SAND'n'SEEDS
April 2022
Serving Our Community Since 1980
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Message from the President
By Marilee Crumley
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I hope you had the opportunity to go to our plant sale at Desert Meadows Park. We want to thank all the volunteers who helped to make it a success. I know many people appreciate being able to buy plants in Green Valley, and also supporting our club. I especially want to thank Christa Ryan for all your hard work coordinating our sale.
An opportunity to get inspired is just around the corner. The Spring Garden Tour is back and happening on Saturday, April 9. Come to get ideas for your gardening from the six wonderful gardens on the tour.
Other club events in April include seminars on Thursday the 7th (Pests and Beneficial Insects) and on the 14th (Veggies in the Heat); and a new member opportunity to have a guided tour of one of our project gardens, Desert Meadows Park on April 20th.
This is the time of year we start seeing our winter visitors leave the area. May you have good travels back to your other homes.
Happy Spring and Happy Gardening!
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We Accept
Charitable Donations
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You will be asked for an amount, your contact information and credit card information.
Donations 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
Donations to a 501(c)(3) are tax deductible. Please check with your tax accountant for more information on this deduction.
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Would you like to help, have fun and meet new people?
Arid Garden:
Fridays at 7:30 a.m.
Contact: Mary Kidnocker
520-648-7959 or
Canoa Ranch:
Tuesdays at 7:30 a.m.
Contact: Raydine Taber
Desert Meadows Park:
Wednesdays at 7:30 a.m.
Contact: Chuck Parsons
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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
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New Members!!
Mark your Calendar
What: New Member Experience Desert Meadows Park
When: Wed. April 20; 2 times – 10:30 or 1:30
Where: Desert Meadows Park at 999 S. La Huerta
Who: It’s for anyone who has joined the club since Jan. 2020
Why: We want new members to experience the garden projects we maintain as the Green Valley Gardeners. Each one will be scheduled on a different month during our active times of the year : Sept. – April.
It will include a tour of the garden, info on volunteering, question & answers. Tours will be lead by board members & / or garden project managers
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The Spring Garden Tour is Back!!! |
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If you are looking for inspiration for your own landscape or just enjoy seeing what talented gardeners have done, you'll want to attend the GVG Spring Garden Tour on April 9, 2022.
The tour consists of a self-guided tour through six gardens in the Green Valley area. The gardens are selected to appeal to a broad range of tour visitors. Whatever your gardening interests, you'll find ideas in the gardens on the tour.
The plants in each garden will be labeled and there will be knowledgeable hosts at each garden to answer your questions. Enjoy the beauty of the gardens, the musicians playing in the gardens and the opportunity to learn more about gardening in our corner of the world.
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Tickets will be available at the seminar April 7, 2022.
Chamber of Commerce
Desert Bloom
Nancy Pantz
Native Gardens
until April 8. If you purchase your ticket online, you must pick it up at Desert Meadows Park on April 9 between 9:00 and 1:00. Please bring your receipt with you.
On the day of the tour, you can purchase tickets at Desert Meadows Park between 9:00 and 1:00.
Tickets are $15. You can get the members only price of $10 if you purchase your ticket at the GVG seminar.
Make your plans now to visit these wonderful gardens.
See you in the gardens!
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FALL SILENT AUCTION DONATIONS
We are now accepting donations for the Fall Silent Auction.
Donations can be dropped off at 1010 S. LaHuerta (Chuck Parsons’ screened front porch), or call Sheri Paseka at 406-672-7035 to arrange a time for pick up.
Thank you all in advance for your generous donations!
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GVG Seminars ... By Rhonda Rinn
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There are only 2 seminars left for the this season. The seminars have had a very good turn out and as always, Carol Thompson and her social committee have provided wonderful goodies for each seminar. The seminars remaining are:
- April 7th- Pests and Beneficial insects in the landscape by Dr. Shaku Nair from the Arizona Pest Management Center at Maricopa Agriculture Center of U of A.
- April 14th - Veggies in the Heat by GVG member and Master Gardener, Lorna Mitchell.
Please join us to learn, meet new people and support the Green Valley Gardeners.
Volunteers Needed
** Your help is needed and appreciated!
Want to have fun and meet new people while using your creativity to help the club fulfill its educational mission?
Join the Seminar Committee and help us develop innovative programs for the upcoming year. The gardening seminars play a vital role in fulfilling our mission of educating the public about gardening. As a member of the seminar team, you will help develop fresh ideas for seminar topics and contact potential speakers. We also need writers to help us announce our seminars in the Green Thumb column of the Green Valley News.
We hope to see you there!
