© Kim Willis - no
parts of this newsletter may be used without permission.
Hi
Gardeners
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| Clematis seed heads, with a rare fall flower |
It’s interesting how different plants respond to the
weather in the same season and conditions.
The sumac trees have lost their leaves and have only red fuzzy seedheads
left. The walnut and poplar trees have
shed their leaves but the maples are just beginning to drop their colors. The redbud was shedding leaves at every gust
of wind but the lilacs are green and fresh looking.
Yesterday the woodland nicotianas looked wilted and
limp, but today they seem to have recovered just fine. I still have a petunia blooming up by the
barn. The toad lily’s leaves are a bit
blackened but they are still blooming.
Mums are still hanging in there too.
The trouble with this kind of weather now is that it
fools the plants and keeps them from getting prepared for winter. People across
the US have been having record warm weather.
I have seen accounts of lilacs and forsythia blooming. The sweet woodruff groundcover I have under
the trees in the front is putting out new growth and has buds! There’s not too
much we can do about the weather. We’ll
just have to see how our garden plants adapt to global warming.
I finished planting all my bulbs last weekend in cool,
damp and dreary weather. But I am glad I pressed myself to get it done so there
will be all those new varieties to enjoy next spring and summer. Tomorrow I’ll
be digging the glads and dahlias for storage.
Gardeners must always be looking ahead to the next season. It’s who we are.
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| Sowthistle seed head |
November
Almanac
If you were
born after January 1948 this month could be a special one for you, as you could
experience a once in a lifetime event.
This month’s full moon will be the closest to the earth since January
1948. It will be the largest full moon
you’ll ever see until November 25th, 2034. (Maybe I’ll make it, but will I know it’s
happening?) This month’s super full moon
occurs November 14, although viewing it should be just as good on the 13th. It occurs because the full moon is lining up
with perigee, the point in the moons orbit where it is closest to earth. The
tides will be at their highest point in that many years also.
To see this
moon at its largest you should go out just after sunset when it should be huge
on the eastern horizon. It will still be
as large later but the moon always looks larger when it’s on the horizon. Hopefully it will be a clear night, but I
expect it won’t be. I have been keeping
weather records for 4 years and we almost always have rain or snow in the 3
days around the perigee of the moon. (Normal perigee takes place once a month.)
This may not hold true for all areas of the country – I wish I could examine
weather data for some other regions. But
I am hoping for at least one of the best nights to be clear.
This
month’s full moon is called the full beaver or full frost moon. In earlier times beaver traps were set about
this time and of course a large part of the country has now received killing
frosts.
Both topaz
and citrine are considered to be birthstones for November. November's birth
flower is the chrysanthemum. It’s
National Adoption month, Native American Heritage Month, Peanut Butter Lovers
month, American Diabetes Month, National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month,
and Lung Cancer Awareness Month.
In England
November 5th is known as Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire night. It originally celebrated to commemorate what
was known as the gunpowder revolution but has become known as a day to burn
effigies or pictures of hated people and things. If you have an anger issue that night may be
your chance to burn some anger.
November 11th
is Veterans Day, the 13th is Sadie Hawkins Day, World Diabetes Day
is November 14, World Toilet Day, whatever that means, is November 19th,
November 24th is Thanksgiving. Black Friday, which is an actual holiday
in some states, is the 25th. The 28th is a busy day, Abe Lincoln and Robert
E Lees birthdays, (isn’t it odd they share a birthday?) and American Indian
Heritage day.
Fall
garden cleanup
The mild fall weather across much of the US has many
gardeners outside itching to do some clean up.
Some fall clean-up is good, it saves you time in spring, but there are
some things that are better left to spring clean-up.
Prune cautiously in the fall. Don’t prune woody plants until they have gone
dormant, as pruning may encourage new growth that will expend some of the
plants reserves it has stored for winter.
This new growth generally will not harden off enough before winter to
survive and is wasted effort for the plant.
Also buds will have formed for some spring and early summer flowering
plants and pruning now will leave you without flowers next year.
Plants also experience winter die back from the tip
toward the center of the plant. The dead
wood at the tip offers some protection for living tissue farther down. The more
you can leave, the more living tissue may survive until spring.
