Community Gardening – Page 13 – Center for Urban Agriculture

Ten Rules for Pesticide Use in Your Georgia Garden

November 30, 2015October 14, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Using pesticides can be intimidating. When using pesticides all gardeners want to get it right. We want to eliminate the pest with little consequence to our plants, our health or the environment.

UGA Extension partnered with Extension services from Alabama, North Carolina and Mississippi to create some helpful rules for pesticide applications.

Dr. Ellen Bauske, part of the development team, says “Gardeners need simple, straight-forward guidance on pesticide use.”

Follow the Golden Rules

Put the right plant in the right place. Healthy, stress-free plants suffer less from pests.

Identify the plant first. Be aware of its normal, healthy appearance.

Identify the pest second. Not all suspicious characters cause problems.

Ask yourself, “Do I really need a pesticide?” This could save time, money and the environment.

Read and abide by the pesticide label. THE LABEL IS THE LAW.

Avoid having leftover chemicals. When choosing chemical controls, buy and mix only what you need.

More is not better. Use the lowest labeled concentration rate that will get the job done.

Protect beneficial creatures. Spot treat the pest and avoid broadcast applications of pesticides.

Buy separate sprayers. Don’t mix herbicides with insecticides and fungicides.

Follow the label instructions for disposal. Do not put unused pesticides in household garbage containers.

Ten Rules for Pesticide Use in Your Georgia Garden — Read and follow all label instructions.

Pesticide Safety for the Homeowner has information about reading pesticide labels, storing pesticides and first aid.

If you have any questions about identifying a pest or determining what pesticide to use don’t hesitate to contact your local UGA Extension agent. He/she is trained to help you.

Happy, Pest-free Gardening!

Celebrate National Pizza Month With Pizza Herbs

November 30, 2015October 7, 2015 by Becky Griffin

October is National Pizza Month and gardeners can celebrate using pizza herbs from the garden. October is the time to harvest those delicious herbs before first frost. If you haven’t added herbs to your community or school garden, you should. They are easy to grow and wonderful to use.

Growing Pizza Herbs

The pizza herbs oregano and basil can be easily grown in-ground, in raised beds, and in containers. These need at least six hours of sun a day and well drained soil. The plants are easy to find at local nurseries or big box stores, usually available all summer long. You can also start pizza herbs from seeds early in the spring.

Herbs are most flavorful just before the plant blooms. As you see flowers develop, pinch them off. Throughout the summer it is very satisfying to harvest these fresh pizza herbs for homemade pizza night. They are delicious as a pizza topping or in homemade pizza sauce. Adding them to commercial jarred sauce adds a taste of freshness.

Harvesting and Preserving Pizza Herbs

Know that basil is especially susceptible to frost. You need to harvest all of your basil before the first frost. If you are growing in containers you can avoid those first frosts by bringing the containers indoors at night.

Herbs are best harvested in the morning hours, rinsed clean, and air dried. The pizza herbs are very easy to dry. Cut the stems as close to the soil as possible. Tie the stems together and hang the bunch upside down in a warm, dry, well ventilated area.

Once the leaves are dry you can crunch them between your fingers and store them in jars. Discard the stems. This is an easy way to enjoy homemade pizza all winter long. There are other ways to preserve the leaves. See Herbs in Southern Gardens for more information.

Herbs are a great way to reduce salt in your diet. Cooking with Herbs, Spices, and Seasonings gives great suggestions in using all of your garden herbs.

Enjoy National Pizza Month. Creating homemade pizza with those end-of-the season tomatoes and herbs from your garden is a delicious end to the summer!

Happy Gardening!

Grow Georgia Sweet Onions!

November 30, 2015September 23, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Onions are a wonder in the Georgia garden. They are cool-season crops that require very little work. Ever wanted to try growing them? Now is your chance as Willie Chance gives us valuable instruction. Willie says….

The Cherokee rose is the state flower and the brown thrasher is the state bird. What is the state vegetable? The Vidalia onion!

Actually, most gardeners cannot grow onions and officially call them ‘Vidalia onions’. Production of certified Vidalia onions is limited by a marketing order to a specific area in south-central Georgia. However, gardeners can grow sweet onions by following certain practices.

Onions have two major flavors. Sugars make them sweet but pungent chemicals make the onions ‘hot’. A sweet onion has enough sugar to make it sweet but more importantly – it has a low level of the pungent compounds. The most important factor in making onions ‘sweet’ is having low levels of these pungent compounds. Levels of these compounds in the onion are controlled by proper variety selection, fertilization, watering, and time of planting.

Garden Chores for September – October in Georgia

November 30, 2015September 16, 2015 by Becky Griffin

The change of seasons doesn’t mean that gardening chores stop. It just means they change a bit.

What Should We Do in the Garden?

