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August 2019
Established in 1980
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In this issue you will find:
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Blue Plumbago at DMP |
- Message from the President
- Upcoming Events
- Seminars
- Nominating Committee
- Member Tours & Events
- 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
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MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
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Summer Program: In the June Sands N Seeds, I urged all Club members to communicate with Board Members, including myself, about your interests, concerns and expectations for the upcoming Summer months. To date, I have heard from 6 members, 2 households and 2 individuals. 5 indicated interest in a hands-on class for installing and maintaining residential irrigation systems and one with interest in hot weather vegetable gardening. I contacted the Director of the Green Valley Master Gardeners to see if they could assist/facilitate a Summer program with the use of their classroom at the U of A Agriculture Extension office on Whitehouse Canyon Road. The Director declined due to existing Summer commitments. The Director of the program suggested our planning later this year for a 2020 Summer series of classes and I will pursue that offer. There will not be a Summer program this year.
Club Branded Clothing
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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 months 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 on-line. Take a look at Mark's article on this new member benefit later in this issue of Sands N Seeds.
Board of Directors Election
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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
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SEMINARS
by Bill Carley
NOMINATING COMMITTEE
"There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened."
Mary Kay Ash
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.
If you would be willing to serve or would like to nominate a member, please contact Bill Carley at
custom.bill@att.net 920-344-6563 or Dave Crumley at crumley99@msn.com 520-404-8773
MEMBER TOURS AND EVENTS
by Marita Ramsey
Be on the lookout for separate eblasts providing details for each of these seminars and member activities. And visit
our
website for a complete calendar of events
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"IN YOUR PLOT"
by Lorna Mitchell
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Our beloved rains have not been as attentive this summer as we would like and our friend heat has been overbearing. But as long as water flows through our tubing the harvests keep rolling in. Check irrigation systems for low batteries, weak spots, or loose connections. Set timers to keep soil moist at the base of the plant but prevent water from pooling or spreading into the path.
August is a chance for the gardener to start afresh but in order to do so we must clean out debris and old plants. 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. There is plenty of warmth and humidity to grow young seedlings; maturing plants will bask in the cooler temperatures of October and November.
SEEDS to go into the garden any time this month are: green beans, squash, corn, and cucumbers (all warm season crops), as well as Swiss chard, kale, radishes, and bunching onions. Seeds of beets, carrots, leaf lettuce, peas, spinach, turnips, and rutabagas can be planted near the end of this month. Sow several plantings two to three weeks apart for successive harvests. Try placing a light weight cloth, which water and light can penetrate, 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. Even if you don't grow your own, research varieties so you know what to look for later.
TOMATOES: Continue vigilance for tomato hornworms and spray with BT to control. Be sure the sprayer has never had weed killer or pre-emergent solutions in it. 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.
Green fruit beetles, which are native to the Southwest, will swarm sweet ripe fruit to suck its juice. They are very poor fliers and bump into things continually. They are considered harmless and no chemical control is recommended, if they are a particular nuisance try netting your plants to prevent the beetles from reaching the fruit.
High humidity and moist soils 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 to prevent damage. Pill bugs and/or sow bugs thrive under decaying leaf matter on moist soil and emerge to eat your germinating seedlings, even if they are yards away. Don't believe they only eat dead leaves; they should be your first suspect when expected seedlings don't appear. Keep the ground clear of debris, including weeds, for a healthy garden.
Those are my plot thoughts for now, Happy Gardening, Lorna Mitchell
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Assistant Treasurer Found:
Let's welcome Glenda Lynch who will be the Assistant Treasurer, effective immediately. Glenda, who just retired in January, has accounting experience, is very familiar with our projects, and is Henry Garcia's wife.
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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
The summer garden at Ogden has been a smash. Tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, squash have been abundant. And as long as I can remember gardeners have had little success growing any heirloom tomato of any size at Ogden. Well, that has changed. David & Erin Campbell have had an heirloom plant that produced 6-inch heirlooms. The Campbells were kind and allowed me to ---taste test the tomato and all I can say is WOW? The tomato had a slightly sweet taste-very few seeds and the interior walls were thin with the meat of the tomato firm and the walls very editable. Now I have tasted a many tomato grown at the Ogden but NEVER like this one.
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| Congratulations to the Campbells and thanks for sharing. |
Time to can those vegetables you grew. But let's say you don't have enough to can. Well, here are 2 solutions:
#1: Shop your favorite grocery store for the best buy for-- Let's say---Green Beans. A bushel of green beans weighs 30 pounds. It takes 14 lbs. of beans to fill a standard size pressure canner with 7 qt. jars. 9 lbs. of beans for 9 pints. There is your formula for green beans.