If you are going to cover roses with cones for winter
protection only prune them back far enough so that the cone will fit. Never put
on the plant covers until the ground is frozen and day temperatures are below
40 degrees.
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| Surprise |
Leave lavender, rosemary, sage, creeping sedums,
clematis and other vines alone. Also
leave shrub and landscape roses to be pruned in the spring. You can cut buddleias right to the ground as
they bloom better and look nicer when they come back from the roots.
It’s a good time to renew mulch in garden paths and
mulching materials may actually be on sale.
But don’t mulch things like tender perennials and strawberries until the
ground is frozen. What you are trying to
do with that mulch is prevent freezing and thawing cycles, which can heave plants
out of the ground, as well as add some layers of protection over tender crowns. When the ground is frozen mulch keeps it from
thawing quickly in the sun, then refreezing at night.
When it’s still warm in the daytime heavy mulch can
cause some plants to rot. Rings of wire fencing filled with straw or leaves are
used around some plants to protect them but if these are put on too early the
warmth may cause new, weak growth under the mulch, weakening the plant. Strawberries
should be mulched with something light, like straw or pine needles. Mulch may need to be covered with netting to
keep it from blowing away.
Should you put burlap shields around evergreens to
prevent winter leaf burn? This depends
on how hardy the plants are for your zone and where they are planted. Plants at
the limits of their growing zone or where you are trying to “zone cheat” might
survive better with a shield. And plants
in areas subjected to strong winter winds may need a shield. Broad leaf evergreens are more susceptible to
winter damage than needle type evergreens. Leave some space between the shield
and the plants and don’t put the shields up too early. Never use plastic for shields – you want the
air to flow through and keep plants from becoming too wet. Plastic also causes plants to warm too much
on sunny winter days.
Using oak leaves and pine needles in
the garden
I have been
asked several times lately if oak leaves and pine needles can be used in the
garden. The answer is yes and it’s very unlikely
they would cause any acidification of the soil. Oak leaves are actually good
garden mulch because they don’t mat down as readily as other leaves. They do take longer to break down but that
can be a plus too. The only thing to
worry about when using pine needles is that they can be slippery when wet and
they can wash away.
Vegetable
gardens
You can leave the flower beds until spring, but vegetable
gardens should be cleaned up after a hard freeze has stopped production or when
you decide it’s time to quit for the year. This helps prevent the build-up of
disease and insects. It’s especially important in years like this one, when
diseases like late blight and downy mildew were prevalent.
But before you do the cleanup, take the time to jot
down where each crop was planted, so you know where to rotate crops in the
spring. You could take a picture to help
jog your memory also. You may also want to
make notes about what vegetable varieties you liked or that were very
productive so you can look for those varieties in the spring. You think you
will remember these things, but time has a way of fooling us all.
Remove all plant matter, including discarded fruits and
compost it far from the garden. This year make sure you remove all potatoes in
the soil, dig thoroughly and sift through the patch. Late blight can survive
all winter in small potato pieces left in the ground and infect the plants that
sprout in the spring, which then spread disease to your new tomato and potato
plantings. Other disease organisms may survive on old stems, leaves and fruit
so make sure all debris is cleaned from the garden.
Some of you may have been ambitious and planted a fall
crop of lettuce or kale. These crops may
continue to grow for a while even after a frost or freeze so don’t worry about
pulling them out. If you use a low
tunnel covered with spun row cover or plastic over these greens they may grow
well into December. Carrots, turnips,
and some other root crops may lose their leaves but remain edible stored
underground well into winter. If you are
leaving carrots or other root crops in the ground to be harvested later mark
them with a tall stake and cover with bales of straw before the ground freezes.
These areas must be cleaned completely in the early spring.
Pick up and store trellis and cages. Remove any plastic
mulch. A cover crop of rye can be planted or cover the ground with a thick
layer of leaves or other organic mulch after the ground freezes. This is an
excellent time to add fresh manure to vegetable gardens. If disease was a problem this year do not till the soil this fall. Fungal spores and other disease organisms
will be more likely to be killed by freezing weather if they are on the surface
of the soil and not tilled under.
