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May 2018
Established in 1980
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In this issue you will find:
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This little hummingbird enjoys the Penstemon blooming in the Arid Garden. Photo by Linda Gregory.
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- Message from the President
- Upcoming Events
- Member Tours & Events
- Seminars
- Feature Articles
- "In Your Plot"
- Results from the Membership Survey
- Make a Donation to GVG via AmazonSmile
- Project Updates
- Allen J. Ogden Community Garden
- Arid Garden
- Desert Meadows Park
- GVG Gardens at Historic Canoa Ranch
- Committee Updates
- Annual Spring Garden Tour
- Membership ~ New Members
- Member Photos
Would you like to submit an article or a photo for the March newsletter? Please submit it to [email protected] by May 29.
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MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
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Last month the club enjoyed a very successful Garden Tour and Art-in-the-Park/ Spring Fair at Desert
Meadows Park.
The Garden Tour's five gardens represented an unprecedented variety of garden designs - ranging from traditional backyard cactus displays to more stylized mixtures of flowering plants, succulents and cacti, along with elaborate densely-planted vegetables including Korean pepper plants. One property demonstrated award-winning habitat plantings for wildlife and butterflies. The tour sold nearly 700 tickets and ended up with a record net profit of $7,579. Stacie Meyer and Cynthia Surprise served for the second year as tour coordinators and were assisted with the efforts of 60+ volunteers.
The Art-in-the-Park/Spring Fair event was also a huge success. Learning from last year's inaugural fair, Gene Van Dyken, Chuck Parsons and Elissa Dearing, along with countless other volunteers, provided the greater Green Valley/Sahuarita community with an exceptional recreation and educational event. The event set a record with an estimated net profit of $3,192.
Holding both events on the same day required an unprecedented effort by well over 120 volunteers, and to those selfless individuals the club's membership owes a hearty "Thank You".
On Saturday, April 21, the Member Activities Committee hosted a "Farewell Winter Friends" pizza lunch at the Historic Canoa Ranch (HCR). Sixty club members and ten guests along with a number of HCR employees and docents, including Valerie Samoy from the Pima County Parks and Recreation headquarters and her husband, enjoyed the lunch and time to meet and greet. Thanks go to the Member Activities Committee: Marita Ramsay, Christa Ryan, Debbie Lucas, Pam Grant and Jim Campbell.
Volunteers are at the heart of our club, we need to be thankful for their hours of work from which we all benefit. The next time you see a member in a volunteer effort please take the time to thank them for their service.
Over the summer hiatus of club activities, the Nominating Committee will be soliciting nominees to run for election for the upcoming vacancies of three Green Valley Gardeners Board of Directors positions. Members are invited to nominate a club member or self-nominate for election to the club's board of directors. Board members serve a three-year term and may be re-elected for an additional three years. Newly-elected board members take office at the first board meeting in November 2018. Nominations should be sent to the Nominating Committee Chair, Bill Carley, at [email protected].
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Seminars will resume in September
Member Tours & Events
Member activities will resume in September/October
Visit our
website for a complete calendar of events
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Familiarize yourself with the larval stage of the ladybug
so you recognize it as a friend as it is a voracious consumer of aphids.
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"In Your Plot"
by Lorna Mitchell
Mornings in the garden are cool and pleasant but they are coming earlier and earlier! By the end of the month our visits to our plots will be early or late; but our plants get no reprieve from the noonday sun. Adjust watering schedules to keep plant roots moist; consider a short time twice a day. Remove black cloth on the ground and milk cartons.
Bulb onions are harvested this month. Bolting flower stalks have been stimulated by our mild winter and hot days. Remove them as soon as they form as they create a hard center in the onion and will consume the entire bulb if left to grow. Cut back on water and let them dry in place for a week or ten days before digging them out of the ground. In that new space dig in steer manure and granulated fertilizer then plant seeds of beans, melons, radishes, okra, black eyed peas, and squash. Plants of peppers, sweet potatoes and eggplants can also go in.
Garlic can be used now but for storage it needs to dry out completely so leave it in till the tops die down.
