Winter 2020-21 - Volume 2, Issue 1
Hello Gardeners,
Oh, what a year it was!
We said farewell to 2020, relieved that it is over. The pandemic has left many of us exhausted, even traumatized. By the same token, Covid-19 has also been an eye opener. We learned at lot! Whether helping us to work from home, or to organize for climate change or racial justice, technology did more for us in 2020 than ever before. Andrea Salzman and Lori Palmquist describe how Master Gardeners from Contra Costa County were able to offer webinars via Zoom Live, or on Youtube to watch when convenient.
The pandemic has also created new enthusiasts who have found gardening is good for the soul. If you, like so many of us, tried growing a vegetable garden for the first time, you will love the No-Till Approach article, written by Greg Letts. This technique is used at Our Garden in Walnut Creek to preserve soil texture and health. As climate change demands it, we all have been paying more attention to Mother Earth as well. The article on Sustainable Gardening teaches you how to protect and restore nature, enabling humans and nature to co-exist in productive harmony.
Additionally, Marilyn Saarni encourages you to add some dreamy components to your winter gardening tasks and we are very proud to announce our first Growing Gardeners Course en Español
The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all!
- Wendell Berry
Hedwig Van Den Broeck, Editor
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Check Out Our New YouTube Channel! |
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By Andrea Salzman and Lori Palmquist
It has been said that “things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” (Art Linkletter). I think many of us can relate to that for 2020. Well, we can certainly apply that concept to our Speakers Bureau’s reaction to the COVID-19 shutdown.
With Shelter-in-Place orders came the unfortunate need to shut the door on all our scheduled 2020 public speaking talks at libraries and demonstration gardens around the county. This also removed the ability for us Master Gardener volunteers to directly interact with and provide educational talks to you, our audience, which we look forward to as much as you do attending the talks.
You can imagine then how thrilled we were when the Contra Costa Library asked us to partner with them, in a brand-new way, to fulfill our shared mission of delivering high value talks to our community. We happily accepted the proposal to join forces to offer our education talks in Zoom webinars. Led by our Speakers Bureau Lead Andrea Salzman and Librarian Alison Peters, a team of Master Gardener volunteers and Library staff rolled up their sleeves and got to work planning and delivering a tableau of talks to connect with you, our audience.
In July we presented our first Zoom webinar. In the following months we expanded to streaming our webinars using Youtube Live and then Facebook Live to meet the huge demand. Live streaming offered everyone the opportunity to join our webinars (our earlier limited events filled up quickly!). We were awestruck and thrilled with the number of people in our community we could reach, which far surpassed what we have been able to do in person. A total of 1,471 people attended the first six talks, many for the very first time.
In a way, the restrictions of COVID were a boon for us being able to reach the public in a bigger way than we ever had before. While we are eager to get back to our in-person talks at libraries, demonstration gardens, and other venues, we will continue our webinars as another routine way to reach our audiences.
Visit Us on YouTube and Subscribe - @CoCoMGUC!
Did you miss some of our webinars? We have got you covered – You can access all six of our 2020 talks on our Master Gardener YouTube channel (@CoCoMGUC), as well as on the Contra Costa County Library’s YouTube channel (@theccclib), for on-demand viewing. Check out our Youtube channel, and subscribe too, so you'll get notices when new webinars are posted. Watch, learn and grow from the leisure of your home. Slippers and tea optional!
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Seasonal Vegetable Gardening
Master Gardener volunteer Marian Woodard walks us through how to create a thriving edible garden using less space and less water. This presentation covers a wide range of topics including soil preparation, getting started with seeds/transplants, utilizing cover crops for good soil health, fertilizing, irrigation, mulching, planting times, and selecting the right crops
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What Went Wrong in Your Summer Garden?
Master Gardener volunteer Monika Witte shares common vegetable growing problems, how to correct them, and suggestions for what vegetables to plant for the most reliably results.
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Plant Adaptations to Mediterranean Climates
Dawn Kooyumjian, the Program Coordinator for UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County and Alameda County, informs us about how California’s climate is unique and the effects of this climate on plants and landscapes. You will come away inspired and with a deeper understanding of gardening with limited water.
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Good Bug Bad Bug
Master Gardener volunteer John R. Fike takes us on a fascinating tour of the wonderful world of bugs in the garden. Insect pests (bad bugs) that commonly occur in our area are shown along with the beneficial insects (good bugs) that prey on them.
