Empowering Georgia through UGA Extension
I am celebrating with the butterflies and bees! As the force behind the Pollinator Spaces Project I decided I needed to step up the pollinator habitat in my own garden in time for Earth Week 2016. In one part of the garden I added three baby sage (Salvia microphylla ‘Hot Lips’) plants. I have always loved the bi-colored flowers and they really attract butterflies.
It is that time! Spring planting for summer vegetables. Before planting check your soil temperatures. Are they 60-65 degrees F and rising? Look at the medium range weather forecast. Any frost or temperatures below freezing predicted?
UGA Extension’s Vegetable Gardening Calendar give us this advice for April:
Happy Gardening!
This week we are happy to have UGA Hall County Extension Agent, Michael Wheeler, as a guest blogger to give us a refresher on growing tomatoes. Michael writes….
The one vegetable, well technically a fruit, which makes everyone’s mouth water in anticipation is the tomato. The folks I know always say the first tomato of the season is the best.
It is a known fact that homegrown tomatoes are much better than anything you can buy from the grocery store. Nothing can beat it.
Whether or not you are trying to grow tomatoes for the first time, or this is your 30th season, there are some tips to follow to make sure your harvest is plentiful.
Plant your tomatoes deep. At planting, remove the leaves from the bottom of the plant and bury about two-thirds of the stem. This deep planting causes the plant to grow roots up and down the stem that is in the ground. This extra root system will make the plant stronger and more stable as it matures.
As a UGA Extension county agent, I always tell my clients to use mulch when you plant anything. Well the same goes for veggies.
A good 2- to 3-inch layer of wheat straw will go a long way to hold back weeds, keep the plants clean from rainfall and keep the soil moist in the middle of summer.
Speaking of rain and moisture, what if we don’t get any during the summer? This is where many of the problems in growing vegetables come from — improper watering.
Water your plants so the soil stays fairly evenly moist, avoiding the extremes of it being parched and then flooded. When you do water, keep the water at the base of the plant. Wetting the leaves will only encourage diseases.
Give your tomatoes fertilizer when they are first planted. After that, they do not need much fertilization until the first tomatoes are the size of a dime or so.
Pushing your tomatoes to grow will only encourage the growth of leaves and stems, but not much fruit.
If during the summer you have problems growing tomatoes, stop by your local UGA Extension office for help identifying pests or diseases.
Thanks, Michael! Happy Tomato Gardening!
This week we are excited to have Steve Pettis, UGA Extension Agent for Rockdale County, join us for a math lesson on raised bed gardening! Steve writes….
If you have have raised beds eventually you will need to add more soil. Over time soil compacts, organic matter dissipates, and soil erodes. So, what was once a box full of soil can end up half empty.
Bagged soil is sold by the square foot. How do you determine how many square feet of soil you need to refill the beds?
I would suggest using the formula for determining volume of a rectangular prism –
vol. of rectangular prism = a b c or length x width x height
Multiply the width, height and length in inches. Divide that by 12 inches to get cubic feet. Bags of soil will say how many cubic feet of soil are in the bag. Divide the number of cubic feet in a bag into the cubic feet of your space and you have the number of bags needed.
Thanks, Steve! Happy Gardening!
In honor of National Horticultural Therapy Week (March 20th – 26th) we have asked Katrina Fairchild, a registered horticultural therapist (HTR), to share some thoughts on these types of gardens. Katrina writes:
Thinking back on my time of working with and developing a program for teenage at-risk students, I present you with a series questions to ask yourself when deciding to undertake this significant project of offering and developing horticultural therapy (or therapeutic horticulture).
Is it for profit? Social or emotional therapy? Educational opportunity, be it vocational or academic? Purposeful in terms of feeding local families in need, or teaching certain socioeconomic groups to eat healthier to keep certain diseases at bay? Simply aesthetic? This key question begins to address the size of the garden, its proximity (location), the people it serves, its longevity, community resources to assist you, and the big question of “how much will it cost?”
Who will help me keep the garden going when I have a class to teach? What happens in the summer? Will I need to do one-on-one supervising in the garden or as a group?
It’s not just planting veggies, herbs and flowers as the seasons arrive; it’s pre-planning what to buy, how much space to dedicate, the material used, finding available resources, the return on what goes in the ground (is there continuity, for example, like seed-saving that turns into yet another session/project), planting for the holidays, student’s birthdays, special causes, and educational opportunities, just to name a few.
