Class session # 8

Long day today, but a pretty good one.

As you know from an earlier blog, part of our volunteer hours must be spent doing hands on work in a special garden sanctioned by the Master Gardener program - could be a demo garden, youth garden or an outreach garden. So, the first half of the morning was spent listening to various representatives from some of these gardens promoting their cause, and trying to convince us to come and put our hours in with them.  This morning's presenters came from:

• The Cesar Chavez Demo Garden on Beacon Hill
• The Reclaimed Water and Biosolids Garden in Renton
• The Fragrance Garden in Seattle
• The Tribal Life Trail in Maple Valley
• The Wedgewood Demo Garden in North Seattle
• The Master Gardener's Foundation Annual Plant Sale

For me, two of these were an immediate stand out.......

RECLAIMED WATER AND BIOSOLIDS GARDEN
I'm big into sustainability, reducing, reusing, recycling and being a kinder, gentler member of the planet, so when I heard about the Reclaimed Water and Biosolids Garden my ears perked up. 

Not the most appetizing of names, for sure, but this garden is demonstrating good things - namely, how to take an unpleasant waste product and turn it into something safe and beneficial for growing our food.  The garden shows people how the process works.   Did you know this is already happening in many states across the country?    That salad, or the veggies on that pizza you recently had could well have been grown on farms using biosolids and reclaimed water.   Check out this LINK for more information.

TRIBAL LIFE TRAIL

Located at the Lake Wilderness Arboretum in Maple Valley this garden focuses on ethno-botony - the study of the relationships between plants and humans - in this case the native plants and peoples of the Pacific Northwest.  The garden provides an educational platform for understanding our cultural horticultural heritage - creating/reinforcing an appreciation of sustainability.  The garden is still in the development stages and will have its grand opening on June 5th, so I'm unable to share a photo of it with you.  If you're interested in learning more, I suggest you bookmark this LINK to the Arboretum and stay tuned for more details.

So, what garden assignments am I going to choose?  Well, it's too early to tell.  We still have more gardens to learn about, so I'll hold off committing to anything until I see what else is out there.  Stay tuned!

I popped over to the library during the morning break and perused the Nature Writings section..... oh my, I'm drooling at all the possibilities!  Which one do I read first?   Ended up signing out a Rachel Carson book I haven't seen before... "Lost Woods" - a collection of unpublished writings.

During the second half of the morning we started to dig into the formalities of plant diagnosis and reviewed the forms and procedures that make up the information gathering phase - from getting a good sample for analysis, to capturing relevant supporting data that will help with the diagnosing.   I'll follow up with a Key Learnings on this one..... got some good information to share with you.  Stay tuned!

Went for a stroll during lunch hour.  The gardens are starting to look so lovely.....just look at these hellebores......

..... and they've got daffies busting out all over!

After lunch we reconvened for a 3 hour presentation by Holly Kennell on vegetable gardening...... there was a good gathering of certified Master Gardeners in the back of the room who joined us to earn some CE credits and refresh themselves for the upcoming planting season.  Holly gave us a good primer on layout and preparation of a veggie patch, followed by mounds of information on common vegetable problems, both  abiotic and biotic.  Interesting, but tiring..... we were very ready to head home when all was said and done.

8 down, 4 more to go. 

Class session # 7

Woo hoo!  We didn't have to sit on our duffs all day.....  that made for a nice change. Right off the bat we were up and about taking tours.  Three to be exact:
1.  The Herbarium.
2.  The Library
3.  Merrill Hall.

HERBARIUM
Know what an herbarium is?  I thought I did until this morning......



..... it's a library of pressed plant samples.  This one has 19,773 of them to be exact.  Organized by Family, Genus, Species, Cultivar and Variety.  Wow!

Herbariums are a wonderful resource if you're struggling to identify a plant.  I felt much better after hearing that it takes YEARS to become good at identifying plants, and as rookie Master Gardeners we shouldn't feel bad if we can only get it down to the family/species level.   If we need more specifics that's where herbariums come in handy.  The Otis Douglas Hyde herbarium is accessible to the public, not just UW folks or Master Gardeners.  You can contact them anytime you need help identifying something.   If you give them a plant they can't readily identify, they have all the necessary research equipment to figure it out.....

........ it may take them a week or two to get back to you, but they will get you an answer.

THE LIBRARY

Our second tour took us to the library.  This isn't your ordinary, generic, been there done that library..... instead this one is totally dedicated to plants, horticulture, botany and gardening.   Thousands of books, periodicals, research articles, nature writings and more... and it's all open and available to the public.  Any and all are welcome.  A gardener's paradise! 

