of the hard work and time I had invested would be but a memory because the gardens would be destroyed by a slip of Jack Frost. I hated him. And who do I marry but a man who loves the fall! He would be the first one to pronounce the garden done way before anyone in their right mind even thought of it. “We should dig the potatoes.” “They’re safe right where they are.” “You should pull out the peppers. They’re not going to do anything anymore anyway.” “Quit cursing my plants.” Yesterday in fact, after I pulled out all of the cornstalks, he did it again. “It’s almost the middle of September. Time to get rid of the rest.” Didn’t like him very much either. But my attitude has changed. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love the fall, but it’s the time of year that, instead of fretting over everything, I stand back and become somewhat amused by it. First I usually laugh at myself, especially when I realize that some of my good intentions were fruitless (no pun intended). I sowed jasmine nicotiana three times in the flower beds and not a single seed sprouted. But I have one heckuva nice crop growing between the stones in the path I weeded twice. Right in front of the spot where two pots of it bloomed last summer. Of course they’re so tiny that they’ll never flower this season but at least I learned something. The problem was with the planter and not the planted. And also the cooler weather. I laughed out loud when a slip of the pen caused a project I was working on to not quite live up to my expectations. One of my fake owls who is supposed to scare chipmunks out of the strawberry patch has bad eyeballs. He was manufactured before someone figured out that clear plastic compounds eventually become cloudy when exposed to the elements and I have to redraw his pupils each year with a permanent (or maybe not-so-permanent) marker. I hold him on my lap when I perform his plastic surgery and I slipped fixing his left eye. Now he looks like Marty Feldman. If the chipmunks respond to him as I used to respond to Marty Feldman, I should have no problem with critters in the berries next year. Some situations were not as funny. We had a bit of a bee problem this year and I think it was mostly my fault. Since I am sensitive to bee venom I have a great deal of respect for the little buzzers. I don’t make sudden movements around them or swat at them. I have even petted them. But I dumped a bagful of lawn clippings near the asparagus patch behind the berm to use as mulch. I had been watching a single bee mining the clippings for several weeks. I kept my distance as best I could but every time I eased into the beds to weed there, within minutes I would hear a noise that sounded like it should be coming from the airport. The angry bee would get louder and louder and I would leave. And, no matter where I worked, the angry bee would eventually appear. I never met such a hostile bumblebee. I would go out and pick beans in peace and quiet and in a short while there to chase me out was the angry bee. No matter where I tried to garden, there would appear the angry bee. A solitary, noisy, black and yellow buzzer with an attitude. He followed me everywhere. One day I noticed that there was a second bee mining the grass pile. I got even more curious. We know what curiosity did to the cat; it’s not too good for dogs either. One afternoon, Himself and I were taking a chat under the shade of the big willow tree and the Dog was trolling for quackgrass behind the berm. As a pup, Big Dog spent quite a bit of time learning not to bite bees. Miraculously, she had never been stung that I know of. Maybe because she now has limited vision she managed to cruise right through the grass pile and angry bee was quick to protest. The poor dog came running and leaping and Dad snatched angry bee in cupped hands. I couldn’t help hollering “NOW WHAT!?!?!!?!” as this was all going on two feet in front of me and I figured that angry bee already didn’t like me a lot and I would be the next target. The bee was thrown to the ground with as much force as Himself could muster but I couldn’t see where he went. We looked around and listened for a while but found no sign of him. We sat back down and attempted to pick up our conversation where we left off. Two minutes later, from behind my husband’s bench came you-know-who making, dare I actually say it, a bee-line straight for his unsuspecting mouth. It landed on his lip, I hollered again, the dog took off running, and Himself did the cupped hand move once more, knocking angry bee to the ground again. This time I saw him land and I stepped on him. Or her, I don’t really know. I no longer cared about its life let alone its sex. Of course I felt bad. At Nutcase, we are very careful not to harm beneficials, but this was a matter of self preservation --- times three. Some years back, I happened to be talking on the phone one afternoon when I saw four nine or ten-year-old boys with jars right up close to my front window. I quickly hung up and headed out the door and asked them what they were up to. They readily admitted that they were catching bees. “Not in my yard you don’t. These are my bees and you can’t have them.” I led them to the backyard and showed them the vegetable garden where the bees were working overtime. There were several sunflowers growing around the perimeter of the patch and each one was cluttered with pollinators. This was back when hive collapses were just being reported and even today we know that there still isn’t