Tomato plants are in almost every plot and they are either
determinate (growing like a bush with fruit ripening at the same time) or
indeterminate (continuing to grow and producing fruit all season).
Determinate plants will bush and stop growing as they set fruit and do not need any pruning or support, making them easier to maintain. All the fruit will ripen about the same time, which is great for sauces and canning.
Indeterminate plants are more common, such as Early Girl and Juliette, and will benefit from some pruning and support. Pruning consists of snipping out "suckers" at the leaf axials (all season long) which helps channel energy into the leading stem to produce fruit. I suggest reviewing the video on pruning tomatoes at Johnny's Selected Seeds website (
click here). The idea is to identify two or three central leaders and make them produce fruit instead of extra vines.
Indeterminate plants need sturdy support and it needs to be in place before the plant grows large. It must keep the plant aerated and off the ground to prevent disease and rot. It needs to be strong enough to bear the weight of the plant and hold firm in the ground so wind doesn't twist it. I use welded wire fencing six feet high with 2" x 4" openings (it also comes in 4" x 4" or 4" x 6") and cut it into four-foot lengths to make cylinders to surround each plant. I wire each to a 5-6' long T-post pounded into the ground. This allows me to utilize vertical space for growing. These cages last many years but they do nest for storage in the winter.
Pests we need to watch for are the white fly, tomato hornworm and squash borer. All these have a larval stage so we can use BT to control them. BT stands for Bacillus Thuringiensis, a natural organic bacterium which is selectively toxic to many caterpillars. It is sprayed on in a water solution and there is no residue. It is exempt from tolerance requirements so may be applied up to the day of harvest. I have found it to be very helpful in controlling caterpillar pests. Repeated applications may be necessary to control new populations but this doesn't hurt beneficial organisms.
Aphids may be a problem and ladybugs are their natural predator. Familiarize yourself with the larval stage of the ladybug (it's not a caterpillar!) so you recognize it as a friend as it is a voracious consumer of aphids.
Those are my plot thoughts for now - happy gardening!
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Results from the Membership Survey
A Membership Survey was conducted last February and the results were given to the board and project managers in March. At the April Board meeting the results were discussed. The purpose of the survey, which was complete by over 50% of our households, was to see if we, as an organization, were being responsive to our member's needs. The bottom line is that 97% of the responses indicated that they were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied in our membership. Learning about desert gardening was given as the primary objective for joining in over 80% of the responses. And, over 50% of the responses indicated that networking was as important as well. Not surprisingly, 67% indicated that learning new gardening techniques was their first or second priority and over half
chose attending seminars as being important.
While the results of the survey were positive, we, as an organization can do better. It is clear from the results that the great majority joined to learn about gardening here in the southwest. They were gardeners before they got here and they want to network with fellow gardeners. And, they want to continue to learn as a majority of the responses indicated that they would be interested in more educational opportunities beyond the weekly seminars. To that end, the president solicited members who would want to serve on the new Seminar Committee. Three members stepped forward - Bill Carley, David Duffy, and Cynthia Surprise - and will serve as co-chairs of this important committee. They have begun an ambitious effort to present new and relevant topics for the seminar season beginning in the fall. The board appreciates not only the interest of these three co-chairs, but also the members who completed the survey.
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Shop AmazonSmile and Benefit the Garden Club
Green Valley Gardeners is now listed on AmazonSmile. When you shop Amazon, log into AmazonSmile, use your existing personal account login information, select Green Valley Gardeners as your non-profit of choice. The club will receive a small donation for each qualifying purchase you make. Thank you!
To shop AmazonSmile go to
http://smile.amazon.com/.
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Allen J. Ogden Community Garden
b
y George Stone
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Greta Zimmerman with Blondie.
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Most gardeners love the month of May, and as a result we increase time spent in the garden enjoying all the sights and sounds - and Ogden gardeners are no different. Crops are in the ground and all are awaiting the arrival of the Queen - the tomato. My favorite is the Cherokee Red.
Bleaching of the vent and shanks? What the heck is that? Well, you may want to ask eleven year old Greta Zimmerman, one of our youth gardeners. Greta took the initiative to enter the Ogden's Buff Orpington hen into the 2018 Pima County Fair where she took first place and won the BLUE RIBBON. Well done Greta and Blondie!
