August 2020
Established in 1980
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In this issue you will find:
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Mammallaria Blooming |
- Message from the President
- Upcoming Events
- Seminars
- Member Tours & Events
- Work Calendar
- Feature Articles
- "In Your Plot"
- 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
- Elementary Schools
- Garden Tour
- 40th Anniversary Project
- Committee Updates
- Member Photos
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MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
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Okay, we are now living in the month of August 2020. Not much has changed since March. Instead of saying good morning to my husband every morning I say Groundhog Day. There was a movie years ago with that name and every time the star woke up the same day started over again. Maybe you have seen the movie. My calendar that normally doesn't have any empty days still doesn't have any markings. We are all asking when will this COVID thing be over?
We sold the club pickup truck in July. David Duffy and Chuck Parsons did research to find out what the value was and set a price. Chuck sent out an eblast to offer the truck to our club members, then listed it on craigslist. He took all the phone calls and sold the truck just a few hours after it was listed. The board decided the truck wasn't as necessary as it used to be and was aging and would be needing repairs. The sale will save us insurance costs and maintenance on the truck. We can rent a truck whenever we need one for less cost.
We had a board email vote July 6 and 7 to decide whether to have the fall plant sale, seminars and festival. The voting resulted in cancelling the fall festival and seminars with the fall plant sale to be decided at a later date. This is all due to the COVID 19 situation. Arizona has been a hot spot since June and it seems things won't be opening up anytime soon. Our next board meeting will be September 8, if we have anywhere we can safely meet.
Finally, the monsoons started on July 23. We have all been waiting impatiently. My garden was fighting to survive the 100+ days. I think I heard sizzling when the rain hit the ground.
I found a dove in my spider plant. If you look closely at the picture below you will see two birds, momma and baby. They have since vacated my plant and I am happy about that.
It is time for Spaghetti squash. Here is a recipe you might like:
Lentil Bolognese
In a large saucepan simmer: one 15 oz can undrained no salt added crushed tomatoes; 1 cup cooked lentils, 1/2 cup each finely chopped carrot, onion and celery; 1 clove minced garlic; and 1 tsp dried Italian seasoning. Simmer 20 minutes. Divide sauce among 4 cooked* spaghetti squash halves and sprinkle with whole wheat bread crumbs. Broil filled squash halves 4 to 5 inches from heat 5 minutes or until bread crumbs are browned. Recipe from Forks Over Knives (my favorite source)
*I cut the squash in half and put it in my instant pot and cook on manual for about 6-7 minutes. You can also cut in half and place in a baking pan cut side down with 1/2" water and bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.
Email to: pats@greenvalleygardeners.com
Patricia Simpson, President
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METHODS FOR MAKING A MONETARY DONATION TO THE CLUB
Square offers a direct link to make a credit card donation to the garden club. Simply click
here
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you will be asked for an amount, your contact information and credit card information.
Donations made to this link go toward operating expenses. If you want your donation to go to a specific project or in honor of an individual, please indicate your intention in the comment area.
You also can mail in a donation to:
Green Valley Gardeners
PO Box 86
Green Valley, AZ 85622-0086
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Seminars are cancelled until next year.
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MEMBER ACTIVITIES
By Marita Ramsay
Member activities are cancelled.
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"IN YOUR PLOT"
By Lorna Mitchell
Our beloved rains have not been as attentive this summer as we would like and our friend heat has over stayed its welcome. At least eggplant and peppers love this heat and they are producing abundantly!
August is a chance for the gardener to start afresh but in order to do so we must clean out debris and old plants. High humidity and heat encourage growth of fungi and pests. In places of dense and neglected overgrowth (such as in a bean patch or sprawling tomatoes) it is possible to get pathogenic fungi such as powdery mildew or rust. Open up these areas to allow circulation of air and light. Evaluate green beans and summer squash to determine which are going to produce a harvest over the next three months - they may need to be replaced.
Attend to irrigation systems for good delivery of water and don't forget to check batteries. Keep soil moist at all times, but prevent water from pooling or spreading into the path.