real data as to why. I pointed out the big squash blossoms and the tiny white flowers on the bean plants. They saw bees on the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. I asked them all if they ever ate any of the vegetables that I had growing there. Each one said he did. I tried to appear as tall and somber as I could and in my wisest voice I told them that without bees, there would be no food. They left single file and quiet. They probably went home and told their parents about the crazy bee lady and I never saw them again. After the aforementioned bee fatality I tried to make it up to the bees by not performing my usual trimming and pulling of their pollen sources, even though the oregano would reseed if not cut and the monarda was seriously powdered with mildew. I finally had to get down to serious grooming of the beds so I started going out just before dark. Of course, that was a big mistake because the mosquitoes were only too happy to help me lose weight a drop at a time. Now as the season is drawing to a close and my philosophy is “what’s done is done,” I spend time critiquing the views from other angles in preparation for the next season. You know you do it too. Gardeners have a habit of just standing and staring at various areas around the yard, deep in thought. So the neighbors think it’s a little peculiar. Who cares? It’s how we figure out things. We don’t just garden for ourselves unless we’re doing it in the deep wilderness or in a cave. What we see from our windows is seen also from the street or the sidewalk or the adjacent lot. It’s good to check out other angles. We don’t often get a view of what our neighbors see when they look toward our yards unless we go next door and harvest all their raspberries while they are in Europe for five weeks. I’m not recommending trespassing but getting a different perspective is a good thing. You might happen upon a major pruning opportunity, a runaway groundcover that may be appearing in your garden soon, or a beautiful planting made possible by those seeds you shared a few years back. You might also see the eyesore you thought was fairly hidden at close range but glares across longer distances like your cache of empty pots behind the shed that someone else has to look at every time they barbeque. I believe it was Robert Frost who wrote “Good fences make good neighbors.” I was never quite sure what he meant. I have found that good fences make great catchers of weed trees and debris and with that perspective in mind I strive to be a better neighbor by being more aware of how things look from the other side of the fence. The grass isn’t always greener but I did manage to get five jars of jam out of the deal. Membership Bulletin Board The Master Gardener Society welcomes the following new members to our group. We look forward to Master Gardening with you in the future. Mr. John Blust Mrs. Carole Bodner Ms. Anne Bondy Mrs. Susan Burt Ms. Eileen Clein Ms. Kathleen Connolly Ms. Cathy DeHorn Ms. Diane Dufek Ms. Bernadette Ethridge Ms. Deborah Forbes Ms. Mary Fredericks Mrs. Elizabeth Howcraft Mr. Bill Johnson Mrs. Margery Johnston Ms. Linda Keeler Mrs. Pat Sokol —Julie Kowalk – Membership Some Information You Should Know MGSOOC Board Members President: Tom Hershberger ………………..…. (586)573-3954 Vice President: John Grant……………………….(248)852-3758 Secretary: Ruth Vrbensky ……………………….(248)969-6904 Treasurer: Jean Gramlich …………………..….. (810)714-2343 Team Administrator: Susan McLarty ……… (248)673-8092 MSU Extension Oakland County Coordinator Advisor: Carol Lenchek ………………………… (248)858-0900 lenchekc@oakgov.com Team Coordinators Bowers Farm: Wayne Lapinski……………….(248)391-6269 Project Support: Clay Ottoni …………..……..(248)454-9800 Hospitality: Chris Covell……………….…….(248)852-1890 Membership: Julie Kowalk …………..………(810)655-2228 Programs: DeeAnn Bauer ……………..….(248)828-7385 Door prize Coordinator: Janie Grissom…..(248)887-6096 Trips & Tours: Sandie Parrott ………….….....(248)394-1532 Corresponding Secretary: Margy Truza…… mat4744@aol.com Web Site Address: www.mgsoc.org Webmaster: Sheri Trout sheri@oaklandweb.com Web Site Calendar: Chris Wilder cwilder@wowway.com Currently Available Opportunities: Communications, Education, Project Support, Volunteer Activities North Office Building, #26 East Carol Lenchek…248-858-0900 1200 N. Telegraph Road Extension Educator~Master Gardener Program Pontiac, MI 48341 Email: lenchekc@oakgov.com Office Hours: M- F 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Linda Smith…248-858-0887 Beverly Terry…248-858-0885 Horticulture Office Assistant County Extension Director Email: smithlin@oakgov.com Email: terryb@oakgov.com Cathy Morris…248-858-1639 Lois Thieleke…248-858-0888 Clerk & Contact for Certification of Volunteer Extension Educator~Food & Nutrition & Education Hours Email: thielekel@oakgov.com Email: morrisc@oakgov.com Charlene Molnar…248-858-0902 Bindu Bhakta…248-858-5198 Horticulture Advisor Extension Educator~Water Quality Plant & Pest Hotline Email: bhaktabi@msu.edu Hours of operation vary seasonally Saneya Hamler…248-452-9726 Robin Danto…248-858-0904 Extension Educator~Children, Youth & Family Extension Educator~Food Safety Email: hamlersa@msu.edu Email: dantor@oakgov.com Tom Schneider…248-858-0905 Eva Poole…248-858-1993 Extension Educator~4-H Youth Programs Extension Educator~Children, Youth & Family Email: schneidert@oakgov.com Email: ander204@msu.edu ?? ?? ?? ?? - 1 - Michigan State University Extension- Oakland County “Bringing Knowledge to Life”