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Ogden's "Farmacy" |
The Ogden's canning/kitchen shed is nearly complete. We consider the structure a multi-purpose building where:
- Food can be prepared and served from the windows at our fun functions
- Utilized by a presenter at a hands-on lecture or presentation
- Food can be preserved/canned for storage
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Volunteers harvest and prep Texas Sweet Onions for sale.
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Hopefully, by the end of May the kitchen will be fully equipped allowing club members to reserve the facility to can/preserve the food items of their choice. Why can at home and heat up the place? Come join us at the Ogden and have some fun while doing it. Details will follow.
On Saturday and Sunday, April 27 and 28,
gardeners gathered at the Ogden to harvest and prep our 2,000 Texas Sweets. Took almost six hours of work but it's DONE and now we move on to the sale. Onions will be on sale at Desert Meadows park May 2 thru 4, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.
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A group of interested La Posada visitors tour the Arid Garden on a recent cool, sunny morning. |
Arid Garden
by Mary Kidnocker
A week after most of our volunteers had worked on the big GVG Annual Spring Garden Tour, we had a tour of our own through the Arid Garden. Eighteen visitors from La Posada arrived by bus for a guided walk around our garden. Several had never been in the garden; for others it had been "ages". All were very impressed with the history of its development, the variety of healthy plants, and particularly with its tranquil character.
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GVR Camera Club members arrive in the garden early to capture the la
test Trichocereus blooms.
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For over a week, Tric
hocereus (Torch Cactus) have been producing their huge flowers by the dozens in a mix of amazing colors. Official garden photographer, Linda Gregory, has kept GVR Camera Club members abreast of what is "ready to pop", so early mornings in the garden have been very busy with excited photo devotees.
(See the "
Member Photos
" feature at the end of this newsletter for several of Linda's photos).
Valued volunteer Sara Hein is moving to Colorado and will be greatly missed by all. With her experience as a former greenhouse proprietor, she became our "go to" person for spotting tiny plant pests... a great eye! We again wish Sara and Alvin much happiness in their new adventure.
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The Lady Slipper puts on a show in the Barrio Garden. |
Desert Meadows Park
by Chuck Parsons
The park experienced lots of activity this past month. I estimate that over 2000 folks visited the park for the Art-in-the-Park/Spring Fair event. Weather was perfect, which was a benefit for both the Spring Garden Tour and the park event. The club received very nice pre-event publicity for both events, with additional follow-up press. I believe this generated a lot of interest in the park and certainly brought many visitors following the event. Everyday brings new blossoms to enjoy and to capture on digital devices. The cactus have been especially abundant in bloom this year.
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An Arizona Star newspaper box was repurposed as a game cabinet for the Barrio Garden.
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The Barrio Garden has a new game cabinet. We received an old newspaper box from the Arizona Star. Mark Thompson modified it for our purpose and gave it a new coat of paint. Busy Bee created some new graphics for us, which were installed by Greg Hill. I took a picture of the box once completed and sent it to Arizona Star. Our contact there was most impressed, but mentioned it needed a new window - which it definitely did for you couldn't see what was inside the box. He brought his wife and dog down to enjoy the park and see the repurposed news box, and while here installed a new window for us. The cabinet now contains a variety of games for young and old - checkers, dominos, playing cards, tic/tac/toe, etc.
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Park mascot, Mojo, enjoys the new swing.
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We recognize Steve Curtis for adding color to the park. When GVGardeners took over the property there was an old park bench with multi-colored wrought iron end pieces - badly faded, but once quite elaborate. Steve volunteered to apply new paint and Mark Thompson replaced the wooden slats. This bench is now in the grasslands of the park, near the Barrio Garden. Steve apparently had such fun, that he volunteered to redo a lawn swing that he no longer wanted at his home. It too now adds much color to the Barrio Garden area. When he brought it over to the park and the Wednesday morning volunteers got it installed, within 30-minutes we observed it was being used with groups of park visitors taking selfies in the swing. Within a week Steve found another lawn swing at a garage sale - just needed a nice bright paint job. He painted that too with bright colors and added new cushions. We placed it along the Anza Trail not too far from the Barrio Garden. It also was an immediate hit with park visitors - including Mojo posing for the photo.