I could see this being a great place to visit on a cold, dark, rainy day when we're dreaming of spring/summer and being outdoors in our beautiful PNW.

Many of the journals and periodicals are from around the world, so you can see what gardeners do in other countries, and they have an area called PNW Connections which references plants from areas around the world that have a climate similar to ours.   It's truly a global resource, not just PNW focused material.  That's cool!  

They also have a children's corner with numerous gardening-related books/activities organized by age group, and all kinds of resources/reference materials for teachers / parents to use to encourage the younger generation to dig in.  Very impressive!  

Next time you're over in the U-district, go check this library out. It's a real gem.

MERRILL HALL

Our final tour gave us some insight into the actual building where we have our training.   Did you know it was one of the first LEED certified buildings in Seattle?    It's constructed with recycled and local materials, designed to minimize the use of resources and optimize sunlight and air movement for heating/cooling, captures/reuses rainwater, has occupancy sensors that detect both light and movement to turn off lights when appropriate...... the list goes on.   Very cool!

If you've never been in a LEED building, try to find one in your neck of the woods and go check it out.  It's inspiring to see how we can still have all our comforts while minimizing our impact on the natural world.

After a break we spent the rest of the morning learning about teaching kits.  What's a teaching kit you ask?  Well it's a self-contained classroom/gardening-related discovery in a box.  Each box focuses on a different subject, and there are currently 13 topics to pick from: 

1.   Roots and Shoots

2.   Seeds and Flowers

3.   Native Plant / Wildlife Habitat

4.   Trees

5.   Observation Chamber

6.   Water

7.   Insects

8.   Pollinators

9.   Soil and Compost

10. Worms

11. Mini Worm Bin

12. Recycling

13. Nutrition

These kits are available to master gardeners, parents, teachers and anyone who wishes to share/teach this information to others.   You sign them out just like you would a library book.  The box contains all the materials,  props, posters and the like, and an instruction guide. What a cool resource!  When all our training is over, I think I'll venture into this area..... a fun way to get my head into a given subject to learn it more thoroughly and then share what I've learned with others.  I already have some ideas for other subjects to add to the list...... do you have any topics you'd like to see?  If you'd like to take a closer look at these kits, or borrow one to share with your child's school, scout troop, gathering of gardening friends etc. just let me know..... happy to help. 

As you know from an earlier blog, the afternoon session was cancelled because the instructor didn't show up...... so class dismissed.   7 down, 5 more to go. 

Week 6: Homework and stuff

Having been out of town for a few days I had a lot of catching up to do.  Amazing how quickly the work can pile up if you don't/can't stay on top of things......

We had umpteen (and I mean umpteen) videos to watch this week.  A few of them were a good 30-40 mins or more, but the rest were just 2-8 mins in length.... fragments of information on various aspects of fruit/berry/vertebrate stuff.  I'm finding this format quite irritating - the pdf that comes with the video is just a verbatim script so not a helpful reference on what we're watching.  Hard to get my head around it when it's like that.  We need a concise summary of each video and fewer/longer more cohesive videos rather than this cherry picking format.... seems like when they forgot to include some information on something they quickly whipped up another video to cover it. 

Ran into some technical trouble with two of the assignments..... need to chase down one of the online technical support guys to get it resolved before I can complete them.

Not the smoothest week..... but hard to expect it to all be perfect first time around.  They've got kinks to work out, that's for sure!

Double Whammy!

Folks in Western Washington relish the sunshine when we can get it, and for the past few days it's been simply glorious!  So, when the afternoon speaker for yesterday's class was a no-show we were released early..... woo hoo!  What an absolute treat.... a day off from work, no class AND glorious sunny weather to top it off!

Well, it turned out to be not so woo hoo after all...... later on that day we got an email from the program coordinator with THREE make-up assignments...... must be completed and turned in before next Saturday.

For the most part, we have to read articles on related topics and then answer a series of questions... or do a little investigating on the Internet. Not difficult, but time consuming.  

I wonder what happend to that instructor - better not have played hookie and been outside somewhere enjoying all this glorious sunny weather we've been having!

Adding fuel to the fire, because I had to miss all of last week's class I knew I was going to have make-up work for that.  Sure enough.... a few days ago SEVEN assignments arrived via email which I have to complete by March 1st.   All in all, that makes TEN make-up assignments AND I still have all of this week's homework to do (if that wasn't time consuming enough).  