It’s very important to make the whole or a part of the garden personal and relevant. It should reflect the kids’ personalities, age, character, and life. To avoid mental or physical disengagement, you may need to plan a special “personal” square plot versus group gardening. One student I had was only intrigued by goth, so we stuck with black pansies and tulips. Play their music (not yours) while gardening. Make it relevant now: for example, select seeds that germinate quickly, and bring in samples they can eat now. Make it tangible: buy seedlings instead of seeds.
An hour’s worth of outdoor gardening may end up being three different projects to capture and hold the interest of those who are visual, auditory and/or kinesthetic. More programming means less time in the garden.
Get them involved from the beginning! From concept to crop, it’s their place. Get them involved in the planning stages of cost, design, layout, building, selecting favorite or new plants, colors, garden art, and what to do with excess crop. Assign or let them pick jobs or lead roles. Ownership is key.
The program is only as good as its longevity and engagement. Post photos of the garden and gardeners on social media. Send press releases. Maintain an ongoing photo album of the garden and its gardeners that is readily viewed in the classroom as well as online.
It can be…unless you keep it simple. Sometimes we get too excited and over-inspired by what can be. Remind yourself to stop and re-analyze often: most things can be simplified. This is true from the types of material used to build the garden to the selection of herbs and vegetable.
Katrina Fairchild, is a registered horticultural therapist (HTR), certified landscaped designer (APLD), GA Certified Plant Professional (GCPP), and avid gardener and nature lover. She can be reached at (678)314-9082 or via her website www.theflowerfly.com.
Thanks, Katrina, for the great information. For more information about National Horticultural Therapy Week visit American Horticultural Therapy Association.
Happy Gardening!
Adding pollinator spaces to your community or school garden is a fabulous idea. If you are a food grower, more pollinators means more pollination and increased food production! Even if you aren’t growing food the benefits of attracting native bees, butterflies, and even honey bees are numerous.
UGA’s Center for Urban Agriculture has created the Pollinator Spaces Project. The mission is to make it easy to add pollinator habitat to any sized garden. The process is easy:
Learn about pollinators and pollinator plants using the Pollinator Spaces Project webpage. The page includes a research-based plant list as well as links to pollinator events around the state and instructions on building bee homes and butterfly puddles.
Create your pollinator space. Your garden can be as simple or as detailed as you want to make it.
Once your garden is complete and blooming send Becky Griffin (beckygri@uga.edu), our community and school garden coordinator, a photo of your new space. Be creative. If you work in a school garden, get your students in the picture. When sending your photograph include some information about your garden. You will then receive a beautiful certificate acknowledging your participation in this part of Georgia pollinator history.
At the end of 2016 we will create a map of Georgia showing the new pollinator spaces and we will design a storyboard telling the story of the project. We will also feature new garden spaces during the year on our UGA Community and School Gardens Facebook page.
During the year we will be sharing pollinator facts, tips, and information through the webpage and the Facebook page. So stay tuned!
Make 2016 the year YOU help pollinators by adding a pollinator space to your garden. For more information about the project contact Becky at beckygri@uga.edu. If you want more information on creating a garden unique to your area your local UGA Extension agent is a great resource.
Happy Gardening!
Spring greens are fun to grow in the cool weeks before the heat of summer begins. We have picked three favorites for you to try in your Georgia garden. You will be glad you did:
Arugula is a fast-growing green (about 40-45 days) that comes from the Mediterranean. It has a wonderful, peppery taste that works well in sandwiches as well as salads. It is even popular as a pizza topping.
Drunken Woman is a great addition to any garden. These bright green leaves have red, ruffled tips. This lettuce is a loose-leaf type that resists bolting (about 55 days). That makes it a great choice for Georgia. It has a sweet taste and remains crisp and flavorful even when stored in the refrigerator for several days.
Salad bowl (about 40 days) is a standard when it comes to spring lettuce. The bright green leaves are ruffled and are a nice addition to any salad. When fully mature it makes a loose head but can be harvested as leaf lettuce.
When planting greens in the spring choose loose-leaf varieties instead of head producing ones; you will have more success. You can simply cut off leaves to add to your salads instead of waiting for heads to form. The leaves don’t have to be fully mature to harvest. If we have a short spring and hit those warm summer weeks early, you will be able to enjoy some wonderful salads before the greens bolt. Homegrown greens have much more taste than anything you can purchase at the grocery store.
These seeds can be purchased at some seed racks at hardware and big box stores. They are easily ordered through seed catalogs. You can direct seed them or start them indoors. Sometimes they can be found as plants in specialty plant nurseries. For detailed instructions on planting these seeds see Lettuce is Luscious in a Georgia Community Garden, a past blog post. As always, your local UGA Cooperative Extension Agent is a great resource.