According to the Georgia Vegetable Garden Calendar for this time of the year we need to:

Choose the mild weather during this period to plant or transplant: beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, collards, lettuce, mustard, onions, radishes, spinach and turnips. Plant your second planting of fall crops such as collards, turnips, cabbage, mustard, and kale.

Refurbish mulch to control weeds, and start adding leaves and other materials to the compost pile. Store your manure under cover to prevent leaching of nutrients.

Water deeply and thoroughly to prevent drought stress. Pay special attention to new transplants.

Harvest mature green peppers and tomatoes before frost gets them.

Harvest herbs and dry them in a cool, dry place.

And, most importantly, enjoy the cooler weather and enjoy your garden.

Happy Gardening!

Using Peat Pellets for Seed Starting

November 30, 2015September 9, 2015 by Becky Griffin

There are many ways to start seeds for transplants. Using peat pellets is a popular way and has some advantages. The peat has a naturally occurring antimicrobial property that helps control fungal diseases. The peat pellets are also easy to handle which helps with transplanting.

To get the pellets ready for planting you need to add water. Warm water is best. Package directions will tell you how much water to add. You want the pellets fully expanded, but you do not want them any wetter. You don’t want water sitting in the bottom of the tray. Too little water is better than too much.

You can see the pellets hold alot of water. — You can see the pellets expand considerably.

September is Hunger Action Month

November 30, 2015September 2, 2015 by Becky Griffin

September is Hunger Action Month. A 2014 Hunger in America study showed that 1 in 7.5 people in metro Atlanta and northern Georgia relies on food pantries and meal service programs. This includes over 164,000 children and 64,000 seniors.

As gardeners we may be in a unique position to donate fresh food to a local food pantry. Most food pantries are stocked with canned and dry goods. Fresh food for their clients could be life changing.

Is your community or school garden donating to a food pantry? Some gardens have specific areas dedicated to donation. The entire group is responsible for working those areas and someone is assigned to harvest and deliver the produce.

Some gardens were formed with the purpose of growing food for others.

Lettuce is Luscious in a Georgia Community or School Garden

November 30, 2015August 26, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Lettuce is a great cool-season crop to grow in Georgia, especially leaf lettuce. Growing leaf lettuce means you don’t have to wait for the lettuce to make a head. You can begin harvesting as soon as the leaves are large enough to eat. With names like Firecracker, Tango, and Drunken Woman the expectations for flavor are high!

Rabbits can be Rascally Foes in the Georgia Garden

November 30, 2015August 12, 2015 by Becky Griffin

This week we have Wilkes County UGA Extension Agent Frank Watson as a guest blogger. Extension agents have gotten many calls about rabbit damage in the garden; gardeners are frustrated! Frank has some information that could be useful. Frank says….

While rabbits may seem cute and fuzzy, the common rabbit or eastern cottontail can do considerable damage to flowers, vegetables, trees and shrubs any time of the year in places ranging from suburban yards to rural fields and tree plantations.

Controlling rabbits is often necessary to reduce damage, but complete extermination is not necessary, desirable or even possible.

No toxicants or fumigants are registered for use against rabbits. There are, however, chemical repellents available at local garden centers that may discourage rabbit browsing.

Rabbits in the Georgia Garden — A rascally rabbit enjoying a carrot.

Repellents should be applied before rabbit-inflicted damage occurs and after a rain, heavy dew or the occurrence of new plant growth. If rabbits have already started feeding, their attraction to what they have been eating will most likely overcome their fear of the repellent.

Habitat modification and exclusion techniques provide long-term, non-lethal control. Remove dense, heavy vegetative cover, brush piles, weed patches and stone piles in or adjacent to the landscape.

Fencing made from chicken wire, with less than 1-inch mesh, can be placed around herbaceous plants. The fence must be at least 2-feet high and the bottom must be buried at least 3-inches deep. Quarter-inch wire hardware cloth made into 18- to 24-inch cylinders and buried at least 3 inches will protect trunks of young orchard trees or woody landscape plants.

In the winter months, live animal traps can be baited with corncobs, oats, dried apples or rabbit droppings. Traps can be bought at garden centers, hardware stores or from gardening catalogs. Place the traps where rabbits have been feeding or resting and close to suitable cover.

If the trap fails to catch any rabbits within a week, move the trap to a different location.

For more information about managing wildlife in the garden, search for wildlife on extension.uga.edu/publications. As always, your local UGA Extension office is a great source of information.

Frank hails from cattle country and while farmers use electric fence to keep their cattle in Frank uses electric fence to keep deer out of his garden!

Happy Gardening!

Taking Quality Photos of Your Georgia Garden

November 30, 2015August 5, 2015 by Becky Griffin

We all need to be able to take quality photos of our gardens. Whether you are promoting your garden to the school administration, bragging on your garden plots to the town council, or applying for grant monies a well taken photo tells the story of your garden.

