Master Gardener Meeting Minutes 11/14/2013

-->

Master Gardener Meeting Minutes 11/14/2013

Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church

1601 N. San Francisco

Calendars are now available for sale at the Coconino County Extension office, Warner’s, Native Plant & Seed, Riordan Mansion, and the Allstate office on Cedar. Suggestions on other locations for selling the calendars were the Flagstaff Visitor’s Center and Chamber of Commerce. Sherline Alexander said she would check with some people who are exhibiting at local arts and crafts fairs to see if the calendars could be sold there.

Deb Noel – Historic Gardens and Gardeners

Deb Noel gave an overview of botany and botanists in the United States.  She talked about the importance John and William Bartram, their garden and seed and plant business. In addition, she spoke about how many of the founding fathers of the country were gardeners.  For more information on Bartram’s Garden and early gardeners in the United States, check out the following website and books.  The public library has copies of both of the books.

Bartram’s Garden

http://www.bartramsgarden.org/

Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation, Andrea Wulf, 2011.

The Brother Gardeners: A Generation of Gentlemen Naturalists and the Birth of an Obsession, Andrea Wulf, 2010

Thanks to Susan Thompson and Sherline Alexander for the wonderful refreshments.

Decline of Pollinators

A friend sent this link to an article in the New York Times to me yesterday.  It will be of interest to all you native plant enthusiasts.  It is about the dramatic decline of insect populations and how this decline will impact native plant populations and even our food supply.  

> http://nyti.ms/17OmCdS

From

D. Lamm

AZ Food and Farm Finance Forum

Arizona Food and Farm Finance Forum, Jan 13-15: What’s in it for YOU?

If you are a social impact investor or venture capitalist: Come and hear Slow Money founder Woody Tasch tell how $30 million of local investing in 220 food and farm businesses since 2010 is creating viable options to placing all your money and trust in Wall Street.

If you are a beginning (or ramping-up) farmer: Come and hear Alex Young of Cornman Farm and the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses talk about double their production and planting area each year, and how he finances it. Zingerman’s has grown seventeen for-profits and non-profits in Ann Arbor to create 650 new jobs and 50 million dollars of annual sales of products and services in its community.

If you want to jumpstart a local food restaurant, or cooperative local food distribution network to restaurants: Come and hear Derrick Widmark, co-founder of Diablo Burger in Flagstaff and Tucson tell how he brokered financial backing and local beef and vegetable sourcing to jumpstart these independently-owned businesses.

If you are a food bank staffer hoping to create new jobs for the poor: Come and hear Lisa Pino, Executive Director of United Food Bank in Chandler explain what USDA Strikeforce Programs and philanthropic initiatives can do to help you create live-able wage jobs in the food growing, processing and distribution sectors.

If you are a community development planner or credit union investment officer: Come and hear Michael Dimock of Roots of Change in the Bay area explain how rural and urban communities are coming together to plan the future of their food-based economies.

If you are an eater, a food justice activist, or student: Come and hear Kimber Lanning of Local First Arizona offer a vision of living local economies that will help Arizona communities recover their health and well-being.

If you are a potential donor, angel investor, stakeholder or loan-giver to such initiatives: Learn from Elizabeth U, author of Raising Dough, how to avoid legal pitfalls and financial risks to match your financial resources to match your investing capacity with your values to do the greatest possible good for your family and community.

If you want to start a food microenterprise from a community kitchen using local ingredients for value-added products: Listen to Ernie Rivera, Kitchen Manager of Mixing Bowl, the Kitchen for Entrepreneurs in Albuquerque talking about helping sixty active food microenterprises each year and guiding another hundred prospective food businesses in product development and business planning.

Follow this link for details on the forum

Laurel Bellante

PhD Student
School of Geography and Development

bellante@email.arizona.edu 

Arizona Strawberry Day

Arizona Strawberry Day

      Learn how to grow strawberry hydroponically in Arizona greenhouse

Saturday December 7^th (10AM to 2PM)

      For more information visit the strawberry information website

http://cals.arizona.edu/strawberry/Hydroponic_Strawberry_Information_Website/Event_files/Event%20ASD.pdf

Go directly to the registration site

Lecture in Camp Verde

"Pre-Columbian Agaves in Southwestern United States: A New Way of Looking at Species and Their Cultural Landscapes"
Tues., November 19, 7pm
Camp Verde Community Center Rooms 206/207 (behind the Historical Society) by Wendy Hodgson, Research Botanist, Herbarium Curator, and Botanical Illustrator, Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix

Wendy has been with the Desert Botanical Garden for nearly 40 years and has lived in the desert for 44 years.  Her areas of interest include southwest United States and northern Mexico floristics, rare and endemic plants, and taxonomy and systematics of Agave and Yucca, including the study of pre-Columbian agave cultivars. Other current projects include the study and documentation of the flora of the Grand Canyon region, including the evolution and distribution of certain plant groups as affected by the unique factors characteristic of this area. Ms. Hodgson is studying and documenting southwest United States cacti and is a co-coordinator for the Cactus Family of Arizona project by Desert Botanical Garden research staff and research associates. She was also the coordinator for the Cactus family treatment for the Intermountain Flora project, the preeminent botanical initiative documenting plant diversity between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, published in 2012 by the New York Botanical Garden Press. She is the author of numerous scientific papers and the illustrated book, Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert, published by the University of Arizona Press and winner of the 2002 Klinger Book Award by the Society for Economic Botany. She is an avid plant collector, particularly those pesky, difficult to press plants of the Agave and Cactus families.