Happy Gardening!
Blueberries are a perennial shrub that is relatively easy to grow. Rabbiteye types are popular statewide and their fruit is delicious! You may have read in agricultural science articles about “chill hours.” What are they? Why do they matter? To answer those questions we are going to turn to science so, please pardon the charts!
According to UGA scientists Gerard Krewer and D. Scott NeSmith (Blueberry Cultivars of Georgia) blueberries require a certain number of chill hours each winter to produce the optimum fruit harvest. Chill hours are the number of hours of winter temperatures 45 degrees F and below. If blueberry plants do not receive the adequate amount of chilling, bloom and leaf development can be late and erratic. This can result in a lackluster harvest. To sum it up – blueberries have to have some cold winter weather.
| Rabbiteye Cultivar | Chilling Requirement |
| Premier | 550 hours |
| Climax | 400 to 450 hours |
| Brightwell | 350 to 400 hours |
| TifBlue | 600 to 700 hours |
| Powderblue | 550 to 650 hours |
| Vernon | 500 to 550 hours |
How do we know how many chill hours we have had in our area? The weather stations of georgiaweather.net have chilling hours calculators. As of February 22nd:
| Weather Station | Number of Chill Hours between Oct 1, 2015 and February 22, 2016 |
| Blue Ridge | 1357 |
| Atlanta | 941 |
| Cordelle | 661 |
| Valdosta | 369 |
So what does this all mean? As noncommercial blueberry growers, it can give us some scientific information about our blueberry harvest and it gives us some insight into plant biology. It also gives us another reason to watch the weather forecast and welcome cold winter weather.
If you don’t grow blueberries yet, give it a try! See Home Garden Blueberries for more information. Also contact your local UGA Extension office. Many of them have plant sales this time of year and blueberries are often for sale.
Happy Gardening!
As community and school gardeners we love our vegetables and in honor of St. Valentine we asked several lifelong gardeners to tell us about their favorite. The interesting part is how they all waxed poetically about their love for growing food.
Fred Conrad, the Community Gardener Coordinator for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, is well known throughout metro Atlanta for his love of community gardens. You can often see him riding through the Atlanta streets on a tractor!
Fred loves growing tomatoes. He says, “I like the on-going interaction of training them during the season as they grow and how great your hands smell when you handle the foliage. I also like that there is some finesse in growing them, that you can use little tricks here and there to improve your plant health and your harvest.” Doesn’t that make you want to get started on your own tomato planting??
Kyla Van Deusen, a Program Manager for the Captain Planet Foundation, spends her days passionately working in school gardens. She loves connecting children with their food! When asked about her favorite vegetable she told us about a special variety of crowder peas. She says that they “pop up in my garden now 3 years running without re-sowing, and I let them take over a couple of beds where they produce massive amounts of beans that I harvest as they dry and store for winter soups. They are a truly effortless crop.”
Betty Janacek is the Director of Capacity Building in the Friends of the Park programs for Park Pride Atlanta. Betty spends her days connecting people with 
parks. This often involves helping them build community with food gardens. Betty loves growing English peas. She says “they are easy to grow, are one of the first veggies to ripen, their vines and flowers are pretty and you don’t even have to cook them- you can just pick & eat.”
This Valentine’s Day we hope you spend some time preparing some delicious Georgia grown food and dream of the garden with your special someone.
Happy Gardening!
As we all wait patiently, or impatiently, for Spring there are things we can do this month to be ready. This chore list was taken from UGA vegetable specialist Bob Westerfield’s Vegetable Garden Calendar.
This is the time to start your seedlings indoors. Peppers and eggplants take about eight weeks to grow from seed to transplant size. Tomatoes will take about six weeks. For detailed information about indoor seed starting visit our January 2015 post on seed starting by Amy Whitney.
Check in with your local UGA Extension office to see what type of classes are being offered near you. Agents plan their trainings on what you want to learn! There is also an upcoming events page on our website.
Now is the time to repair any raised bed materials and think about adding compost. If you haven’t done a soil test in the past three years get that done now.
Make early plantings of your choice from the following: carrots, collards, lettuce, mustard, English peas, Irish potatoes, radishes, spinach and turnips.
Use “starter” fertilizer solution around transplanted crops such as cabbage.
Replenish mulch on strawberries.
These chores will keep us busy until the temperatures warm up!
Happy Gardening!