|
September 2019
Established in 1980
|
|
In this issue you will find:
 |
|
|
QUAIL STANDING GUARD |
- Message from the President
- Upcoming Events
- Seminars
- Nominating Committee
- Member Tours & Events
- Master Gardener Class
- Work Calendar
- Feature Articles
- "In Your Plot"
- Assistant Treasurer needed
- 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
- Committee Updates
- Membership
- Fall Plant Sale
- 2020 Garden Tour
- Member Photos
|
|
|
|
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
|
Special Event
:
On September 10, at 6:30 to 8:30 PM the 2019 Green Valley News awards for the annual Interstate Az19 "Most Influential People" awards will be held at the Desert Diamond Casino. The award ceremony will start at 7:30. Mary Kidnocker, a past Club president [2007 and 2008], the coordinator along with her husband, Dwight, of the Arid Garden venue, and long standing weekly contributor to the Sunday Green Valley News is one of the awardees. I encourage our Club's members to participate in the award ceremony and celebrate Mary's recognition for significantly contributing to the greater Green Valley community. Tickets for the event at the Desert Diamond Casino are $35 a ticket for a table of 8 is $240.00 ($30.00) each) and are available at the Green Valley/Sahuarita Chamber of Commerce and the Green Valley News offices. Your ticket buys you appetizers and a cash bar.
For Club members in need of round trip transportation please contact me and I will try to assist.
My E-mail contact information is: [billberdine@greenvalleygardeners.com OR whberdine22@gmail.com].
Club Branded Clothing
:
We now have access to a fairly extensive array of clothing that will include a new logo design appropriate for embroidery of various fabrics and colors. Mark Thompson has spent several month making arrangements with Aztec Worldwide [Tucson, AZ] for GVG members to go online, examine their clothing line, select the piece of clothing, size, color and the club logo and pay online. Take a look at Mark's article on this new member benefit later in this issue of Sands N Seeds.
Board of Directors Election
:
I want to remind the membership that we are beginning the process of electing three members to the Board of Directors. I hope to see a ballot in October that contains the names of members who aspire to serve on the Board. Members can nominate other members and/or self-nominate. All Board of Director nominations should be directed to the Nominating Committee by contacting either Bill Carley [custombill@att.net] or Dave Crumley [crumley99@msn.com].
Bill Berdine, President
Green Valley Gardeners
|
|
| In case you are wishing for winter season. |
|
|
|
SEMINAR COMMITTEE REPORT
The committee has endeavored to present topics that are entertaining and educational. We have tried to put a mix of new and traditional topics as well as new and familiar presenters.
Please note that the schedule has been posted on the club's web page, will be included in the monthly calendar and is posted in this month's Sands and Seeds.
On September 26thLorna Mitchell will present "Growing Cool Season Vegetables" at Desert Hills Recreation Center. The seminar will start at 9:30 and end at 10:30. Everyone is invited to come early for coffee, treats, and conversation. Doors open at 9:00 officially but 8:45 works too.
NOMINATING COMMITTEE
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 or Dave at the email or phone numbers listed below.
I will be submitting my nominations for Board of Directors to the Board at the September 10 meeting.
MEMBER TOURS AND EVENTS
by Marita Ramsay
Members Activities will have their first tour of the season on Thursday, September 19 at Mesquite Valley Nursery. The Nursery is spread over 20 acres bursting with about every kind of flora available; from flowering annuals and perennials to shrubs, trees, cacti and succulents. They also have newly built open air greenhouses and display gardens. They also stock an amazing array of pottery, fountains and gift items. Their staff is very knowledgeable and ready to help.
The tour will begin at 9am and if you wish to carpool, we will leave at 8am from the parking lot adjacent to the El Rodeo restaurant in the Green Valley Shopping Mall off Esperanza. The Greens Manager has limited the tour to 30. people so if you wish to attend please email Marita Ramsay, maritasandpoint@yahoo.com by September 15.
The Nursery address is 8005 E Speedway Blvd, Tucson AZ
|
|
|
OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME A MASTER GARDENER
Information on becoming a Pima County Master Gardener click below:
|
|
|
VOLUNTEER AND WORK CALENDAR
|
|
|
|
"IN YOUR PLOT"
by Lorna Mitchell
|
|
|
Monsoon Sky. |
September in some parts of the country signals the arrival of autumn but not so in southern Arizona; here it means the end of monsoons and six more weeks of summer! Hope of cooler weather may be in the air but the thermometer will be slow to reflect it. Water your plants like it's still summer and maintain irrigation systems by closely observing emitter openings because they can easily clog due to hard water deposits.
