Photos by: NCMGV Sheila Squires of her sweet momma in the Sunflower Patch! Photo Opportunity Say "Sunflower" at the garden. Come on out to the Teaching and Display Garden and take your photo in the sunflowers. A fun back to school photo. A family Christmas card photo. Memories of the Summer of 2019 photo or a just because photo. Come on out and say "Sunflower!" AuthorCarla TePaske ~ UW-Extension Master Gardener Volunteer
0 Comments
![]() 2019 is the National Garden Bureau's Year of the Pumpkin. The association with with autumn, Halloween and Thanksgiving will be with us always but the pumpkin is also a very nutritious and healthful Cucurbitaceae that should not be overlooked in our year round diet. Pumpkin is said to help regulate blood pressure and promote heart health. It is low in calories, fat and sodium and rich in fiber, potassium, iron, and vitamins A, B and C. Besides pie, pumpkin is excellent in soups, stews, casseroles, pasta, and sauces. Start pumpkin seeds indoors in mid-April or seed pumpkins directly into the garden from late-May to mid-June giving them plenty of space to spread out. Flowers will need to be pollinated to set fruit. This can be left to bees or done by hand. Some gardeners turn their pumpkins while they grow to keep them from flattening on one side but be careful not to step on vines. You will know when it's time to harvest by the stems that will begin to dry out. Harvest before the first frost. The first European settlers were introduced to pumpkins by the local indigenous peoples who ate the flesh roasted and used the skins for fibers to weave into mats. The Europeans improvised a way to roast pumpkins by cutting the top off, hollowing them out then filling them with milk, honey and spices and roasting them over hot embers. Make a rich and delicious soup by combining pureed pumpkin with sauteed onions and garlic, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, chicken stock, water and heavy cream. See link for recipe https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/easy-pumpkin-soup/ You can also harvest pumpkin seeds. The seeds of some varieties are in hulls. Roast these until golden brown for a crunchy treat. Or grow pumpkin with "naked" seeds for eating raw or lightly roasted. Pumpkins are available in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Some are better for cooking while others are great for carving or painting or just looking pretty in a table display. Check out the National Garden Bureau's article on pumpkins for varieties that suit your needs and aesthetics. https://ngb.org/year-of-the-pumpkin/ Growing pumpkins is also a great way to get kids interested in gardening. Here are links to helpful YouTube videos on growing pumpkins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cc2QeSfWw This British series on pumpkin growing is full of good tips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOY2T_7bx-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_7DxgDXu5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbPYUelrW7c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNDs9mpNteI Article submitted by Pam Davies MGV
The University of Wisconsin Extension, The Spooner Agriculture Research Station and North Country Master Gardener Volunteers will be holding their Annual Twilight Garden Tour on Tuesday Aug 13th from 4 - 7:30 PM. This is one of the region’s premier summer gardening events and will feature University speakers, demonstrations, displays, food tastings and walking tour of the Seed to Kitchen Collaborative, and organic vegetable variety research trial partnering with nationally recognized plant breeders, chefs and local growers. The venue for the Twilight Garden Tour is the award-winning Teaching & Display Garden located on Orchard Lane, just east of Spooner.
Speakers will be PJ Leisch, UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab Director; Brian Hudelson, UW-Madison Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic Director; and Brian Smith, UW-River Falls Professor of Horticulture. Master Gardener Volunteers and invited speakers will be available to answer your gardening questions and identify plant, insect and disease samples. The Teaching & Display Garden is an official All-America Selections (AAS) display garden featuring both flowers and vegetables and has been awarded multiple awards in the National Landscape Design contest sponsored by AAS. The garden also includes organic vegetable gardening, a children’s garden, container gardening, displays of table and wine grapes and fruit trees and the newly renovated Monarch and Pollinator Sanctuary perennial garden. As in the past there is no charge for this educational events. The Teaching and Display Gardens are located on Orchard Lane, 1 mile east of Spooner on Highway 70. Watch for Garden Tour signs. For more information please contact Kevin Schoessow at 715-635-3506 or 1-800-528-1914, or online at http://spooner.ars.wisc.edu or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/spoonerag. UW-Extension provides equal opportunity in employment and programming including Title IX and ADA requirements. Please call our toll free number if you have any special needs or require special accommodations. Lorraine Toman University of Wisconsin-Madison University of Wisconsin-Extension Spooner Agricultural Research Station W6646 Highway 70 Spooner, WI 54801 715-635-3735 715-635-3506 Toll-Free: 800-528-1914 FAX: 715-635-6741 711 for Wisconsin Relay [email protected] http://spooner.ars.wisc.edu/ https://www.facebook.com/spoonerag Make an eye-catching garden more enjoyable by including fragrant plants. Incorporating aromatic flowers into the landscape adds an unforgettable dimension. Fragrant plants tend to bring up pleasant memories, and scented flowers also attract pollinators, such as bees and butterflies. Fragrance is produced by plants when their essential oils evaporate and the molecules enter the air. The most fragrant flowers are white and pastel. Create your own fragrant garden with these tips:
Fragrant Garden at the Spooner Agriculture Research Station in early June and mid-July. The specific plants in our fragrant garden are: Bordering the walkway is Sweet Alyssum (Rosie O’Day). Starting to cascade up and over on our arbor are both Moonflower and Sweet Pea. In the main part of the garden are Bee Balm, Carnation, Chocolate Flower, Heliotrope, Hyssop, Lupine, Marigold, Nicotiana, and Penstemon. Learn more at the upcoming Twilight Garden Tour on August 13 starting at 4:00pm. Submitted by Roseann Meixelsperger, Master Gardener Volunteer