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How to Grow a Successful Winter Garden
Master Gardener volunteer Terry Lippert offers us a treasure trove of information on how to successfully grow winter vegetable crops in Contra Costa County. Discover which vegetables grow well during our winter months, when to plant them, how to solve their common pest problems, and the values of planting winter cover crops.
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Firewise Landscaping
Master Gardener volunteers Steve Danziger and Hedwig Van Den Broeck share vital information and strategies on how you can reduce your risks in fire prone California by protecting and hardening your home and creating firewise landscapes.
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No-Till - An Evolving Approach |
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by Greg Letts
Although Our Garden Walnut Creek (OG WC) is currently closed to the public, occasionally people stop by to ask a question through the fence. Recently a man asked how he should prep his vegetable beds for the winter. He had a large pile of oak leaves and grass clippings. Should he dig them in?
Janet, the lead at OG WC, said he could dig them in, but what we are now experimenting with in OG WC is more of a no-till approach, trying to not disturb the soil in our beds as much as possible. He might just use the leaves and grass clippings as a mulch on his beds for the winter. And better yet, seed a cover crop along with that mulch.
It reminded me of how much the garden has evolved. Mike, one of our long-term volunteers, talks about the arduous process of double digging the beds to prep for the new season only six or seven years ago. In my nearly two years in this garden, we have gone from the deep broad forking of each bed, mixing in amendments and compost at the start of each season, to a no-till approach. We cut off the stems of the previous season at ground level, leave the roots in the ground to decay in place, and spread several inches of compost over the top. (We still add amendments for heavy feeders like tomatoes.) Now we can prep a bed for replanting in 30-40 minutes.
A small example of the evolution process occurred this fall as we were prepping the beds for winter crops.
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by Greg Letts
There are volunteers and there are volunteers. Of course we have dedicated Master Gardener volunteers that keep Our Garden Walnut Creek thriving. We also see many volunteer plants from previous seasons sprouting all over the garden. Over the summer, visitors saw beautiful sunflowers towering over many of the vegetable beds. All of these were volunteers—none planted this year! We also had tomatillo plants pop up in several places. These produced bags and bags of tomatillos for Monument Crisis Center. One of our Master Gardener volunteers has not planted cherry tomatoes in his garden in a couple of years, yet he has new plants come up each year. He just lets them grow. We point this out to suggest maybe letting some of the volunteers in your garden grow. You might be in for a pleasant surprise!
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A sustainable garden is an organic garden taken a step further.
Following Sustainable Garden Practices will sustain your soils and plants while it nourishes and sustains your family. The goal is to conserve natural resources. Sustainable gardening addresses the fact that we are now using up our natural resources faster than can be replenished by nature. By protecting, restoring and enhancing our landscapes we enable humans and nature to co-exist in productive harmony in order to support present and future generations.
Key elements of a sustainable garden:
We cannot influence the sun but Soil, Compost, Mulch, and Water are the very heart of sustainability and we’d like to offer you some resources that can easily be implemented and help you create a sustainable foundation for your garden.
Most of these elements are also addressed in one of our Library Talks: Seasonal Vegetable Gardening available on our Youtube channel. I highly encourage you to watch this delightful and very informative Library Talk. (1hr 16 mins)
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Key Element #1: Soil
Soil is a mixture of minerals (sand, silt and clay), organic matter, and pore space for water and air on the immediate surface of the Earth that serves as a natural medium for the growth of plants.
Healthy soil is quite literally the foundation of sustainable food, water, air and biodiversity.
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Key Element #2: Composting
Composting has the most impact of any sustainable gardening practice.
Composting recycles and enriches. It benefits the health of your soil and benefits your family at the same time.
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Key Element #3: Mulching
Another important technique that you can employ to create low-maintenance, healthy gardens is mulching.
Although some of the soil should be left bare to protect ground nesting CA bees, mulching is an important constituent of a sustainable garden.
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Key Element #4: Water
In our mediterranean climate zone, we pretty much only get rain during the winter. Therefore, when you choose plants for your garden, be sure to select plants that are well adapted to your climate zone and not considered invasive species.
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Apart from the 4 key elements, there are so many more easy-to-do sustainable gardening practices you can start implementing in your own garden; encouraging beneficial insects, saving your seeds, using Integrated Pest Management (IPM), and planting California Native Plants, just to name a few. We offer you a compilation of documents encouraging you to practice sustainable gardening:
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No rest for the weary gardener! Although during the winter months we do less planting, we still have important maintenance tasks that make for a thriving garden during next growing season. So, put on that winter jacket and warm cozy hat…it is time to put the garden to bed!