Tilling also buries weed seeds and protects them. However if you are going to expand the garden
next year you can till and rake the proposed new areas.
If you keep chickens you can let them in the garden in
the fall after you have harvested any edibles and they will gladly till and
fertilize your soil for you. You can let
them in before you remove the old tomatoes and big cucumbers left over from
summer. They’ll eat those up and you’ll
have less cleaning up to do. Don’t let
them in however if you planted fall greens like kale, not only could the greens
be contaminated with E. coli or salmonella, they could be eaten up.
It may be a bit sad to see the garden blackened after a
hard frost or freeze, but remember there’s always next year- and that garden
will be the best one yet.
Cleaning
up and using Black Walnuts
Black
walnuts leave a huge mess on the lawn when they drop in the fall. They can damage mowers and make you twist an
ankle. You can rake them up but a golf
ball collector makes the job more fun.
Put your collected nuts in a pail and dump them far from the house for
the squirrels. Use gloves when handling
black walnuts or your hands will turn a lovely shade of brown.
Immediately
remove walnuts from cement areas, decks and pickup beds as they can stain those
items for good. Make sure you clean the
nuts out of your gutters so they don’t clog them. Remove nuts and walnut leaves from horse
pastures and watering tanks as they leach a substance that can cause horses to
colic.
Some homeowners
with a black walnut tree may be wondering how they can use the generous
harvest. Black walnuts have a distinctive taste that many people enjoy in baked
goods and are a rather gourmet food item. Black walnut nut meats sell for more
than $15 a pound and homeowners wonder if they could cash in on those profits.
Unfortunately
there’s a good reason for those high prices and getting a nut harvest won’t be
easy. That’s why black walnut meats aren’t seen on most grocery shelves. But if you want to try and harvest some nut meats
here’s some information to get you started.
When black
walnuts fall from the tree they look like a small green apple. There is a green fibrous husk over the
walnut shell. When the black walnut first falls from the tree the nutmeat
inside is still soft and milky, and while edible, won’t store well or taste the
same as cured nutmeats. It will take a couple months until the nut meat has
cured enough to store or be used in recipes.
Black
walnut husks contains a pigment that will stain anything that touches it, your
hands, the driveway, the container you place them in. Wear gloves when picking the nuts up. Black walnuts begin falling off the tree in
September and you should wait until they fall rather than pick them off the
tree to collect them.
Once you
have gathered the nuts set them somewhere to dry. You could remove the fibrous hull now but it
will be easier when the hulls have turned black and dried. That may take 2
months. Collected black walnuts should
be stored where squirrels and rodents won’t be able to get to them. You can store them indoors in a warm, dry
place and the nut meat will be ready to harvest in a shorter time. You can also store them in a dry unheated
place like the garage or a shed where the curing time will be slightly
longer.
It probably
works best to remove the hulls as soon as they darken, while the weather is
still mild enough to keep the mess outside. People have devised various methods
of removing hulls. One is to put the
black walnuts in an old washing machine with a bucket of sand and just enough
water to let the machine agitate the nuts.
When the husk has blackened it can be rubbed off with gloved hands and a
scrub brush. Some people place the nuts
on a cement driveway and drive over them.
This also starts the process of cracking the shell.
After a
month of storage start checking out the nutmeat inside. If the nutmeat looks firm, with a dark brown
skin and white interior and has shrunk away from the walls of the shell a
little it is ready to harvest. Now the
hard work begins.
Ripe, cured
walnuts have a black, hard shell. Unlike
some other nuts black walnuts do not break cleanly at the shell joint and
aren’t easily cracked with a nut cracker.
You can smash them with a hammer and pick out the meats. Or you can
place them in a vice grip secured to a table and turn the vice handle to
tighten it and crack the shells. After
you have a pile of cracked shells use a nut cracker and nut picks to finish
removing the meats.
You’ll find
that black walnut meats are small in comparison to the shell and husk
size. They are also harder to extricate
from the shell than other nuts.
