June 2017 Turnip News Master Gardeners Prince William Editors: Maria Stewart Rebecca Arvin-Colón Inside this issue: Master Gardener Memorial Service 2 Upcoming Events and MGPW 3 MG President’s Message Meetings - At a Glance MGPW Social Committee - Lewis 4 Ginter Botanical Garden and Lunch ACTION CONCERNING FEEDBACK FROM ONE OF YOUR RESPONSES TO THE QUESTIONNAIRE PROVID- Daisies Plant Pollinator Garden 5 ED AT RECERTIFICATION. As mentioned in last month’s MGPW Education Committee - Irises 6 Turnip News, one of the items Association members recom- Research Focus, Cover Crops 7-8 mended was that the “wisdom of departing veterans needs to MG Outreach to the Community 9 be captured by having a cheerful outreach volunteer contact, if Sassafras Trees-History, Habit, & Uses 10-12 possible, each departing veteran and do an informal exit in- Congratulations Eileen Murphy & 13 terview.” Harriet Carter Utilizing Solar Power in the Residential 14-15 Nancy Berlin says that last year only about one dozen veter- Garden ans did not recommit to Master Gardeners Prince Wil- Cook’s Teaching Garden Update 16 liam (MGPW). Most were people who were moving to other lo- Update #1: Possum Point Power 17-19 cations or had developed medical/family issues that required Station Cola Ash Issue their full attention. We need to thank all who depart from their Master Gardener Directory 19 volunteer service and capture their insights so we can continual- Compost Awareness Day 20 ly grow and improve as an organization. Partnerships for the Environment 21-22 Last month Master Gardeners Harriet Carter and Brenda Teaching Garden Blog / 23 Work Schedule Hallam kindly took on this task and were key in developing a Upcoming Events and MGPW 24 feedback guide to be used with our departing veterans. Some of Meetings the principles in the guide are: Garden Fest 25 • Background. High performing units are feedback-oriented. Master Gardener College 26 As a high performing unit, MGPW conducts exit interviews Get to Know a Critter 27 PUZZLER 28 Turnip News with departing volunteers to get honest feedback on what the Association should change and should not change so MGPW can continually provide the best volunteer experience as we evolve into the future. • Approach. An exit interview will be conducted with appreciation for the departing member’s privacy. The phone call or personal discussion with the departing member is done solely to draw upon the individual’s wisdom for the purpose of MGPW improvement. • Questionnaire for Conducting MGPW Exit Interviews. The guide includes a list of com- ments and questions to be used as a broad guide for initiating telephone or face-to-face inter- views with departing Master Gardeners. -Larry Lehowicz, President, MGPW, [email protected] 2 Turnip News Upcoming Events and MGPW Meetings - At A Glance June SATURDAY SATURDAY SATURDAY 3 3 10 Master Gardener Garden Fest 12 Steps to a Memorial Service Greener Lawn TUESDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY 13 16 17 MGPW Board Lewis Ginter Saturday in the Meeting Botanical Garden Garden and Lunch THURSDAY- SATURDAY SUNDAY 24 22-25 Irises: Culture and Care in the Integrated MG College Landscape July TUESDAY SATURDAY 11 15 MGPW Board Saturday in the Meeting Garden 3 Turnip News Master Gardeners Prince William Social Committee Announces a Field Trip! 4 Turnip News Daisies Plant Pollinator Garden at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge by Carina Velazquez, Visitor Services Intern at the Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex small troop of Girl Scout Daisies visited Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge on a gloomy, rainy, Saturday morning to learn about pollinators and help replant the pollinator A garden. The Daisies, ranging from kindergarten to first grade, must earn a set of petals to explore different aspects of the Girl Scout Law. On this trip they were working to help the environ- ment and earn their Clover Petal, which stands for “using resources wisely.” Visitor Services Manager Rosalind Wu started off the pro- gram with a game to explore first-hand how bees, butter- flies, and other pollinators do their job. The Daises pre- tended to be bees, digging for buried candy (nectar) in a bowl of cheese balls (pollen). As they visited different bowls, they could see the cheese ball “pollen” being depos- ited on the paper towel “flowers” in each bowl! The Daisies were little troopers. When it was time to go out to the garden there wasn’t a single complaint about the damp weather. Mother Nature even lent a hand! The rain stopped just long enough for the Daisies to plant. Even though the garden had a couple flow- ering plants that made it through the last year, there was still plenty of empty space to work with. Before the program began, Volunteer