#2: Take a day trip to Apple Annies where you can spend the day picking peaches and or green beans.
Anyone with an abundance of vegetables are reminded the Ogden has 2 pressure canners available to ANY club member. These are the genuine articles and not a hot bath method. Both donated by club members.
Attention Cantaloupe lovers: Tired of buying cantaloupe that is seldom ripe. Chef Rand Mayfield gave me a Tuscan style cantaloupe from Costco that when sold is guaranteed to be ripe & ready to eat. Attached is a label from the cantaloupe that includes a ripeness indicator. Rand says these have been on the market for years. Where have I been for those years. Under a rock apparently. Holy Cow this was a great melon.
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| Notice the green lines get lighter in color as it ripens. |
**The Hotot rabbits: Our 2 little Hotot's are doing well in the heat. The kids are loving them and are about ready to take from the cage and play on the ground with them. September 1 we will be allowing them to date. Should be fun.
Until next month I'll see you in a garden. Remember. It's not hard to shine a light on someone who needs it.
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Arid Garden
by Mary Kidnocker
Kudos to Diane and Bill Carley who have generously "adopted" the large blue container recently donated by Bill and Eva Swinford. It has been planted, is on drip irrigation, and is tolerating the triple-digit temperatures.
Our new rainfall recovery system is nearly complete, because of the work of Jim Campbell and Bill Carley. This small setup demonstrates how a simple arrangement can be designed for a typical residence. Now all we need is a GOOD rainstorm to test how conveniently it works!
The garden also wants to thank Mike and Jackie Jensen for gifting us the like-new stepladder. It is the perfect height for trimming just-out-of-reach branches and stores conveniently.
Thanks to neighbor and friend-of-the-garden Fran King, the Arid Garden's rock art supply has been refreshed.
The climbing cactus in Arid Garden's Palo Verde tree had a total of (11) large, white flowers recently.
Footnote:
You must be a gardener if your car has a bumper sticker that reads, "I brake for greenhouses!"
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Desert Meadows Park
by Chuck Parsons
Last month I bragged about our pleasant summer weather and the benefits volunteers had seen at the park ~ bountiful vegetable crops, thriving quail coveys and healthy plants. July presented us more typical weather ~ temperatures reaching triple digit and some evidence of monsoon season. Although the measurable rainfall at the park has been below normal for the season, so far.
Donations to the local food banks continued to exceed historical levels in July. The volunteers hit a record of 675 pounds in June ~ they might exceed that in July. While writing this article they have two more harvests to go and already at 605 pounds! The lower temperatures in June improved the tomato crop and reduced the presence of cucumber beetle, thus improved the squash and cucumber crops this year.
Volunteers made significant enhancements to the "Rainwater Garden" in July. Last month I reported that we had been successful in collaborating with the Tucson Audubon Society to develop a plant list for the garden. Charlene Westgate and I took the list shopping. We first stopped at Desert Survivors and followed that with a stop at a new native plant nursery in Tucson ~ Spadefoot Nursery. We were delighted with the inventory at Spadefoot Nursery, located at 2913 E Broadway Boulevard in Tucson. If interested in native plants and the concept of naturescaping you need to stop by and meet Katy Gierlach and Jared McKinley ~ also check out their website
https://www.spadefootnursery.com
Charlene Westgate has continued to provide consulting to the volunteers on the "Rainwater Garden" project. We purchased over 45 plants on our shopping spree. She placed these in the "Rainwater Garden" according to the concepts of Audubon's "Habitat at Home" program
and in
the swale according to good permaculture practice. "Habitat at Home" embraces naturescaping. Extensive urban growth has reduced natural habitat for birds and other creatures. Naturescaping is a method of landscape design that allows people and nature to coexist. Our "Rainwater Garden" was designed to attract, shelter and feed Sonoran birds. Plants are native to the Sonoran Desert. The plants are appropriately placed along a swale to survive on captured rainwater once established. We intend this to be a demonstration of what you too can achieve in your own yard. Once achieved you can post it with a "Habitat at Home" sign from the Audubon.
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Doug Lisotto, Carmen Johnson and Jim Campbell installing a post for a poetry box near the Barrio Garden along Anza Trail.
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Another park enhancement is a collaboration with Poet's Corner ~ a Green Valley club of poets. Called "PoeTrail" it is a spin of a national program of placing poetry boxes along hiking trails coast-to-coast. For Desert Meadows Park, it consists of 5 boxes ~ three along the Anza Trail and two more in the park. Poet's Corner will place poems in the boxes for visitors to read and/or take. They will be changing the poems each month. Henry Garcia manufactured the posts for mounting the boxes ~ using rusty steel to be consistent with other park features. The boxes were provided Poet's Corner members and painted by their leader, and garden member, Tia Ballantine.