Bermuda grass loves this weather and knows how to dominate and choke out a garden plot. Allowing this grass to grow is a disservice to other gardeners as well as to your own plot because of its aggressive habit to spread by roots and seeds. Dig out the roots to stop it.
I've had good success defending zucchini plants from the stem borer with a light spraying of Bt along the stems once or twice a week. Once a caterpillar penetrates the stem wall and gets inside the plant it's only a short time till the whole plant collapses. If Bt is present on the outside of the stem where the eggs are laid, the hatchlings do not bore inside the plant.
TOMATOES: For indeterminate tomatoes, prune out spurs that originate at the leaf nodes to prevent gangly vegetative growth and channel energy into fruit. Determinate tomato varieties should put on another crop soon, if they are not flowering and setting fruit, cut back about one third of the overall size. Keep ground clear under plants to prevent disease spread and mold. Transplants of quick fruiting tomatoes can yield results if put out early August.
Birds are feasting on our tomatoes and what they leave behind the green fruit beetles swarm. These beetles, which are native to the Southwest, are very poor fliers and bump into things continually. They are considered harmless and no chemical control is recommended. Harvest early if you want undamaged fruit and if they are a particular nuisance try netting your plants to prevent easy access; but they always seem to find a way in.
SEEDS to go into the garden any time this month are: green beans, squash, and cucumbers (any fast growing warm season crops), as well as Swiss chard, kale, radishes, and bunching onions. Seeds of beets, carrots, leaf lettuce, turnips, and rutabagas can be planted near the end of this month. Try placing a porous light weight cloth over your new seed beds to discourage predation. Remove it when the seedlings push it up.
SEEDS to start in pots at home: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts (all of the genus Brassica). Keep them moist and in the full sun, which means lots of attention. These plants should go in the garden the end of September or beginning of October at the age of 8-10 weeks.
Those are my plot thoughts for now, Happy Gardening
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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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Through Amazon Smile, the GVG has earned $97.12 this year. Thank you all for the support!
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Allen J. Ogden Community Garden
By Erin Walker
Happy August, hope all are well. This time of year can be quite a different experience for us all at Ogden but everyone's gardens are looking very healthy, especially after this last week's monsoons.
I am happy to say that every plot is full at Ogden, but there will be at least 1 small plot opening up at the end of the current grow season. If you would like to be put on the waiting list for any plot, please email me with the size you would like to take over. We have 14 10'x40' inground beds and 5 10'x5' raised in troughs, very much like at Desert Meadows, and 3 raised 10 square foot plots reserved for those with mobility issues. Some of the features you could enjoy at Ogden are a gazebo situated next to our onion patch, a couple picnic tables and a hummingbird annex where community cook outs and seminars will continue after it is once again safe to do them. There are several different outdoor cooking machines on site as well. These are intended to be used for community cook outs, outings with George Jr. to events, or even personal use for Ogden members. We also have a chicken coop, currently with 3 hens. Soon we are hoping to get back to 4, which is the perfect number for the size of the space. There is also George Jr. (no relation to our former manager George Stone) who is a sulcata African tortoise weighing in at approximately 65 lbs. George Jr. is designated as the Educational Ambassador to local elementary schools, but like so many, he has been laid off. Currently, he enjoys his nice cool burrow and tons of kale donations. George Jr. is very much looking forward to getting back to work, so if you have a position, please email
erinwalker822@gmail.com and I will send his resume. Any one interested in taking a tour of Ogden is also welcome to contact me there so we can set up an appointment.
I would also like to introduce 2 new families to Ogden: Jerry Fair and Mike Bishop have moved into plot # 18, and Fred and Paula Thorne into plot # 10. Welcome! They are actively getting things set and ready for the next grow season. I personally cannot wait to see what they bring to the garden.
I hope everyone has a wonderful August and keep cool.
If you would like information on the Ogden Garden, please contact Erin at
erinwalker822@gmail.com.