Commercial machines do exist that remove the shells but they are hard to
find and beyond the price that most home owners would want to spend. Hand processing is at least as effective with
black walnuts as machine processing.
Once the
nut meats have been removed store them in dry jars with tight lids. There is no need to roast or heat treat
them. They will store at room
temperature for at least a year. When
substituting black walnuts for English walnuts or other nuts go a little
lighter on black walnuts as the taste is rich and stronger than other nuts.
You’ll have
a waste product - or two waste products to dispose of after harvesting black
walnuts. The husks contain a chemical
that may retard the growth of other plants and shouldn’t be placed in the
compost pile or near any desirable plants.
The shells also discourage the growth of other plants and are extremely
sharp and very slow to break down.
Walnut shells have been used commercially as a polishing and abrasive
agent.
There are a
few places that actually buy black walnuts for processing. The prices are extremely low for the raw nuts
and none are in Michigan. The closest place would probably be Hammond products
processor in Ohio - you can call 330-698-0340 for one processor or go to www.black-walnuts.com You can also
purchase machines for walnut collecting and cracking from this location. Buying at this location ends Nov 7, this year
(2016).
Prices are
usually based on the weight of the nuts after the husks are removed. The average price paid for your nuts by the
wholesaler is $14-$15 per hundred pounds of hulled nuts. (It would probably
take 3-4 hundred pounds of nuts with hulls to produce that.) You have to
deliver the nuts to the factory. A
homeowner would have to collect a lot of walnuts to make wholesale remotely
profitable. Black walnut meats removed from the shell sell for about $15 a
pound. You might be able hand process and sell black walnut meats for some
small profit at farm markets and other local venues.
The real
value of black walnuts nuts probably lies in them being a free gift from nature
that you could use in home baking for a distinct, gourmet taste. Certainly it does do a little to make up for
the walnut trees many shortfalls as a landscape tree.
Fall
needle drop of evergreens is normal
Every fall a lot of people panic when they see the
needles of their evergreens, particularly pines, turning golden and falling
off. What they don’t realize is that
evergreens must shed their old needles at some point just like deciduous trees
shed their leaves. Some evergreens or
conifers, shed their needles a few at a time, others have a more massive
seasonal shedding.
Pines typically shed 2 -5 year old needles in the
fall. White pine sheds its needles every
2 years, Scotch pine every 2-4 years, red pine about every 4 years. Drought and other stresses can cause heavier
than normal needle drop.
Some other conifers, such as larches, bald cypress and
dawn redwood, actually shed all their needles and look as bare as their
deciduous counterparts through the winter. If you were not aware of this you
might think the tree had died and cut it down- a big mistake.
Spruces, cedars, yews and other plants we consider to
be evergreen tend to drop old needles irregularly and don’t cause as much
concern to homeowners because the smaller needle drop doesn’t draw much
attention. Needle loss on the inside of
the tree, involving just a layer or two of needles is seldom cause for
concern. Evergreens will also lose
needles where the tree has become too dense and shaded in the interior and this
is normal too.
In normal needle drop, the needle layers closest to the
trunk turn yellow or brown and eventually fall off. As long as the outer needles toward the tip
of the branch remain green and the tree looks healthy there is no problem. Pines do not replace the needles that fall
off, this area of the tree will remain bare, growth and new needles occur on
the ends of branches in the spring.
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| White pine with normal fall needle drop. |
Pine needles, or other evergreen needles, should be
left beneath the tree if possible. This
is what nature intends for them to do, provide mulch for the tree to conserve
moisture and breaking down to return nutrients to the soil. If the needles fall on walkways though, they
should be removed as wet needles can be very slippery.
Some people worry that evergreen needles added to
compost piles or used as mulch around other trees and plants will make the soil
too acidic. Unless you have an awful lot
of pine needles this effect is negligible.
Pine needles can take a while to break down in a compost pile, so if you
need compost quickly you may want to make a separate pile for needles.
Garlic
breath
People either love garlic or hate it. Even if they love it they may not like the
smell it leaves on the breath. Believe it or not garlic breath elimination has
been the subject of several research studies.