Bill Willis organized the plants in ideal locations for each species. The girls picked up their trowels and started digging. The Daisies did a great job at care- fully transferring the plants, and even saved a few errant earthworms that had accidentally gotten uncovered. Once we finished up in the garden the clouds began drizzling again, making for a great weekend for the new plants. After learning about the rain barrels set up to save water for the garden during the hot summers, the troop finished off their afternoon work with some fun in the rain hopping in puddles. The program would not have been possible without the donations from Nancy Vehrs’ (of the PW Wildflower Soci- ety) personal garden and Leslie Paulson of the Prince William Master Gardeners. Plants donated to the refuge include but are not limited to, Mountain Mint, Rudbeck- ia, and N.Y. Ironweed, which are all popular with butter- flies and bees. 5 Turnip News Master Gardeners Prince William Education Committee Announces a Fun and Informative Event! Note New Date: now June 24th 6 Turnip News Research Focus: finding news you can use in academic studies, Cover Crops by Jeff Schneider, Master Gardener sing Cover Crop Mixtures to Achieve crop cocktail” to see if multiple objectives could Multiple Goals on the Farm. M. Bar- be achieved. The four mixtures were: bercheck, J. Kaye, D. Mortensen, C. U • White, M. Hunter, J. Hinds, J. LaChance (Penn 3-species mix for supplying and retaining Ni- State). An eOrganic webinar presented on 21 Oc- trogen. Red clover and Austrian winter peas tober 2014. with a small amount of cereal rye. • Cover crops tend to be an afterthought for most 3-species mix for suppressing weeds in addi- home gardeners, if they think about them at all. tion to supplying and retaining Nitrogen. Ce- They might look to a cover crop to fill in an open real rye, oats, and red clover. area in the garden plot until the next plants are • 4-species mix for attracting beneficial insects ready, or to cover a plot for the winter to prevent in addition to suppressing weeds and supply- erosion. “Just get something growing in there” ing and retaining Nitrogen. Red clover, Aus- tends to be our prevailing attitude. The current trian winter pea, canola, and cereal rye. study, however, demonstrates that we might want to pay a bit more attention to what we se- • 6-species “insurance” mix for accomplishing lect for our cover crop depending on the needs of at least some of the above tasks even if there the bed and what we grow. is a crop failure of one or more of the individ- ual species. In this study, a Penn State team explored tailor- ing cover crop mixtures to achieve one or more of Weed control: Oats, rye, and each of the mix- these four specific goals: 1) suppressing weeds; tures provided good to excellent weed suppres- 2) supplying Nitrogen; 3) retaining Nitrogen; sion including the oats and radishes which died and 4) attracting beneficial insects. For the field during the winter. Red clover had almost no ef- trials, the team selected two varieties each from fect on weeds and had difficulty surviving the three plant families often used for cover crops— competition from the other cover crops when legumes (red clover and Austrian winter peas), planted in a mixture. In a project update pub- grasses (cereal rye and oats), and brassicas lished in May of this year (the link is below), the (canola and forage radishes). The first variety in team noted that they have replaced red clover each pair is winter hardy, the second will usual- with crimson clover because of the latter’s high- ly winter kill. er survival rate. Austrian winter peas also ranked poorly in weed suppression. The team The team measured the effectiveness of each va- concluded that planting rapidly growing grasses riety by itself against each of the four goals and and/or brassicas in the fall was the most effec- then mixed and matched varieties in a “cover tive strategy for suppressing weeds. 7 Turnip News for beneficial insects throughout the growing Nitrogen management: As expected, the leg- year. umes increased the nitrogen content of the soil for the follow-on crop, while the grasses and The original webinar and its update can be brassicas drew up the existing nitrogen into found at these links: their biomass, which prevented the nitrogen from leaching from the field. The biomass could then be tilled in, composted, or left to decompose on the field’s surface to provide nitrogen for the next crop. Interestingly, the nitrogen level al- ready present in the soil and its carbon-to- nitrogen ratio determined which species in the mixtures thrived and which tended to fade. The grasses dominated in fields with high nitrogen levels and low C:N ratios, while the legumes flourished in fields with the opposite conditions.