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| Walden Grove High School students planting tree. |
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We finished April with Arbor Day. This year the Rotary Club of Green Valley donated a beautiful, large Mexican Redbud tree. In addition, members of the Valle Verde and Green Valley Rotary clubs are sponsoring Interact at Walden Grove High School. Four students planted a peach tree in the community garden, which they funded, and also planted a Holly Oak along Anza Trail, a tree that was donated to the park by a resident. The students identified Desert Meadows Park as their choice for recognizing Arbor Day.
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The community garden volunteers are happy with their new shade structure!
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Summer heat has begun. Elissa Dearing and the community garden volunteers requested that we obtain a shade structure for the sink/work table area of the garden to provide them some shade as they tend the food bank plots this summer. We used Freeport-McMoRan Foundation grant funds to pay for the structure and contracted with Ray's Solar Solutions in Sahuarita to construct it for us. Elissa and her crew are happy!
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| An east garden cactus puts on quite a show! |
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GVG Gardens at Historic Canoa Ranch (HCR)
by Jack Davis, Bill Carley, and Raydine Taber
We hope everyone who attended the End of Season Pizza Party at the ranch enjoyed their tour and visiting our gardens. We've tried to recreate what the gardens would've looked like back in the Manning era. This event couldn't have been at a better time to visit the ranch; it was beginning to show all its blooming colors.
Yes, we are blossoming all over the ranch - from the butterfly garden, to the cactus garden, to the courtyard and throughout the orchard. The orchard is especially colorful with white, red and pink blossoms. This week many of our cactus in the east cactus garden have begun blooming. In addition to the plants, we are noting many birds building nests in and around the orchard. Their plumage color adds to the overall festive look during this time of year.
As of this week, we've finished all of our planting. The north wall at Grijalva house will again feature tomato and pepper plants. Several of the docents can't wait for the first tomato to ripen; I've seen them checking the plants for the first sign of produce. Not to leave out the HCR Pima County crew who are watching for the peppers to ripen. I understand they enjoy some of those peppers on their sandwiches at lunch. Makes you wonder if the vaqueros of long ago also had fresh peppers for their lunches.
Many of you will remember the difficulties we've had with pack rats and other critters feasting on our plants. We've placed a light mesh over all our newly-planted veggies and flowers to prevent our local critters from having their spring feast. So far, the mesh and the feral cats are doing an excellent job of protecting the baby plants.
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The Black-eyed Susan vine is growing in leaps and bounds!
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The Black-eyed Susan planter is growing in leaps and bounds. It's grown up the trellis and we now have twine leading it up to the patio cover. The star jasmine is also growing, but at a slower rate.
We're saddened because our winter volunteer members are returning to their summer homes. For all the work you've done this fall/winter/spring, we THANK YOU! It has been enjoyable working alongside all of you. See you again, next fall!
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SPRING GARDEN TOUR by Stacie Meyer and Cynthia Surprise
Thank you to everyone who helped to make the 2018 Spring Garden Tour such a success. There were more than 600 visitors to the wonderful gardens on the tour this year. Everything went smoothly thanks to the support and help of so many volunteers. The tour would not be possible without all the volunteer efforts.
We are on the hunt for some fabulous gardens for the tour to be held next April. If you know of any gardens, large or small, that might be a good addition please contact Stacie Meyer at [email protected] or Cynthia Surprise at [email protected].
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Membership - New Members
by Mark Thompson
It has been a good year for membership as we now stand at 423 members. We had 10 new members join in April:
- Nancy Kidwell
- Rita Glorioso
- Craig Surprise
- Jan Thiesen
- Sally Richards
- Blaine Latimer
- Sandy and Jim Marquis
- Sally and John Kiper
A new member's perk is coming soon. It has to do with food (and it is not the cookbook). Stay tuned.
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The Arid Garden "official photographer", Linda Gregory, submitted dozens of photos highlighting all the spring blooms at the garden. Here are just a few of those photos - plus one of the newest additions to the fauna.
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