Garlic breath is caused by volatile gases of diallyl disulfide, allyl
mercaptan, allyl methyl disulfide, and allyl methyl sulfide that are released
when gaelic is chewed or crushed.
Ohio State University recently published the results of
one of its studies in the September issue of the Journal of Food Science. Researchers
found that chewing raw apple, raw lettuce or raw mint leaves after eating
garlic effectively helped eliminate garlic breath. Gee, could that be why chefs often garnish
plates with mint leaves?
In a 2010 research study published in Journal of Food Science (also done by
Ohio State University) it was found that drinking a glass of milk after eating
garlic helped eliminate garlic breath. Whole milk was better than reduced fat
milk.
Important research like this is being done with our tax
dollars. Moral of this story is, if you don’t have a cow or an apple tree, grow
some mint or lettuce with your garlic.
The
pepper sex myth
There is much good information that can be found on the
internet, (take for example this newsletter lol). But the internet also helps
circulate old wives tales and Uncle Jerry fables and tries to give them authenticity
by labeling them “facts”. This week an
oldie but goodie popped up several times on social media. The one that says you can tell the sex of a
green pepper by counting the lobes on the bottom of the pepper. Three lobes means it’s male and 4 lobes means
it’s female, according to this tale.
Why would the sex of a green pepper make a difference? Because, according to these urban fairy tales
one of the sexes is better for raw eating and the other for cooking. I can’t remember which- because it makes no
sense and just isn’t true. (But since
most of us females are sweeter, probably the female.)
Pepper fruits (yes the part you eat is botanically a
fruit because it contains seeds) are neither male nor female. The pepper you eat is a ripe (or almost ripe)
ovary. In an animal the ovary produces the egg, which can become an embryo if
it’s fertilized, but the ovary itself never becomes a baby nor does the uterus.
Fruit contains seeds, (embryos) and
protects them until they are distributed into soil for germination. It may aid
in distributing seeds, if the fruit is tasty to animals, or has hooks to attach
to them, or floats.
Now you may be thinking “that sounds like a fruit is
female”, but that’s not the case. Fruits have no sex and they can’t
reproduce. The seeds they contain can
grow into new plants but they can’t.
Fruits are simply protective tissue around seeds, a vessel or
container. They don’t have sexual
characteristics at all.
While some plants can be labelled as a female or male
plant because they only have one type of sexual organ, their fruits are still
neither male nor female. Fruits form on
the female plant because female sexual parts include the ovary but they are
still just protective tissue. Peppers, like many plants, have both male and
female parts in each flower. They can
self-fertilize to produce seeds.
Therefore a 3 lobed pepper fruit cannot even come from a male or female
plant because in pepper plants there is no such thing.
The lobes on a pepper plant have nothing to do with
sex, but rather with the pepper variety and growing conditions. They don’t predict the taste or cooking
quality. Pepper fruits can never be male or female. The same pepper plant
will often produce fruits with both 3 and 4 lobed fruit and sometimes fruits
just have 2 lobes! But all the seeds in those fruits become plants with both
sexes represented.
I know all gardeners don’t want to study plant
biology. You can be a good gardener even
if you don't know much botany. But before you accept information as true and
pass it on at least do a little research. And use common sense. On social media some garden or plant sites
are better than others; some are just trying to get page clicks. Because it
says garden something.com doesn’t mean what its telling you is actually
factual. And even books and other
printed material are often full of folk tales, silly fabrication and out dated
misinformation. Jerry Baker books are a
prime example. You have to examine the author of the information and what
education and experience they have.
I recently had someone argue with me that they knew
that peppers were male or female because an old farmer told them that was so
and so did their grandmother. Sorry but
grandmothers and farmers aren’t always founts of wisdom. I would like to think
that age makes wisdom but I have seen plenty of evidence that it doesn’t. And
after working with farmers for many years I know what they tell “city folk” is
often done with a chuckle and a wink.
Old wives tales and urban legends often don’t cause any
harm and believing a pepper is a male or female based on the lobes on its
bottom is probably one of them. But when
you see that “Interesting Fact” or “Food Fact” with the picture of a green
pepper and explanation of why it’s male or female just know it isn’t a fact at
all. Don’t share the story or
picture.