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GVG Gardens at Historic Canoa Ranch (HCR)
by Raydine Taber, Bill Carley, and Jack Davis (emeritus)
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Earlier this month, saw this little guy in the orchard next to a mint plant. My guess is he was looking for water and ants. There are a couple of ant colonies along the walk around the orchard and this was also a day we water the trees. Haven't seen one, at the ranch, for the last year or two. Not sure if that is a male or female but very sure he is one of the Phrynosoma lizards.
According to DesertUSA: "Horned lizards are found only in the western portions of the United States and Mexico.
There are 14 recognized species. They range from Arkansas to the Pacific Coast, and from British Columbia south to Guatemala. These lizards are creatures of hot, dry, sandy environments."
"Some of the species inhabit the deserts proper where the sun, beating on the arid landscape, produces ground heat that is almost unbearable to humans. Others enter mountainous areas and are found as high as 10,000 feet."
"The most common horned lizard in the western deserts is aptly named the Desert Horned Lizard(Phrynosoma platyrhinos). The Southern(P.p. calidiarum) which inhabits the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts including a finger of the east coast of northern Baja California."
"Five other species of horned lizards inhabit the North American deserts:"
Roundtail Horned Lizard
(Phrynosoma modestum) Chihuahuan, Flattail Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma m'calli) Sonoran, Regal Horned Lizard(Phrynosoma solare) Sonoran, Texas Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma cornutum) Chihuahuan, Shorthorned Lizard (Phrynosoma douglassi) Great Basin.
We can't wait for more monsoon rains. Yes, the weeds will grow but the plants will too. Something extra special about "mother nature's" rain that faucet water just can't quite match. See what a little monsoon rain can do.
Many of the orchard tree's leaves are beginning to look like 'grannies' lace doilies. We can thank the 'cutter bees' (Megachilidae) for that look. For years, the ranch has had a lack of pollinators. This year, we are happy to say, we have a full complement of various pollinators including: hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, wasps, ants, flies, moths, beetles, bats, lizards and rodents. Not always, particularly, welcome of the rodents, but they do contribute.
For those of you who have visited the Junior House, you know that we have many indoor plants. Last month we added the plants from the Swinford collection. We are acclimating those plants to the ranch environment and they will be dispersed to various buildings.
The majority will remain in the Junior House. Having said that we have added plants, unfortunately, we have had to remove all the plants from the indoor planters (one on each side of the fireplace and the window box (a little over 20 plants). Those planters were not redone or reinforced prior to the county requesting that we plant them. Now the walls around those planters are showing signs of leakage. All the removed plants are reworked.
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 there 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)
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ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
by Steve Curtis
ON SUMMER BREAK!
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Membership
by Mark Thompson
New Members:
Joey Curtis
Freeman Stephens
Glenda Lynch
Jean Vickers
Ed and Lois Haglund
Kathy Stocker
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GREEN VALLEY GARDENERS
BRANDED CLOTHING NOW AVAILABLE
Here's your chance to order clothing with a new Green Valley Gardeners Clothing Logo direct from a company in Tucson. The GVG Clothing Logo will be much more recognizable on any piece of clothing. We have made arrangements with Aztec Embroidery and Screenprinting of Tucson to provide a variety of shirts and other products at reasonable prices for our members. It couldn't be easier. You order online, pay online, and either pick up your item or they will mail it to you.
Go to aztecworldwide.com. 1. Click on "View Catalog #1 in the right column. That will take you to a new page that shows what they have available - T-shirts, polos/knits, sweatshirts/fleece, etc. (use drop down box that says "Shop Products") 2. To order a polo shirt, for example, click on that option. The new page shows you the different types of polo/knits that are available. 3. Select which type you want and a new page comes up with additional options. 4. Select the style you want and the color options will show up. 5. Click on "Add to Inquiries" and then select the color and size and click "Update Cart". 6 Click "Submit Inquiry" on the next page and then a form will show up. 7. Complete that form making sure you indicate under "Imprint Information" that you want a "Green Valley Gardeners Logo". If you want to pick up your order at their Grant Road location, indicate that in the "Addtional/Special Instructions". 8. Send that form and you will eventually receive a confirmation and then a request for payment information once the order is complete at their end. You can pay by PayPal or they will contact you for credit card information. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.
If you have any questions, please contact me.
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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!
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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.
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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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| Cactus full of fruit at the Library |
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