This is also a good time to apply a little extra nitrogen to your actively growing plants. Soluble nutrients get washed out with rains and constant irrigation. A simple way to do this is to dissolve one half teaspoon of granulated Miracle Grow in a gallon of water and pour a little at the base of each plant in addition to regular watering.
Prepare soil now for success by digging in composted steer manure, peat moss, or other organic material and granulated fertilizers where you will plant. As you dig, remove and destroy grubs that nibble away at your roots. Nourish your friends the earthworms by adding veggie scrap smoothies made in your blender at home.
Nights will eventually get chilly so put in seeds of winter crops while the soil is warm. Plant seeds of these vegetables anytime this month; radishes, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, turnips, rutabagas, collards, parsnips, Swiss chard, cilantro, kale, and fennel. Spinach and peas prefer to wait for next month. Transplants of broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, Swiss chard, spinach, kale, and fennel can go in near the end of September or early October.
Insect populations go hand in hand with the rains, so the downside of not having much rain brings a positive side with fewer pests in the garden. Tomato hornworms have not been high profile nor have grasshoppers made a strong showing, yet. Do keep alert to both doing damage, especially grasshoppers. They can be a serious problem and will not go away until the weather turns cold. They eat their way through everything in short order. Consider protecting seed beds with a cover of an old white sheet until the plants start pushing it up. Fine netting (think bridal veil) supported by some PVC pipe bent over some rebar in the ground and held down on all sides by soil will keep predators off small plants
Those are my plot thoughts for now, Happy Gardening, Lorna Mitchell
|
|
|
|
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/
.
|
|
|
|
|
Allen J. Ogden Community Garden
b
y George Stone
- Seminars start up: It's that time of year again and it looks like a great line up of presenters. Things kick off September 27 with Ogden gardener Lorna Mitchell giving her presentation on Growing Cool Season Vegetables. Be sure to put her on your ---must hear ---calendar.
- Our presentation/demonstration Island has been completed. Plans for the Island this year includes a demonstration on 1.) Cooking Thai food 2.) Dutch oven cooking 3.) Kathy Stone demonstrates -potting cactus. Our audiences will be limited to 25. Exact dates will be sent out in October.
|
|
| Presentation/Demonstration Island |
- A friend gave me an ostrich egg. The thing weighed over a pound and I had no idea what to do with it.Soooooo. let's have some fun. I told Laura Lukomski That I had fed the chickens some special food that would result in larger eggs and for her to be on the lookout for them. After a week or so I placed the egg in the hen house along with the eggs the hens had layed. Laura played along with the joke and passed it on to Lynett Westerguard and her son Michael who was a little more gullible than the Moms were.
- George Jr.: George Jr. Has been keeping a low profile during all this hot weather. He does not hibernate, but you might say he may as well for he goes into his hide box and only comes out when the sun goes down and it cools off. Not knowing his activity during the year, we had to cancel several visitations for him. Looks like we can resume in the fall, but we are still learning.
- Grapes: This year we had a bumper crop of table grapes. They are not the best in the world but---they are grapes and lots of families got to take some home.
- Fall: I always look forward to fall after a grueling hot summer. I'm looking forward to radish some lettuce cauliflower and the like. Plus---we get to cook some.If you have not been to the Ogden for awhile come pay us a visit. Everyone is always welcome.
- My Granddaughter told me one evening. Papa, I know how old you are? I said how do you know? She answered, "I saw the inside of your underwear and it said 44". Go figure.
|
|
|
|
Arid Garden
by Mary Kidnocker
The old "Twisted Acacia" (A. schaffneri)could stand no longer with its compromised root system. It did not so much fall or blow over, as it simply lay on its side. Cooperative to the end, it carefully missed each surrounding Trichocereus, Red-Thorned Ferocactus, and Palm tree as it spread across the garden and walks. We closed the garden to visitors for two days until the fallen tree could be sawed up and taken away. Our good friends at Valscape quickly responded and did a complete job of removal and cleanup.
Volunteers are closely watching for signs of sunburn on neighboring cactus and covering with shade cloth as needed. Thanks to Linda Gregory for sharing her supply of cloth with the garden.