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by Marilyn Saarni
Our winters here in Contra Costa are not the catalogue-reading-by-the-fireplace sort that our fellow snowbound colleagues enjoy. We have many tasks in our gardens. But these tasks have their dreamy components. I start pruning a rose, and as its framework opens up again, I imagine the next spring’s bloom—maybe to peak by Mother’s Day, perhaps to celebrate the first signs of an ebbing COVID-19 pandemic? I pull fallen leaves drowning succulents, groundcovers and my geologist-fieldtrip-retrieved rocks, and surprise a newt (have to rebuild its cover!) or find a tip of a forgotten narcissus bulb popping up. My delight is mixed with memory of narcissus fragrance.
Other dreams are of the eternal gardener’s improvement ambitions: Could we install an irrigation system this year? Where oh where can one fit in a greenhouse to protect one’s collection of frost-tender plants, or at least a cold frame to get a start on early seedlings? Where oh where can we fit in one more fruit tree? Is there room for a wisteria against the back fence? Can we expand our raised bed so we can plant picking flowers? Maybe that’s the spot where we can build a compost bin? These send us to browse on YouTube for advice, or check garden catalogues and garden books on plant requirements for some lust-worthy candidate for your garden.
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A New Year, a New Beginning |
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Upcoming Events - Eventos en Línea
Due to the pandemic and Master Gardener volunteers taking a short winter break around the holidays, our list of Upcoming Events is limited. We still follow strict CDC regulations, so all in-person events have been cancelled until further notice. This includes our Demonstration Gardens, School Gardens and Community Gardens. Some Speaker Bureau webinars will be announced soon, so stay tuned.
Growing Gardeners course now en Español
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Los jardineros maestros del Condado de Contra Costa anunciamos con mucho gusto nuestro primer entrenamiento de Cultivando Jardineros en español. Hemos traducido este curso popular, y planeamos presentarlo en cuatro sesiones de tres horas cada una, los sábados, empezando el 20 de febrero al 13 de marzo, del 2021.
Presentamos este entrenamiento para los residentes del Condado de Contra Costa cuya lengua principal es en español, y que están interesados en este curso para principiantes en jardinería. Vea nuestra página de internet para información (en inglés) sobre los temas del curso. Mándenos un correo electrónico a mgcc.growinggardeners@gmail.com si tiene preguntas.
The UC Master Gardener volunteers of Contra Costa County are proud to announce their upcoming pilot Growing Gardeners training in Spanish. We’ve translated this popular training, and plan to hold the four 3-hour sessions on Saturdays, starting on February 20th, through March 13th, 2021.
We will be presenting this training for residents of Contra Costa County for Spanish-speaking households that don't speak English, and who are interested in this beginning gardening course. See our Growing Gardeners web page for information in English of the subjects covered in this training http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/GrowingGardeners/.
Visit our Website often or follow us on Social Media for regular updates.
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Our Demonstration Gardens |
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Got a Gardening Question? Our Help Desk is staffed 50 weeks of the year,
Monday-Thursday 9 a.m.-Noon.
Currently, we are communicating through email ONLY
In your email request:
- Include your name and city (plant advice depends on local conditions!).
- Describe the problem in detail. Include the name of the plant if known, when the problem began, and cultivation history such as watering, fertilizing, pruning, pesticides, etc.
- Send photographs, if appropriate.
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Do you know your soils? Take this Quiz (6 questions) to test your basic soil knowledge
Does Potting Soil contain:
- a lot of natural soil
- half natural soil, half amendments
- no natural soil
The correct answer will be published in our spring issue.
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Answer to our fall Issue question: I am the earliest fossil record dating from 15.2 million years ago in Nevada. My early blooming flowers are protected from winter and spring rains by downward hanging fused petals coated with a waxy waterproof covering. And last but not least, my pollen and nectar is favored by bees and hummingbirds; my small red berries are eaten by birds, bears and humans; and indigenous people have used my leaves and berries to treat headaches, intestinal cramping, respiratory and kidney problems, skin infections and poison oak rashes.
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Final quote:
"There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground"
Rumi
Stay Safe, Healthy and Happy!
Keep Others Safe, Healthy and Happy.
Images used in this newsletter are credited to UCANR.edu, G. Letts, M. Saarni, and H. Van Den Broeck
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