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In Your Plot ... By Lorna Mitchell
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Spring planting time is NOW! Savor the aroma of freshly churned soil in the cool morning air as you anticipate those tiny plants filling your plot. Winter’s erratic temperatures should settle down this month and allow for our tender seedlings to get established.
The earthworms are active in the warming soil and we need to be too: digging soil with amendments of compost and complete fertilizer, removing old roots, grubs, and weeds, breaking up clods, re-establishing irrigation tubing and clocks, and shopping for seeds and plants.
Stores are stocked with a wide variety of both cool and warm season plant choices. You have to distinguish what will thrive. Leaf lettuce is a cool crop that we can grow year round because it grows so quickly and the leaves are harvested young; chard will also often survive the summer. While you are buying seeds for spring planting think what you might want to plant in August and October and consider buying packets of parsnips, turnips, cabbage, broccoli, kale, peas, cauliflower, carrots, beets, and chard now while they are available. Keep them in a cool place, NOT in the garage or in your locker at the garden where they will get hot and they will wait patiently for you to put them in the ground.
Seeds for squashes, beans, cucumbers, radish, melons, okra, corn, etc., can go in the ground now. Soaking the seeds in water 12-24 hours before planting can hasten germination. Read the package as to depth and spacing of seeds. Keep the ground moist, not soupy or dry, with a few minutes of watering several times each day. Covering the seed bed for a couple of weeks with a porous white cloth can help get seedlings established but remove it when the young plants push against it.
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Transplants of tomato can be set out anytime; bury the stem up to the growing leaves, new roots will grow from the buried stem and offer more support and nutrient intake. Water once with a nutrient solution such as Miracle Grow but mix it up at half the concentration on the label and keep the soil moist at all times. These new little babies will need TLC for a couple weeks; check them often, a lot can go wrong.
Transplants of peppers, eggplant, and okra like warmer soil and prefer to wait until the middle of April to grow outside. Check all transplants and remove hitchhikers like aphids or insect eggs. Allow for room to grow and expand and add supports within the next few weeks while it still fits over easily.
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We should see activity in our onions this month as they begin storing food and enlarging the bulb. Garlic needs to stay in the ground until late May or June.
For more details and tips on successful summer gardening in the heat attend my seminar on April 14 at Desert Hills auditorium 9:30 a.m.
Those are my plot thoughts for now,
Happy Gardening!!
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Arid Garden …
By Mary Kidnocker
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On a recent spring morning, neighbors of the garden provided a feast to thank the volunteers for the work they do to keep the garden in top condition. The food was plentiful, nutritious, and delicious; fellowship was warm and friendly; a good time was had by all. Thanks to the friends of the garden who made it a festive occasion, and to those who presented us with generous donations!
Among new additions to the garden are several variations of Milkweed in the Butterfly Garden. Volunteer Jerry Sampson recently donated a handmade solitary bee house which now hangs in one of the old Mesquite trees above our potting area.
It is the season when our winter volunteers depart for their “other home.”
We will miss each of you and wish you a safe and healthy summer!
Our robust summer residents are invited to drop by the garden anytime and enjoy its springtime delights!
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Desert Meadows Park …
By Chuck Parsons
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Well darn, we didn’t get that little extra rain in March to have a spectacular California Poppy display. Rain in February did cause germination, so we have a very colorful display, although the plants haven’t developed much height. The Parry's penstemon are beautiful again this year. Last year for reasons we didn’t quite understand, birds ate all the blossoming buds leaving us with nothing but green stocks. |
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Poppies, desert Bluebells and Penstemon add lots of color in the park this month.
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Nice to see Penstemon stock with bloom again this year. The birds stripped them in 2021.
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A team of volunteers have completed the “Bird Checklist” for the park. This is a colorful tri-fold that can be found at three locations in the park. It will be available in a dispenser near the parking lot, near the bulletin board on the Anza Trail, and mounted on the greenhouse in the nursery.
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Historic Hacienda de la Canoa ...
By Raydine Taber
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Some of us had the privilege of meeting and discussing the plant life, on the ranch, with Ann Manning Fiegen (Deezie and Howell Manning, Jr.’s daughter). Several years ago, when we first met Ann, she indicated she would be rereading her mother’s letters sent to her grandparents. She indicated she would collect information on the plants, flowers, and trees that her mother mentioned in those letters. Ann provided us with many quotes from her mother’s letters. This session resulted in a list of 30 mentioned plants. Some we already had been using but a nice list of new plants that grew during the Manning era. She was also able to confirm where the infamous rose garden was originally located. It was not located inside, what is today the compound, but was located near the Caretaker’s House just west of the compound. During the Historical and Garden Tour, we relate a story that Howell Manning, Sr. use to, at the end of his day, walk through the rose garden. We may not get the rose garden in this year, but it is high on the priority list. |
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Spring fertilizing was completed in time for the apple blossoms. Appears that pears, plums, pomegranates, and quince are not far behind. Our yellow irises are showing buds forming and also will contribute to more color in the Orchard.