Our next project is choosing a replacement tree to provide the partial shade to which area plants have become accustomed. So far, "Desert Museum Palo Verde seems to be favored. With autumn being the perfect planting time, we hope to make a final selection soon.
Longtime club member, Arid Garden volunteer, and former Garden Chairman Russ Symes passed away on August 1. Russ was responsible for creating our work/storage area, design and construction of the two original arroyo bridges, the unique fold-up volunteers' table, and the low-water plants raised bed. The garden may have lost Russ, but his legacy remains!
Footnote:
You must be a gardener if you are finding it necessary to take out a small loan to pay your current summer water bill.
|
|
|
|
Desert Meadows Park
by Chuck Parsons
- Summer came ~ it's been hot at the park this past month.
- We've had some monsoon rain ~ never enough, caused lots of broken tree limbs.
- Volunteers have been busy raking mesquite beans ~ will the crop never end??
- Our mouths were watering in anticipation tasty grapes ~ the arbor was loaded this year. We've lost most to birds in the past, this year we lost most to a family of raccoon.
|
|
| Gee those grapes looked too good to share! |
Donations to the food bank did in fact break the all-time record in July as predicted ~ a total of 727 pounds!
The PoeTrail addition to the park has been well received. Expect to see some local publicity on that project soon. An article with photos has been submitted to KGVY for publication in the September Home edition.
Betty Johnson has adopted the Library Garden portion of the park. She has been busy removing crowded plants from old pots, spiffing up the area in general and making some nice additions to the 'Little Free Library' box. The library box at the park has 3 shelves. The top two are dedicated to the book exchange. The bottom shelf is dedicated to reference books on topics of interest to park visitors. We ask that these books remain at the Library Garden. One new addition is a birding book designed for kids, but works for a bird novice like me. Bird information is organized behind colored tabs that represent the predominate coloring of the bird. Elissa witnessed a young family visiting the park one day. The two primary-aged children each had a small pair of binoculars around their neck and one of these books in the hands for reference. They were checking off the birds they could find in the park. Elissa donated a copy of the book to the library. When you next have grandkids visiting think about borrowing it for a fun time in the park.
|
|
| Little Free Library: Top two shelves are for book exchange among park visitors/bottom shelf contains reference books to be used at the park. |
|
|
| Enjoy this book when you bring your grandkids to the park. |
The Rainwater Garden is another park attraction that has been in work for awhile. We have added more plants which have been doing well with the monsoon rains. We are also developing a spreadsheet for plant identification labels. We have made this task a bit hard on ourselves. We intend to name the plant, name an attribute that the plant provides to birds and finally name a bird species or two that would be attracted to this specific plant. Didn't sound too hard when Charlene Westgate proposed this concept. We quickly learned that garden club members know more about plants! Even nurseries aren't that much help. They list a plant species as attracting birds or not, but not attributes or bird species. We've enrolled the Tucson Audubon Society which is helping us fill our the spreadsheet. We have over 50 plant species to label. We received a generous donation from Rose Anderson to fund the signs. New member Ed Payton has adopted the Rainwater Garden of the park. Getting signs installed will be a big task this fall, in the meantime mesquite beans and broken tree limbs are keeping Ed busy. Charlene Westgate is planning some publicity and educational events once the garden is complete with signage.
|
|
|
|
GVG Gardens at Historic Canoa Ranch (HCR)
by Raydine Taber, Bill Carley, and Jack Davis (emeritus)
On July 31rst, this group, of GVG members, volunteered to help Historic Canoa Ranch replant around the lake and along the water's edge 79 replacement plants. To everyone's astonishment, that task was completed in one hour and fifteen minutes. If Mojo had helped instead of spending his time watching the resident duck swim around the lake, we could have been done sooner. Our sincere THANK YOU goes to: Bill Berdine, Christa Ryan, Chuck Parsons and Mojo, Cindy Wilson, Dave Duffy, Elissa Dearing, Jim Campbell, Byron Hinton, Mike Jensen, Stacie Meyer and Tom Wilson. We could not have done this without all of you being a part of helping to enhance the beauty of Canoa Lake. HCR front gate opens at 6 a.m., stop in an enjoy a beautiful morning at the lake.