So...... if you're thinking of taking this course, first and foremost, try at all costs not to miss a class, and as an insurance policy, be sure your calendar is as free of other obligations as you can get it so you have the extra time to get through all the make-up work if/when it happens.

Now I think I'll go and sit outside in the sunshine and crank out a few of these extra assignments......

Class session # 6

Had to miss last Saturday's class.  We had a death in the family and I needed to travel out of state to attend the funeral and be with family.  In general, missing a class is a big no-no, but obviously when it's a family emergency exceptions have to be made.

Still, we're expected to make things up when we get back......and it's up to the program coordinator to determine what the make up work will be.  Wonder what I'll have to do......

Week 5: Homework and Stuff

Normally I get right down to homework first thing on Sunday mornings, but on Superbowl Sunday I spent about 5 hours out in the garden getting some clean up done.  I moved plants that I'd been targeting to relocate, pulled up others that had died in the December freeze, weeded and got some other necessary gardening chores taken care of.  It was warm (mid 50s), with a little sunshine here and there, just too nice to be indoors doing homework - and the exercise felt good too!   Later on hubby went off to a Superbowl party with his buddies, so that's when I got on with the studying.

Topics for the week included........



 .... and.....


... digested with the usual assortment of activities from reading the text book, completing quizzes, reviewing hours videos (seemed to be a lot more of that this week) and umpteen handouts (more of them too), a couple of crosswords, and gosh darn it, more of those nasty "look-at-a-photo-and-guess-what-I-am" activities.  Yuck, I hate those things!  

In the time it took the Saints to beat the Colts (woo hoo for New Orleans... they deserve a good story for a change) I got close to half of the homework done, and finished the rest through a number of smaller weeknight sessions, after work. 

Composting: Key Learnings

Back in 2005 we did a major exterior remodel on our house and a large portion of decking was removed.  We saved all the planks (good quality cedar) and later on I had a chance to do my first real woodworking project and built some compost bins.   

Umpteen long wood screws hold them together, making them really sturdy, and I have them sitting on concrete stepping stones to keep them off the ground.  I have them situated about 200ft away from the house, up behind our potting shed.

I built four in all - one 3ft x 6ft, two 3ft x 3ft and had enough scraps left over for a 2ft x 2ft.  Here they are, all lined up....

The large one with the cover on it is the one doing most of the work, with the two on the right holding various green / brown supplies, and the one on the left is where I put the finished product - black gold!

I remember when I first started composting, the bins would be a bit stinky and once in a while I'd have a big mess to clean up - some critters had passed through during the night and torn the pile apart to get at the kitchen scraps.  Well, it's a few years on now and I'm happy to say I'm getting pretty good at composting......totally odor free, lots of green and brown materials avoiding the landfill, all kitchen scraps getting dug DEEP into the pile so no visitors come a-calling, and I'm getting regular, abundant supplies of black gold!  

So, just like what goes into compost, here are some scraps to help you make your own black gold.... some green (for beginners) and others brown (for competent composters).  Happy composting, and thanks for doing your part to keep things out of our landfills! 

Compost Recipe
50% brown (carbon)
50% green (nitrogen)
Air
Water
--------------------------
- Mix the brown and green stuff together like a tossed salad.
- Add water until mixture is consistency of a wrung out sponge.
- Dump into a pile, or put into a composter bin / container - minimum 1 cubic yard.
- Toss/turn weekly for first 4-6 weeks and add more water to keep the wetness levels right.
- After 4-6 weeks.... stop turning and let cure (cool down and stabilize) for another 6 weeks or so.
- Ready to use.