We had to cancel the February and March Garden Tours but April 8th, 9a.m. they will start again. If you are interested in touring the Gardens of Canoa, go to the Historic Canoa Ranch website, and register for any of the available tours.
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Really nice to see the school children back on the ranch. This is a special tour/learning session for elementary school groups called Life on the Ranch. With the COVID pandemic slowing, schools are once again participating in field trips. |
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Every Christmas we provide a few holiday plants to decorate Junior House. This year, we had two poinsettias, one Christmas cactus and six red and white cyclamens. Amazing, here we are first of April, and everything is still blooming and showing their holiday colors. Since these plants have performed so well, a couple of us are taking them home for the summer and will try to rebloom them for the next winter holiday season. Here are both of the Poinsettias: |
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Talking about blooms, in the Junior House, sun porch, the pink Mandeville, is blooming and the aloe in the window box has two spikes. Junior House courtyard has tulips, iris, and a few jonquils adding their spring colors.
Come join us for some of our interesting adventures or take advantage of events offered by Pima County, Natural Resources Parks, and Recreation. The fun part about volunteering, at Historic Canoa Ranch gardens, is our variety of plant life and learning a small part of Southern Arizona’s history. We are not just all native and drought tolerant plants, but we also have herbs, vegetables, fruit trees and indoor plants. Each garden, we work, enhances one of the Ranch’s historic buildings. Take a step back into Southern Arizona’s History.
We meet on Tuesdays at 7:30 a.m. Please join us! If you want more information call me at 520-625-0961 or email rs_taber@msn.com
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Allen J Ogden Community Garden ...
By Bob Laux-Bachand
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With late March signaling the end of Sahuarita’s average last frost period, Ogden gardeners are making the transition to spring plantings and continuing to harvest winter holdovers of cabbage, lettuce, and other crops. The garden’s onion patch caught a break on March 20 with .40 inch of rain, more than double the Rainlog readings in Green Valley. |
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We welcomed a new member, Kathleen Conklin, who has taken the north half of a 10-by-40-foot plot on the west side of the garden. Kendra Lee, who had relinquished her previous plot last summer, has returned to the area and claimed a different in-ground plot. Kendra has been an active volunteer and quickly regained her stride, so to speak, by helping to dig the trench for a new 10-by-20-foot plot. At this point, the new half-sized in-ground bed is the sole plot available at Ogden. |
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Kendra Lee, right, and Harry Jepkema worked on the trench for a water line to the newly created garden plot. Ogden now has 26 plots.
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Grover Lee prepares a section of the water line. Harry Jepkema, right.
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Grover Lee, Kendra’s husband, installed the pipe and fittings for the new water line on March 18. He was assisted by Ogden manager Harry Jepkema, who continues to “police the area” and reorganize the sheds, equipment, tomato cages and other garden items in an effort to make things “less visible, clean, neater.” Major projects such as the application of decomposed granite to the pathways have been completed, and the last few yards of the material have been piled in a new location for use as needed. |
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40th Anniversary Median Project ...
by Phyllis Barboza
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It has been a cold winter, but warm and sunny days are upon us again!
Our volunteers who water the medians have worked nonstop keeping the plants alive on the medians. There are 4 medians which have completed the watering cycle and I would like to take time to thank the individuals who watered them in part or fully, faithfully for the past 2 years.
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Richard and Kay Farland (NE26 1st Median North of Continental on Abrego)
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Tim and Rhonda Rinn (NE25 2nd Median North of Continental on Abrego)
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Chris Arundell (NE16 1st Median South of Esperanza on Abrego)
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I would also like to thank John Divjak for his work on (NE17 2nd Median South of Esperanza on Abrego), although I don't have a picture.
These individuals have made a positive impact on our community.
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Membership ... By Mark Thompson & Karen Dougherty
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We are pleased to report a current membership of 555. We want to thank all who have renewed this past month. And would like to welcome the 7 new members joining in March:
Kathleen Conklin,
Mary Bradford,
Beverly and Courtney Bobbitt,
Janice Duran,
Carole and Ken Frybarger
The recent “member only” day at the plant sale on March 16 was very well attended . With 86 members taking advantage of the preview. Sales that day totalled $4109 to include plants, tour tickets, raffle and donations.
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Mailing Address:
PO Box 86,
Green Valley, AZ 85622-0086
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