Knowing a little about plant biology can be invaluable
to a gardener. There are many easy to
understand books on the basics and a Master Gardener class, if you can afford
it, can also give you a little bit about the basics of plant biology.
Here are some books you might want to read.
Botany- James Mauseth 2012 edition
Botany for Dummies- Rene Fester Kratz
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World- Michael
Pollan
Botany for Gardeners: Third Edition (Science for
Gardeners)by Brian Capon
Have
you heard about STANDING ROCK?
I try to
avoid political comment in this newsletter but this is an issue dear to my
heart and I have chosen to talk about it.
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| Picture by the Guardian |
Is it
significant that this month is Native American Heritage month and Native
Americans are fighting one of the most monumental environmental protection battles
ever? Yes it is. You may be only vaguely
aware of it but thousands of First People have gathered in North Dakota to
protest an oil pipe line that will cross close to the Standing Rock Reservation
and go under the Missouri river (in a wide area referred to as Lake Oahe) where
it threatens the drinking water supply for the people of the area. The river provides water for the reservation
as well as other communities downstream.
This oil
pipeline was originally supposed to go a different route, close to several
white, middle class communities and Bismarck, North Dakota. They protested and their voices were
heard. The pipeline was re-routed to go
through a poor Native American area instead, with only a quick environmental/cultural
assessment. The people whose water would
be threatened were never included in planning or notified until the
construction began.
The construction
cuts through sacred burial grounds as well as threatening the water
supply. Supposedly these grounds are no
longer part of the reservation but an extensive area, including this area, was
ceded to the Indian nations in 1851 and there was never any agreement between
the tribes and the US to return any of that land. Instead over the years it was gradually
“claimed” by various units of government when use of the land was wanted.
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| Standing Rock -NativeNews on line |
The Native
American tribes have gathered at Standing Rock to try and halt the pipeline.
For many weeks thousands of teepees, tents and trailers have been pitched on
ground near the construction site on land claimed by the Bureau of Land
Management. At this camp members of all
the American Indian tribes have gathered with indigenous people from other
countries and people of all races.
Celebrities are there, the UN has observers there. Babies have been born there. But have you heard or seen much on the news
about this?
A smaller
camp was set up in the path of the pipeline but police and National Guard
soldiers violently removed the mostly peaceful protestors. While a few protestors have expressed their
rage and despair by throwing rocks, starting tire fires and so on, most of the
demonstrations have been peaceful, with people praying and standing in solidarity. For some 1,000-1,500 people gathered in one
place fighting a common enemy the amount of violence has been extremely low-
except by private security, police and soldiers.
The
protestors have had dogs attack them, tear gas and pepper spray released on
them, they have been shot with rubber bullets, which have caused some nasty
injuries, and over 400 people have been arrested, some being held in dog
kennels without protection from the cold.
Women have been strip searched in front of male guards. The protestors
have had their horses shot. The
treatment of these people has been a direct violation of their civil rights-
but have you heard much about it? Well
the world has. And they are shocked that
this is happening in the US. There are probably more foreign TV stations
showing footage of what is going on than American stations.
 |
| NBC news |
If it were
not for social media many people would not be aware of this vast protest. Major news agencies here in the US have
virtually ignored it, maybe because the area it’s happening in is remote and
isolated. If you would like to learn more or show your support there are some
sites listed below.
There is no
compelling reason this Dakota Access Pipeline has to be built except to line
the pockets of some rich investors, including major shareholder, Donald Trump.
The oil can be moved by rail, as it has been moved, or by truck. But the pipeline would make it cheaper. Only
40 permanent jobs will be created, and construction jobs will only last about a
year.
There is no
reason we even need to be mining this oil at all. It’s from fracking, an
environmental hazard of its own. It’s a
drop in the bucket of the domestic oil supply, but that drop could devastate
the water supply of thousands of people.
We need to stop building pipelines across our country. Almost every week
there is a spill from a pipeline somewhere, causing environmental
destruction. Instead we need to quickly
move to renewable energy sources and stop fracking. Not allowing any more
pipelines will stop fracking from being economically feasible.
