March 20 Class: Woody and Herbaceous Plants with Mike Murphy Part II

Sorry I missed class with you this week, was one of those crunch time weeks for me and I knew you would be in good hands with Auntie Sue.

This week we are having a field trip to Laudholm Farm at Wells Reserve to do “hands on pruning”. Please bring a hand pruner and lopper if you have them. Dress for the outdoors including your shoes! We will meet outside the barn at 9:00 AM. We will have a short discussion on pruning tools and care and the basic principles of pruning woody ornamental plants. We will then break up into groups and go around and prune up some plants for Laudholm  Farm. It is likely we will be done a little early – depends on how much fun we are having and how many plants we find to prune.

Directions to Laudholm from their website: http://www.wellsreserve.org/visit/

This week readings in preparation for our pruning field trip to Laudholm Farm please go to the design and maintenance chapter from the Online Manual and read the fact sheet on Pruning Woody Landscape Plants.

Also view the videos: Pruning Ornamental Trees and the one titled: How to Prune a Lilac Bush.

Here is the Quiz: Quiz (Word) | Quiz (PDF)

See you at Laudholm Wednesday morning!

– Frank

March 13 Class: Woody and Herbaceous Plants with Mike Murphy

Hi All, Great class this week by Mike Murphy and what a crowd!!! I think we had 45 people in the room plus plant material being passed around and identified. Great scene!

Homework is to review the same chapters as last week in the manual on Plants for Maine’s Landscape. Given that Mike also talked about propagating plants, it would be helpful to also review the chapter on Propagation.

No Quiz this Week. I am going to wait until Mike finishes both classes and give you one quiz. Another week off…

See you Wednesday!

February 20 Class: Pesticide Safety and Yardscapping Follow-up

Hi All,

Great class with Gary Fish on Pesticide Safety and Principles of Yardscapping for low impact ecologically sound gardening practices.

Homework for this week’s upcoming class

Here is a link to the YardScaping web page — there are a number of great links and publications from it. Please familiarize your self with some of the great resources here. We will refer back to this later on when I teach low input lawn care/.

For this week please review the Sings of the Seasons website. Your class this week will cover both some basics of Climate Change, and how to become a Signs of the Seasons Volunteer and the national database that has been established by universities and gardeners across the US.

This week’s quiz on Pesticide Safety: Quiz (Word) | Quiz (PDF)

See you on Wednesday for an interesting day on climate change and local engagement.

February 13 Class: Cover Crop , Web Soil Survey and Herbs Follow-up

Hi All,

This Web Soil Survey is something all Master Gardeners might want to try as it is an excellent tool that I only began using in class last year.

Web Soil Survey Homework:

Use this website: Web Soil Survey

Choose any area you wish to learn about – your home and garden, a nearby farm or any other land.

Click the geen button to launch the Web Soil Survey Tool. Initiate the survey by going to the address line and type in the address of a farm you would like to know more about for the purposes of learning and your homework. Hint – if the town is a subset of another town like Lyman is of Alfred, you may have to type in Alfred to get the farm located.

Click View after you type in the address and that will take you to a big map.

Up above use the 5 sided tool called AOI (area of interest). Click carefully 1 click at a time to outline the field(s) you wish to know more about. If you make a mistake which is easy to do use the arrow key to go back – it takes a few seconds.

Now you should get a map with an area of blue lines drawn around the field(s) you highlighted. If the area of acreage is small the map will appear blurry – that is OK.

Now click on the tab called Soil Data Explorer. Now you will get a map with codes for the soil type(s) on the map.

Now click on the tab called Shopping Cart (Free). Then hit Check Out and then Get Now. This will generate a multiple pages document.

Note: You can save this report to your hardrive as a pdf file. This is handy as you can refer back to it and/or email the report to someone.

Use this web page for more detailed information on the soil types from report you generate: York County Soil Survey Types

Answer these questions

Note: you do not need to hand in your soil survey report for the homework – just a page where you answer these 5 questions.

1. How much acreage in total does your area contain?
2. What soil types does it have?
3. What is the number and letter of the Land Capacity Class and Subclass?
4. What is the letter of the Hydrologic Group?
5. Describe this land, the soil types, and it’s potential for farming and woodland growth.

Note: If you have a lot of trouble with this web based exercise (the site can be tricky sometimes) I am happy to help you work through it.

Homework for This Week

From the Online Manual please click on the Pesticide Safety chapter and then click on and review both the Got Pests? and the Master Gardener Educational Materials sections. You do not need to read everything, but just familiarize yourself with this excellent resource.