Today we are excited to have Jeff Martin as a guest blogger. Jeff has been taking photographs for over 30 years and has considerable experience photographing nature and gardens. Today he is going to give us some advice for taking quality pictures of our gardens. Jeff says….

The Best Camera Is the One That’s With You.

I have always liked this quote from Chase Jarvis. It is simple, to the point, and 100% true. Any camera that you have with you, is better than your Nikon sitting on a shelf at home. And what camera so you always have with you? The one that is on your cell phone.

Some will wrongly assume that that cell phone cameras can’t take very good photos. They may feel that their phone is mainly used to take selfies, and photos of their half-eaten dinner. The cell phone camera is a powerful tool, made more potent by the fact that is always ready to capture the moments in time that you want to save.

Taking Quality Photos of Your Georgia Garden

I have always put photos into 2 categories: 1. Photos that show what you saw. 2. Photos that show what you felt. If you are only interested in showing what you saw, just point the camera and and take the photo. This will be good enough in most cases. But if you want to take better photos, photos that are worth a second look, you can do many things to make them more interesting to view.

If, for instance, you are trying to photograph a small garden, just changing the height that you are holding the camera can make a huge difference on how your photos look. Most photos are taken from a height of 5-6′. Climb a ladder to take a photo, or place the camera as close to the ground as possible. Either of these changes will give your a photo a look that many other photos lack. Be sure to look for the most interesting plants, and keep your shadow out of the photos.

Keep in mind that digital photos are free to take, so always experiment! You might be surprised at how good they come out.

If you have any specific photography questions for Jeff, please leave them in the comments section. You can follow Jeff on Instagram at jeffmartin2510.

Jeff is not a community or school gardener but his dream community garden plot would include cantaloupe, lima beans, and potatoes. Sounds good to me!

Happy Gardening!

The Urban Vegetable Garden at Gwinnett Tech

November 30, 2015July 22, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Tony Gobert is so passionate and enthusiastic about Gwinnett Tech’s vegetable garden and the school’s Certificate in Sustainable Urban Agriculture that his face lights up talking about it. On a recent tour I saw a garden FULL of plants. It is urban, intensive agriculture at its best. This garden has a lot to teach community and school gardeners. Tony was happy to tell me all about it.

Located along Sugarloaf Parkway in Gwinnett County, Georgia, the garden is laid out to work with nature. The plant rows are laid out to follow the contour of the land. Before the vegetable garden, the land had a history of large runoff problems after rain storms. Tony and his team turned this negative into a positive by controlling the flow of the water so that it provided irrigation to the vegetable plants. “Work with what you have,” Tony says.

Being part of an educational garden, there are experiments everywhere. Which creates a better plant in the long run, potatoes started in the greenhouse or potatoes started by slips in the ground? What is the

Urban Vegetable Garden at Gwinnett Tech — Tony Gobert uncovers a very large radish.

best way to use worm castings? The students can answer these questions because they have tested their hypotheses by planting and growing – not just reading a textbook. The students are also trying their hands at growing fruit trees in different ways and growing different types of alliums. There are even banana plants. Why not?

This is a food production garden. The produce goes to Gwinnett Tech’s popular culinary program. The agriculture students learn about what it takes to supply a client as well as other lessons in ag economics. They are taught seed saving techniques and also how to make money during the slower season of the garden.

In many areas there are multi-crop plantings. For example, a Winesap apple tree is grown using a unique tree trellis. Underneath are blackberry bushes. During the cool-season months when there are no leaves on the tree, onions are planted just outside the blackberry bushes.

This is true intensive gardening which can translate well in a community garden setting. Peanuts are planted between rows of corn. The peanut plants help fix nitrogen for the nitrogen-loving corn. Blueberry bushes are planted in the middle of the strawberry patch. Their roots use different soil zones. Also, crop rotation and successive planting are thoughtfully carried out.

Tim Daly, a Gwinnett County Extension Agent, is a fan of the garden. Tim was curious about a squash variety that was advertised to grow very large squash plants. “Daly’s squash” is part of the garden this year. Tony is feeling hopeful they will get a prize winning squash from that plot!

This garden is just getting started. The initial planting was done in April 2014. A pollinator plant strip was added in November 2014. There are plans for 30 raised beds. The program that supports this garden is also just getting started. The certificate program in Sustainable Urban Agriculture was started in 2013. Students are required to take classes in food production, soils, and pest management. Three other courses are required to finish the six course program. Tony is a teacher at heart and he is excited to hear what his first graduates of the program are doing now as well as the plans his current students have. This is a fantastic addition to the urban gardening movement in Georgia!

I hope you can incorporate some of Tony’s intensive multi-planting systems in your own community or school garden plot.

Happy Gardening!

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