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Arid Garden
By Mary Kidnocker
The next strip of hard surface walkway is nearly completed along the yard walls of our east side neighbors. Done by volunteer Barry Gillaspie, the paved walk into the shadiest part of the garden now meets specifications for visitors using walkers and wheelchairs... an advantage on hot, sunny afternoons. Thanks to Barry for a job well done!
One of our tree-climbing Apple Cactus
(Harrisa bonplandii)
had thirty flowers in bloom on the night of July 22. Unfortunately, since the flowers close up shortly after sunrise, very few of us got to see the spectacle.
Just a few of the 30 partially-closed flowers on the Apple Cactus just after sunrise in the Arid Garden
Due to the expert, trained nose of Dog Doug, an inundation of hidden packrat nests and debris collections has been discovered in and around our storage-work station. It will take the volunteers several weeks to clean out and re-do the area. Besides finding these surprises, during the same morning Doug managed to flush then outrun a packrat from rocks along a wash. It has been decided to make this 4-legged volunteer our official mascot, and award him the garden's first "Doggy Medal of Honor."
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| Doug investigating for more packrat evidence, after finding where they had been secretly digging beneath stairs at The Arid Garden. |
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| Breathtaking purple-fuschia color in the LaScala Raised Cactus Bed at The Arid Garden. |
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Desert Meadows Park
By Chuck Parsons
July was a month of financial transactions:
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We were awarded a $2400 grant from the Freeport-McMoRan
Sierrita Mine
management team to help us build more raised-beds in the community garden. Our waiting list persists. We intend to add 6 more raised-beds to the garden in. The total cost of the raised-bed project is $5460. We have the grant plus three gardeners who have made donations and nursery sales to start the project.
If you would like to make a donation to this project, contact Chuck Parsons 520-904-9020.
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The club truck did not sell to a member from the eblast posting. The truck was moved to DMPark and was listed on Craigslist in Tucson. First response was received in 15 minutes, in all we received 10 responses to the ad, it sold for the full price of $2500, in cash and only 5½ hours after posting.
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As you know an eAuction was conducted on an adenium that had been donated for fundraising. The plant was on display at DMPark. The winning bid was $525, made by new member Robert Nail to add to his extensive adenium collection.
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Nursery sales, Memory-lock plaque sales and contributions made to the two donation boxes continued in July at a nice pace.
We added 3 Tippy-Tap stations to help park visitors fight the spread of COVID-19 virus. These have been placed at our 3 primary picnic areas. This concept was brought to our attention by Charlene Westgate who designed the Rainwater Garden at the park. These were first introduced by Dr. Jim Watt in Zimbabwe, who originally employed a gourd instead of a plastic water container. The design for those in the park came from Watershed Management.
Last month I reported that we were improving our storage and equipment areas, including pouring a slab to minimize squirrel problems tunnelling around and under our sheds and storage areas. The slab and other improvements have made for a major improvement. I also reported that we assumed the squirrels would
convene to plan a counterattack. They did in fact create a new tunnel to their habitat under the tool shed. Before backfilling the slab, we installed a 4-inch tube from their new hole out to the landscaping north of the shed. Apparently they have decided that's an acceptable solution and now use it to access their habitat. Amazing to us is that they even use the tube to excavate more soil from under the shed ~ that's quite an accomplishment!
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| Staging 300-gal stock tanks for new raised-beds. |
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New member Robert Nail (right) loading the adenium he won. Note his use of an old tire to stabilize the plant for the trip. He is an expert at handling large potted plants!
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| Tippy Tap station at Hummingbird/Butterfly Garden ~ water & soap for visitor use. |
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Squirrel entrance to their subterranean habitat under our tool shed. |
This time of year our two fish hook cactus with deep burgundy blooms are enjoyed and photographed by many park visitors.
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GVG Gardens at Historic Canoa Ranch (HCR)
By Raydine Taber, HCR Project Manager
Hope everyone, including your family and friends, is remaining safe from COVID-19.