The Herb Garden Come on out and visit the gardens. Reach down and brush the plants in the herb garden. What can you smell? Do you smell pizza? Do you smell pickles? We have dill, basil, garlic chives, onion chives and more planted in the herb garden. Come join us at the Annual Twilight Garden Tour. We will have recipes to share using herbs and different herb infused water to sample. And other fun and simple ways to include herbs in your day. Annual Twilight Tour in the Teaching and Display Garden Tuesday, August 13, 4:00 to Twilight Features guest speakers, demonstrations, displays, vegetable tastings AuthorCarla TePaske ~ UW-Extension Master Gardener Volunteer "Some old fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat." Laura Ingalls Wilder You never know what you are going to see at the Teaching and Display Gardens. I spotted this butterfly resting by a morning glory at the Straw Bale Garden. The gardens are full of bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and more. Take some time to come visit this summer. Come on out and take a stroll in the gardens. AuthorCarla TePaske ~ UW-Extension Master Gardener Volunteer The North Country Master Gardener Volunteer Association invites everyone to our annual Twilight Garden Tour on Tuesday August 13 starting at 4:00 p.m. and closing around 7:30 p.m. The event will be in the Spooner Agriculture Research Station Teaching and Display Gardens at 780 Orchard Lane, Spooner. The gardens are located 1 ½ miles east of Spooner on Highway 70 or ½ mile west of the Highway 70/53 interchange. All ages are invited to attend and there will be handicap parking near the gardens. We will have speakers from University of Wisconsin including Brian Hudelson (Director of the UW-Madison Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic), Brian Smith (UW-River Falls Professor of Horticulture), and P.J. Liesch (Director of the UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab) speaking about plant diseases, insects, and vegetable gardening. There will also be displays and demonstrations including how to create a Monarch Waystation, getting your garden soil tested, wine tasting, and vegetable tastings. The Spooner Garden Club, Barron County Master Gardener Volunteers, Cooperative Weed Management, Friends of the Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area, Hunt Hill Audubon Sanctuary, and our Kids in the Garden program will be among the organizations and programs represented.
This will be a prime opportunity to check out our pollinator garden, cover crop garden beds and other creative gardening using this years All-American Selections’ theme of Recycling, Reusing, Reimagining. Hayrides to the Seed to Kitchen Garden will also be scheduled throughout the evening. The event is free to the public. In the event of rain, we will move the displays and speakers close-by into the Spooner Agriculture Research Station, 1035 E Maple Street (Highway 70), Spooner. Please call the Station at 715-635-3506 for more information if needed. The Sunflower Patch The Sunflower Patch looked like this a few weeks ago. The Sunflower Patch is looking like this as of the week of July 15th. Flowers are budding and soon the sunflower patch will be the perfect place to take a family photo. North Country Master Gardener Volunteers encourage you to come on out to the garden, sit on the bench and say "cheese" or "sunflower!" Visit the Teaching & Display Gardens The Teaching and Display Gardens are a joint effort between the Spooner Agriculture Research Station, operated by the University of Wisconsin - Madison College of Agriculture and Life Science, the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension and area UW-Extension Master Gardener Volunteers. Open to the public for self-guided tours during day light hours seven days a week mid-May through mid-September. AuthorCarla TePaske ~ UW-Extension Master Gardener Volunteer 2019 is the year of the Dahlia! Picking a favorite dahlia is like going through a button box. As well as coming in a rainbow of colors, dahlia flowers can range in size from petite 2-inch lollipop-style pompoms to giant 15-inch “dinner plate” blooms. Most varieties grow 4 to 5 feet tall. They are considered a tender perennial in cold regions North America. They are only winter hardy in planting zones 8 to 11. Gardeners in zones 2 to 7 can simply plant dahlia tubers in the spring and either treat them as annuals or dig them up and store for winter. ![]() Celebrating the 2019 Flower of the Year the North Country Master Gardener's have a garden that is dedicated to dahlias. Printouts with dahlia information are available at the garden. Visit the Teaching & Display Gardens The Teaching and Display Gardens are a joint effort between the Spooner Agriculture Research Station, operated by the University of Wisconsin - Madison College of Agriculture and Life Science, the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension and area UW-Extension Master Gardener Volunteers. Open to the public for self-guided tours during day light hours seven days a week mid-May through mid-September. AuthorCarla TePaske ~ UW-Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Learn more about cover crops and alternative mulches at our upcoming Meet Me in the Garden on July 16 at 6:00 pm at the Spooner Agriculture Research Station Teaching and Display garden. Do you know the difference between a ground cover and a cover crop? Do you have bare ground that it weed prone?
Consider getting covered! Bare soil is a magnet for weeds and the new trend is to cover with living plants. Mulch has been the cover of choice in both the vegetable garden and perennial beds for years but there are many other options. When referring to covers that use actual plants you will see terms such as green manure (for vegetable and annual areas) or green mulch (ground covers for perennials beds). In the Teaching and Display Garden we have examples of many different mulches and the use of living plants. |
|
North Country MGV | gARDEN bLOGS |
Location |
|