• Good sources of brown materials:  fallen leaves, wood ash, newspapers, plain cardboard, peat moss, hair/pet fur (that's a new one I didn't know), natural fiber laundry lint, shredded paper, dried out grass clippings, stale bread, straw, peanut shells, sawdust.
• Good sources of green materials:  fresh grass clippings, coffee grounds (yup, they're considered green, not brown), farm manure, garden trimmings, hay, alfalfa, clover, hedge clippings, veggie scraps, tea bags, egg shells, banana skins.
• Stuff for the trash, not your compost pile:  pet waste (anything that came out of a carnivorous animal), glossy paper/cardboard containers, coal ash (contains sulfur and iron in concentrations that can harm plants), BBQ ash, diseased plants, weeds, anything that's been synthetically fertilized/treated, invasive plants. 
• The smaller the size of your source materials, the faster your pile will turn into usable compost. Ideally, nothing should be bigger than the size of your thumb.
• Cold composting - larger material size, pile stays cool, lower maintenance, slow results (6 months - 1 year).
• Hot composting - small material size, pile heats up to 120-160F, higher maintenance, fast results (3 months or so).
• Hot composting cycle:  a) pile heats up, b) pile reduces in size a little as things decompose, c) pile cools down,  d) time to turn everything and check moisture levels.  Repeat steps a - d as many times as necessary until you have compost.  Let cure for about 6 weeks before using.
• Mixing all ingredients together and then forming the pile works, and so does building by the lasagna / layering method.  The key is small particle size, thin layers and a finished pile at least 1 cubic yard in size so the decomposition processes can really get cranking. 
• Turn, turn, turn.
• Make sure the pile stays moist (wrung out sponge).   
• Up here in the PNW we really need to cover our compost piles during the rainy season.  Too much rain will drench it, slowing the decomposition process down and leaching out all the good stuff.
• Raked up leaves act like little barriers inside the pile and make it hard for the worms and such to move around and do their thing.  If you don't have a mulching mower, a great way to get your fall leaves ground up is to put them in a large trash can and go at them with a weed wacker.
• Containers:  1/3 compost + 2/3 potting soil, mix together, add plants of your choosing - enjoy!  : )
• Lawns:  broadcast light layer of compost over lawn, use leaf rake to get particles down to soil layer - healthier lawn may mean less need to fertilize/treat with pesticides, saving you time and $$ -  : )
• Garden beds:  spread 2" compost annually - healthier, happier plants = more time and $$ saved - smile!  : )
• Never composted before?  Check with your municipality first to make sure you can compost in your area, and confirm what methods are approved.   For example, if you live in an urban area you may have to use a specific type of composter for your food scraps (green cone or equivalent).
• Love this stuff?  Want to learn more?  Try the following.....
• WSU King County Extension:  http://www.king.wsu.edu/   
• WSU Puyallup Research and Extension:   http://www.soils1.org/
• King County Solid Waste Division:   www.metrokc.gov/dnrp/swd/composting-soils/index.asp
• Cornell Composting:  www.compost.css.cornell.edu/Composting_homepage.html

Class Session # 5

We got to bring our laptops to class today........ spent the morning doing Internet searches on various topics and learning how to discern gardening fact from gardening myth.  Interesting..... very interesting.  
Lesson learned........   don't be so sure that what you've learned over the years about various gardening principles and practices is legit (aka - scientifically tested/proven)...... chances are, some or all of it may be a home remedy passed down from great, great grandma, or worse yet, a deceitful marketing ploy by a company looking to sell more product. 

After a sunny lunchtime break we reconvened for a presentation on composting.   Lively, lots of Q&A, and I came away with a few new good tips (I'll share them with you later in a Key Learnings posting).  

With all required activities accomplished we were released early......... 5 down, 7 more to go.  

Formula for Sustainability

I watched an interesting video a few weeks ago..... it was one of our optional learning activities, and for me, a real gem.   The topic was sustainable gardening and one part of the presentation really stuck with me that I thought I'd share with you. 

Imagine a 3-legged stool.....

........  as you know, if you take one of the legs away the stool falls over.
Now imagine each one of those legs is part of a three-part formula necessary for a gardening decision to be considered sustainable.

1. The first leg requires your gardening decision to be gainful to our LOCAL economy.
2. The second leg requires your gardening decision to be ecologically possible for OUR AREA.
3. The third leg requires your gardening decision to be culturally acceptable.

Now bump each decision you make about your garden up against each of those three legs and see if it stays standing...... if it does, you've made a sustainable gardening decision - well done!  Let's try some examples:

1.  You're at your local nursery and see a gorgeous herbaceous perennial that's native to Spain, and want to buy it for your garden.

• Gainful to the local economy:   Depends... as long as the plant was seeded/propogated and grown locally.... OK / DING!
• Ecologically possible in our area:  No. The plant is native to Spain, so will probably require extra care/attention/resources for long term survival.  DING!
• Culturally acceptable:  Yes.  People won't beat you up over your gorgeous plant.  OK.
• 1 leg definitely not standing..... not sustainable.

2.  You want to fertilize your lawn with a synthetic fertilizer manufactured in Ohio.

• Gainful to the local economy:  No.  The product was manufactured in Ohio and had to be shipped a few thousand miles.  DING!
• Ecologically possible in our area:  Sort of.... if used properly, but in reality, all synthetic fertilizers come with some sort of ecological risk/issue. OK / DING!
• Culturally acceptable:  Sort of.... while many people readily use synthetic fertilizers, more and more people recognize their inherent hazards and fossil-based dependencies...the scales are starting to tip.  OK/ DING!
• 1 leg definitely not standing.... not sustainable.