Many of you are aware that we have had some difficulty with critters eating our plants. Mostly Pack Rats or an occasional rabbit. Recently we noticed "someone" was munching on the sorrel. We put up what, we thought, was a deterrent fence. Only to come back and find every single leaf had been removed. Critter did not even leave one small scrap of a leaf. To wash down it's dinner, the critter chewed the irrigation line in several places. Thanks to Matt Smogor, the new Ranch Manager, it was determined that the critter, who appears to have taken up residence in the Sr. House Herb Garden, was a Cotton Rat. When researching the Cotton Rat, we found that Arizona has its own species of Cotton Rat (
Sigmodon arizonae
- Arizona cotton rat). They are called Cotton Rats because they used cotton to build their nests. Guess we are going to have to stop blaming the Pack Rats.
We are in the process of getting ready for our fall/winter season at the ranch. The raised beds and part of the Grijalva House north wall have been cleaned out and cool weather crops will be planted. Looking forward to the weather cool down. The Mexican pots have been placed in the Jr. House Sun Porch and will soon have new climbing plants. We will also be placing indoor plants in the following houses:
Guest House, Foreman's House and Grijalva House. Live plants make the house feel more lived in.
|
|
| Thank you to Mother Nature and the monsoon for this late summer beauty. |
September will be the beginning of HCR's special events. Saturday, September 21 will be the first Canoa Cup Collector Car Show Fundraiser. Event starts at 9 a.m. and closes at 2 p.m. If you would like to enter a car, registration fee is $25 and you can enter online at
www.pima.gov/canoaranch or call 520-724-5220
. The top three cars will be recognized.
Saturday, September 28 will be an Antique & Vintage Fair. This event begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 2 p.m. Many vendors will be offering, for sale, various antique or vintage items. Fee for being a vendor is $35 email
canoacountrymarket@gmail.com
for more information. This event will also have food trucks and music.
Save the Day: 7th Annual Anza Day at Historic Canoa Ranch is Saturday, October 19. More information in the October Sand n Seeds.
Are you interested in, want to learn about or are you an expert with vegetables, ornamental plants, indoor plants, herbs, cacti, succulents, plants for the pollinators, irrigation and/or fruit trees, then, for you, Historic Canoa Ranch is the right venue? You can choose to volunteer for working on all the gardens or just the ones you prefer. Want to be a part of our garden restoration projects, join us, on Tuesday's, to play in the dirt and have some gardening adventures. We meet at 7 a.m., (a few of us are the by 6 a.m.) at the Sr. House Herb Garden. You are welcome, at any time, to join us.
Co-managers: Raydine Taber, Bill Carley and Jack Davis (Emeritus)
|
|
|
|
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
by Steve Curtis
ON SUMMER BREAK!
|
|
|
|
Membership
by Mark Thompson
We are now at 528 member and growing. At this rate, we are likely to top 550 by the end of the year. We had six new members join this last month:
Kathy Rae
Thom Sharples
Anita Sharples
Calvin Lambert
Karen Shelly Meron
Darrell Thomas Watts
You will likely see them around and about so please welcome them to our group.
Have you ordered a shirt with our new clothing logo yet? Mine arrived last month and it really looks great. To order, just go to our website, greenvalleygardeners.com, and view the instructions. Enjoy!
|
|
| Sample of the new Green Valley Gardeners shirts. This is the dark grey, from Aztec. Many to choose from. |
=========================================================================
|
|
|
|
Fall Plant Sale
by Christa Ryan
PLAN AHEAD FOR OUR 2019 FALL PLANT SALE
The fall Plant Sale dates have been set for October 24, 25 and 26, with set up on Wednesday, October 23. Please check your calendars to make time to help us again. Sign-up sheets will be available at the September seminar as well as the 2 seminars scheduled for early October. You can also email me, Christa Ryan, at
chrstrn4@cox.net
if you want to sign up early.
Wednesday afternoon will be for Members Only Shopping.
Please contact Christa Ryan or Kathy Stone if you would like to be on the planning committee for the sale. We are looking forward to another outstanding sale!
|
|
|
Seeking Gardens for the April 2020 Tour
The April 2020 Garden Tour will be the club's 40th, and we want to celebrate the success and popularity of the tour over the years.
The Garden Tour Committee has been busy searching for wonderful gardens, but we need your help in finding those hidden gems. We have not selected the area of concentration, but would like to find gardens in Quail Creek and north of Continental.
|
|
|
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.
|
|
| One of our many seating areas at DMP |
|
|
|
|
|