Our new raised bed has arrived and thanks to Bill Carley and Jerry Sampson, it was assembled and "chicken wire" installed on the bottom. Next step is to fill it with some excellent soil and add the irrigation. We will be ready to plant some of our cool weather crops. As with the other two raised beds, they will have a combination of vegetables, herbs and flowers.
Dave Duffy and Jerry Sampson have been concentrating on cleaning up the tree wells in the orchard, while Bill Carley tends to feeding and additional watering of the trees.
Thank you to Jeannie Greven and Leslie Campbell who have been working in the Junior House courtyard. Part of this garden was dug up when a new septic system was installed.
Jim Campbell has the never-ending task of keeping weeds out from around the lake and the cienega.
Looks like we will have a fairly decent number of pomegranates from the trees around the Junior House front yard. Some of the branches are bending over with the weight of the fruit.
This week's critter sightings include a lot of "cotton tail" rabbits (none of which wanted to sit for a photo), one of the "lake's" resident road runners and, a new visitor to the Sr. House herb garden, Mr. Toad.
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Elementary Schools
By Steve Curtis
Schools are closed so nothing happening here.
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Garden Tour Revisited
By Stacie Meyer and Cynthia Surprise, Garden Tour Co-chairs
With things being with what they are, many of us are not traveling this summer. We decided it might be fun to take a trip down memory lane. In the next couple of newsletters, we will revisit some of the Green Valley Gardeners' Spring Garden Tours from prior years. Enjoying the pictures of these fabulous gardens will have to suffice until we can once again gather for an actual Garden Tour. We hope that day comes soon!
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| John and Kimberly Ferguson 2019 tour. |
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Su C Van Valen 2018 Tour
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Larry Bear 2018 Tour
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Gieslinde Fisher 2017 Tour |
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40th ANNIVERSARY PROJECTS
Median Green Project
No news from the Median Project
Phyllis Barboza
Co-Chair Median Project
503-515-3483
White Elephant Parade Project
Not surprisingly, the White Elephant has decided to cancel the parade this year. Thank you to all of the club members who volunteered to help with our entry. We hope we will be able to participate in a 2021 parade, so please keep thinking of ideas that we can implement at that time.
Cynthia Surprise and Marita Ramsay, Co-chairs
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Membership
By Mark Thompson
It's been a slow month in the membership department, but I suspect you might recognize the name of one of these two new members:
Jacki Smith
Robert Nail
Yes, Rob was the one who won the recent auction. So, we thank him both for his membership and his high bid at the auction. We now show 581 members on our roster - just one shy of where we were at the close of 2019. Enjoy the rains!
Our other new member, Jacki Smith, volunteered to collect the garbage each week at DMPark (including dog poop containers) and she restocks the doggie bags.
If you have any changes in your contact information, please email me at
memberships@greenvalleygardeners.com
. And don't forget to order some GVG branded clothing or get you fresh herbs at Desert Meadows Park. Happy Gardening!
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Nominations
By Bill Carley
The Nominating Committee is looking for members interested in serving on the Green Valley Gardeners Board of Directors.
As a board member you will have an opportunity to establish and administer club policies .You will also have input into the establishment of new programs and projects the club undertakes.
The term of office for board members is three years. Board members are elected in October and take office in November.
If you have questions about serving as a board member contact Bill at the email or phone number listed below.
I will be submitting my nominations for Board of Directors to the Board at the Sept. 8th meeting
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I would urge all members
willing to serve to please contact Bill Carley at
custom.bill@att.net
or 920-344-6563.
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If you have some favorite photos you've taken at one of the club's projects, please submit them prior to the 28th of the month to be included in the newsletter for all to enjoy.
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You saw this same cactus last month with a bloom. It now has fruit, very rare occurrence of a Cereus Peruvians "Monstrosus." Photo by Bill Carley
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| Climbing Cactus at Arid Garden by Jackie Jensen |
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Climbing Cactus at Arid Garden by Jackie Jensen |
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