Quiz on Gardening with Herbs: Quiz (Word) | Quiz (PDF)

Hi All,

Lot’s of great questions and discussion in class yesterday. Sorry we did not get to cover cropping and the Soil Web Survey activity.

This coming week we will cover Volunteerism Part I – an intro to the projects and some basics on volunteering, reporting hours, etc. That section will be pretty brief as we will be spending an entire class on it March 6. We will also have Amy Witt teaching us about Growing and Using Herbs. If there is time I will review cover crops and do the Soil Web Survey exercise with you that I did not get to yesterday.

Homework:

Visit this Penn State Herb link  and this Herb Society Beginners Herb Guide (PDF) you don’t have to read about every herb, but browse these two links and familiarize yourself with herbs that interest you.

Review these great MOFGA Green Manures (PDF) and Natural Sources of Plant Nutrients (PDF) fact sheets.

Review the MG Program Policy.

Soils and Home Composting Quiz: Quiz (Word) | Quiz (PDF)

See you Wednesday and Happy and Safe Snow Storm!!

– Frank

Hi All,

Great class this week!

Sorry, I didn’t get this up until Friday. It was a busy week and the quiz took me a while.

Homework for this week’s class on Soils Part II and Home Composting: 

Here is the link to the Manual: http://umaine.edu/gardening/master-gardeners/manual/

In the Soils Chapter review:

1. Soil and Plant Nutrition: A Gardeners Perspective:
2. Soil Organic Matter:
3. Measurement Conversion Chart and pH Preference Table

Please, read the first two chapters in Building Soils for Better Crops. You may purchase this book through our online publications store or download a free PDF copy from the SARE Learning Center.

Please, read How Compost Happens and Home Composting.

Please, review How Plants Are Named (PDF).

Quiz 3: Botany for Gardeners: Quiz 3 (Word) | Quiz 3 (PDF)

See you Wednesday!

– Frank

Hi All,

Let me know if you have questions on building a seedling light stand or questions from class.

January 23 Class Notes, Homework, Quiz, etc.:

Upcoming Class Schedule

Homework:

Review Handout: Soil Jam Jar Experiment

Soils: Please read, by the February February 6 Class on Soils Part II, the first two chapters in Building Soils for better Crops You may purchase this book if you choose through our bookstore HERE

Botany: In the Master Gardener Online Manual, please review the Botany Chapter, read the section on How Plants Grow, and familiarize yourself with the UConn Plant Data Base – try searching by both Latin and Common names. Look up some of your favorite ornamental trees, shrubs or vines.

Please take this week’s quiz on Soils Part I and Seed Starting: Quiz (Word) | Quiz (PDF)

See you Tuesday,

– Frank

January 16 Class Notes, Homework, Quiz, etc.:

It was a pleasure meeting with you all yesterday and hearing from you all – great energy and lots of enthusiasm.

I’ll outline the parts of the manual you should read for next week (link to the Manual: http://umaine.edu/gardening/master-gardeners/manual/):

In the Soils Chapter:

1. Soil and Plant Nutrition: A Gardeners Perspective:
2. Soil Organic Matter:
3. Measurement Conversion Chart and pH Preference Table:

In the Propagation Chapter:

1. An Introduction to Seed saving for the Home Gardener
2. Seed Starting at Home
3. How to Build a Seedling Stand (Video)

Note: If you have dial up internet connection you may have trouble viewing the video. If you do don’t worry it is a review of what I presented in class yesterday. Also if you have any trouble accessing any of the fact sheets I listed please contact Becky or Sue at our office for assistance.

Please take this weeks Quiz on Orientation and Worm Composting: Quiz (Word) | Quiz (PDF)

See you in class next Wedneday!

– Frank

Hello York County Master Gardener Trainee Class of 2013!

We are excited to be starting our first class tomorrow. There is talk of light snow, but we will be here and start on time at 9:00 AM unless the Sanford Schools are closed for the day. If they close we close. You can go to the WCSH6 Web Page to check on cancellations.

We will be providing a breakfast snack and coffee and tea options. We encourage our classes to bring in their own coffee cups, utensils and small plates to conserve on resources and try and avoid using throw away plates and cups, etc.

Our first class will cover orientation to the Master Gardener Program, introductions to each other, and will end with our first educational training of the course, worm composting. We will be blogging after each class to put up assignments, links to information and chapters for reading in the online manual.

Take a look at our online manual; this is a website you will want to bookmark and go back to frequently.

A couple of worm composting fact sheets to take a look at in advance of tomorrow’s class:

• Composting with Worms (Word)
• Composting with Worm (PDF)
• Worm Composting (Word)
• Worm Composting (PDF)

See you in the morning!

– Frank Wertheim, Extension Educator