3.   A local winery is turning old wine barrels into rain barrels.  You decide to buy one to catch rain run-off from your garage roof  for watering your container plants.

• Gainful to the local economy:  yes, by recycling/re-using a locally sourced product.  OK
• Ecologically possible in our area:  yes, saving water is always a good thing.  OK
• Culturally acceptable:  yes, rain barrels are well accepted as a way to conserve water.  OK.
• All three legs standing..... sustainable.

So..... each time you need to make a gardening decision, think of the three-legged stool.....

..... and if it falls over, try to reconsider your choice/action and seek a more sustainable option. If you need help figuring out an alternative.... reach out and I'll see if I can help you.

Week 4: homework and stuff

Gosh darn it..... I toasted two homework assignments this week... TWO!..... I mean, I really bombed them.  

• First one required us to look at photos of turf grass and pick out four correct attributes from a list of eight.... each slide had a different species of turf grass and a different set of attributes.  For each grass we had two tries to get the four right attributes and, for a number of them, both times I blew it.  Got 66% on this one.   
• The second one required us to look at photos of sick lawns and try to identify the pest causing the problem.   Some looked pretty obvious but others were a real bear to figure out.  Again, each photo came with two attempts to get the answer, and on a few of them I bombed both tries.  Got 70% on this one.

Lawns are just not my thing, so the subject matter was totally boring and the wording on the choices vs the information in the text books/videos/other resources was so randomized it ended up being a guessing game, with me getting nuked big time.   If we have to get 80% or higher on each gradeable item then I'm in a pickle, but if it's the overall grade that counts, mine is still well above 80%, so I'm in the clear.  Not sure if the MG boss will serve me up a remedial training assignment.... we'll see what happens.

Apart from that, it's been a typical week of homework......  : )

• Read more chapters from the text book and take two more quizzes, which I passed with flying colors.   
• Another crossword
• Read four different pamphlets on lawns - growing, care, pest management stuff.
• Watch a brief composting video
• Watch about 1 hour 40 mins of videos on lawns, lawn care, lawn pests etc.  Boooooooring! 

I think I mowed and edged that lawn we had in Florida so much I'm burned out on them.  David Quammen's piece "Rethinking the Lawn" from his insightful book The Boilerplate Rhino also gave me a sizeable kick in the pants on what I was doing with lawns, so now 8-10 years later, with my ever growing understanding of the need to practice planet-friendly living I just struggle to see anything good about lawns in today's world - anyone out there want to re-set my thinking?

Orchard Mason Bees: Key Learnings

As I mentioned in an earlier blog we had the pleasure of seeing Missy Anderson's presentation on the Orchard Mason Bee.  Below are some interesting facts I learned about these little guys.....

• Unlike the bumble bee or honey bee, the mason bees are considered harmless.  Males do not have a stinger.
• They're only active March - May (the peak of fruit and berry blooming).... the rest of the year they're in hibernation.
• They're non-social, meaning they don't hang out in hives in large swarms.  They're independent little critters that make their own digs in tiny holes pretty well anywhere.
• They look very similar to the common housefly, so look carefully before you take a swat!  They're black all over with a blue-ish hue.  The males have a little tuft of white hairs on their heads.

• Orchard Mason Bees are VERY efficient pollinators.  It takes about 250 of them to pollinate a 1-acre orchard.  It would take about 40,000 honey bees to do the same amount of work.  This is because Orchard Mason Bees tend to stay close to home.... venturing on average no more than 300ft from their hidey-hole, whereas honey bees can roam up to 5 miles.

Pretty cool huh?  Want to learn more? 

I've asked Missy to come and give her presentation to folks here in the Snoquamlie Valley where I live.   We'll be meeting on Monday, February 22nd, 7:00pm - 8:30pm at the library in Carnation, WA. Buzz me if you need directions (ha ha, couldn't resist that one!)  Any and all are welcome.... and bring the kids!  Hope to see you there! 

If you can't make it, Missy's already scheduled to present elsewhere:

• Emery's Garden Nursery, Lynwood. Sat Feb 20 at 11am
  My Garden Nursery, Bothell, Sun Feb 21 at 12:30
  Molbak's, Woodinville. Sat Mar 13 at 1pm

If none of these work for you, feel free to reach out to Missy directly to arrange for her to come to your neck of the woods.   Missy Anderson, Master Gardener, orchardmasonbees@yahoo.com.