If you
would like to protest the Dakota Access pipeline here are some
numbers/addresses.
Sacred
Stone Camp, P.O. Box 1011, Fort Yates, ND 58538
OR 202 Main
Street, Fort Yates, ND 58538
Jack
Dalrymple, Governor of North Dakota: 701-328-2200
Army Corps
of Engineers (demand to reverse the permit): 202-761-5903
Call the
Whitehouse at 1-202 456 1111
Email the
sheriff in charge at kyle.kirchmeier@mortonnd.org
The
executives at Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline.
Lee Hanse
Executive Vice President (210) 403-6455
Glenn Emery
Vice President (210) 403-6762
Michael
(Cliff) Waters Lead Analyst (713) 989-2404
I
stand with Standing Rock
Kim Willis
“He who has a garden and
a library wants for nothing” ― Cicero
Events, classes, free items and sales
Please let me know if there is any event or class that
you would like to share with other gardeners.
These events are primarily in Michigan but if you are a reader from
outside of Michigan and want to post an event I’ll be glad to do it.
Do you have plants or seeds you would like to swap or share? Post them here by emailing me. You can also
ask me to post garden related events. Kimwillis151@gmail.com
An
interesting Plant Id page you can join on Facebook
Here’s a
seed/plant sharing group you can join on Facebook
Invitation
If you are a gardener
in Michigan close to Lapeer we invite you to join the Lapeer Area Horticultural
Society. The club meets once a month, 6:30 pm, on the third Monday at various
places for a short educational talk, snacks and socializing with fellow
gardeners. No educational or volunteer requirements for membership, all are
welcome. Membership dues are $20 per year. Come and visit us, sit in on a
meeting for free. Contact
susanmklaffer@yahoo.com
Phone 810-664-8912
I have 5-6 large size,
young roosters I will give away free.
They are Rhode Island Red and some are a cross of Australorp and “Easter
egg” chickens. Shoot me an email for
more information Kimwillis151@gmail.com
Garden
events have pretty well ended for the year in this area. But if I come across any they will be posted.
Here’s a facebook page link for
gardeners in the Lapeer area. This link
has a lot of events listed on it.
Here’s a
link to all the nature programs being offered at Seven Ponds Nature center in
Dryden, Michigan. http://www.sevenponds.org/
Here’s a
link to classes being offered at Campbell’s Greenhouse, 4077 Burnside Road,
North Branch.
Here’s a
link to classes and events at Nichols Arboretum, Ann Arbor
Here’s a
link to programs being offered at English Gardens, several locations in
Michigan.
Here’s a
link to classes at Telly’s Greenhouse in Troy and Shelby Twsp. MI, and now
combined with Goldner Walsh in Pontiac MI.
Here’s a
link to classes and events at Bordines, Rochester Hills, Grand Blanc, Clarkston
and Brighton locations
Here’s a
link to events at the Leslie Science and Nature Center, 1831 Traver Road Ann
Arbor, Michigan | Phone 734-997-1553 |
http://www.lesliesnc.org/
Here’s a link to events at Hidden Lake Gardens, 6214
Monroe Rd, Tipton, MI
Here’s a
link to events and classes at Fredrick Meijer Gardens, Grand Rapids Mi
http://www.meijergardens.org/learn/ (888) 957-1580, (616) 957-1580
Newsletter/blog
information
If you would
like to pass along a notice about an educational event or a volunteer
opportunity please send me an email before Tuesday of each week and I will
print it. Also if you have a comment or opinion you’d like to share, send it to
me or you can comment directly on the blog. Please state that you want to have
the item published in my weekly note if you email me. You must give your full
name and what you say must be polite and not attack any individual. I am very
open to ideas and opinions that don’t match mine but I do reserve the right to
publish what I want.
I write this
because I love to share with other gardeners some of the things I come across
in my research each week. It keeps me engaged with people and horticulture.
It’s a hobby, basically. I hope you enjoy it. If you are on my mailing list and
at any time you don’t wish to receive these emails just let me know. If you
know anyone who would like to receive a notification by email when a new blog
is published have them send their
email address to me. KimWillis151@gmail.com
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