From Linda Guarino

Water Conservation Fundraiser for Foodlink

Dear Garden Start CSA past and present members,

As you probably know, Flagstaff Foodlink, who brings you the garden starts CSA, also has 5 community gardens that we manage. Starting next spring, Flagstaff Foodlink is making a serious commitment to water conservation. We want our community and school gardens  to be shining examples of how to grow food, grow community AND conserve water, all at the same time!  
We have already received funding from the Flagstaff Community Foundation and private donations to start this project next spring, however, we need to raise $10,000 more to fully develop, demonstrate and integrate water conservation practices in our gardens, and to provide hands-on learning opportunities about water conservation to community gardeners, community members and school children. 

Dear Garden Start CSA past and present members,

We would like your help in reaching this goal by contributing to Flagstaff Foodlink starting next Monday, November 18 during our online fundraiser - the Crowdrise Holiday Challenge! 

To contribute to our goal, please go to: http://www.crowdrise.com/flagstafffoodlink/fundraiser/foodlink on November 18th at noon!

Please help spread the word!

In gratitude,
Regan Emmons

Outreach and Volunteer Coordinator, President 

Flagstaff Foodlink, 501c3 - Growing food, growing community
flaggardenstarts@gmail.com

http://flagstafffoodlink.com/

 

Master Gardener Meeting Agenda 11/14/2013

Master Gardener Meeting Agenda 11/14/2013

Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church

1601 N. San Francisco

6:30pm-6:40pm                  Welcome – Agenda – Debi Stalvey

                                       Brief review of agenda for the evening

Distribute calendars to those whose photographs appear in it

Calendars for sale

6:40pm-6:45pm                  Introduction of speaker – Jim Mast                 

6:45pm-7:45pm                  Continuing Education

      Deb Noel – Historic Gardens and Gardeners

7:45pm-8:00pm                  Refreshments –  Susan Thompson and Sherline Alexander

8:00pm - 8:25pm                Business Meeting – Debi Stalvey

      Vote on officers

      Call for volunteers

      Holiday Party Dec. 12

                                              Financial report – Linda Guarino/Crys Wells

                                                     

                                              MG Program Happenings (class) – Hattie Braun

                                              Home and Garden Show, Mar. 28-30, 2014 – Hattie Braun

                                                      Volunteers to plan and work the show

                 

                  Committee Reports:

                                                      Continuing Education – Jim Mast

                                                      Community Markets – Sherline Alexander

              MG Projects – Alison Coates/Loni Shapiro                                                   

                                                Volunteer Support – Crys Wells

                                                     

8:25pm – 8:30pm                  Gardening Questions?

Next meeting:                    January, 9, 2014 Dave Brimhall –flower arranging

Master Gardeners and friends –

Please join us for a special tour of Todd Cislo’s garden.

When: Saturday, November 9 at 10AM.

Where: The home of Todd Cislo. The address is 2645 E. Matterhorn Drive, in the Swiss Manor neighborhood.

Todd is an expert in 4-season gardening.  Folks who stop by will see first-hand some simple, inexpensive, usable techniques that can make year-round gardening possible.  Todd says his winter crop is just now up and running along and he has a few summer stragglers- still!  He has recently re-worked his long low hoop so it's now as state of the art as space permits.

Todd has been gardening in Flagstaff for more than 20 years and has dealt with all the challenges - extreme cold, high intensity sun, poor soil, lack of moisture, hail, and wind.  He has a greenhouse, but he mainly uses home-built hoop houses and raised beds to garden all year in Flagstaff. 

Hope to see you Saturday - Hattie

Fundraising for the Native Plant Society

Posted by
D. Lamm 
 

From: kelly@timdarby.net
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 21:05:34 -0700
Subject: AZNPS Car Donation Program
To: jdougripley@gmail.com
CC: roxiep@msn.com; suejs01@yahoo.com; bebbia@hotmail.com; ries.lindley@gmail.com; alauren33@gmail.com; asalywon@dbg.org;cblodgett2@cox.net; csfunicelli@gmail.com; mjplagens@arizonensis.org; whodgson@dbg.org; Lammke@msn.com

We're up!  The car donation is now working.  The program was approved at the Sept 15, 2013 meeting with funds to be "distributed to the chapter to which the individual donor belonged unless they preferred to have the funds go to the State."

Here is the main website.  Drill down to get to us.

http://www.donatingiseasy.org/

And this is the link that goes directly to our donation page.

http://www.donatingiseasy.org/CarDonationInfo.aspx?CID=2820

We've been promised that we will receive some marketing ideas and when I know more I will let you know.

Diane Kelly

Interesting Christmas Gift Idea for Gardeners

Posted by 
D. Lamm 

 

From: plants@timdarby.net
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 20:31:08 -0700
Subject: AZNPS T-shirts available from the Tucson Chapter
To: jdougripley@gmail.com
CC: roxiep@msn.com; cblodgett2@cox.net; mjplagens@arizonensis.org; ries.lindley@gmail.com; bebbia@hotmail.com;alauren33@gmail.com; asalywon@dbg.org; csfunicelli@gmail.com; whodgson@dbg.org; lammke@msn.com; bagphillips@yahoo.com;suejs01@yahoo.com; aznpsinfo@yahoo.com; aznps_tucson_excomm@yahoogroups.com

I am writing again, this time to tell all our chapters that the Tucson Chapter now ships our t-shirts.  Same great shirt - 100% organic cotton, made in the US.  Same price: $20.  And now, until year end, we ship free anywhere in the US.   Email our treasurer Diane for more information: plants@timdarby.net