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Master Gardener News

September 2016

2015 Officers:

Lila Waldman, President

Carol Ziehmke, V.P.

Kelly Tomko, Secretary

Barb Rothwell, Treasurer

Lori Nadolski, Reporter

In This Newsletter

Fall Clean-Up the Gardens 1 CCMGV 2016 Activities 2 Pollinators 2 From the President 3 Upcoming Meetings 4 Roots Chocolates 5 Meeting Minutes 6 MGV Timesheets 8

Fall: Clean-up the Gardens Day

Friday, September 23, 2016, 8:00—11:00 am

Portage Public Library

Bring your own tools; clippers, pruning shears, rakes, etc. The Library grounds is

one of our Master Gardener Volunteer Projects. We will be doing weeding.

Pruning and general end of the garden yard clean up. Questions…...contact Jean

Damm at wmjd@frontier.com

Page 2

Page 2

Date Event Program & Chairperson Sept 15-17 Upper Midwest MGV In WI Dells Conference (combined With WIMGA Conference Sept 23 Fall Clean Up the Gardens Jean Damm Day: Portage Public Library Sept 26 New MGV Trainee Last Class Sept 27 Root’s Chocolates (Jane Considine) MGV Meeting—Bidwell Room Portage Public Library—6:30pm Oct 1 All Annual Hours Reports due to George Oct 25 Wreaths with Paul Bergum (Kelly Tomko) MGV Meeting (arrive when you can) Nov 22 Pot Luck and Member (Becky Gutzman) Activity Nov 24 Thanksgiving Dec No meeting

Pollinators Are you seeing lots of bees, wasps, and other pollinators

around your flowers and gardens this fall? Hopefully the

answer is yes. Do you know their identity? How many

can you find on your property?

UW-Extension has published a new factsheet, “Wisconsin Bee Identification

Guide”. It has pictures and descriptions of 13 different Wisconsin bees. You

can download your own copy by using this link, https://hort.uwex.edu/

articles/wisconsin-bee-identification-guide/

Page 3

Lila Waldman, President

I started writing this message the last week of August. The veggies in my

garden are on the down side. We’ve been canning and freezing

tomatoes. The neighborhood kids are back at school; my grandkids in

Minnesota started school September 6. Although it’s not officially

autumn until September 22, it feels like fall is already here.

The Audubon Society presentation at our August meeting was very

interesting. We started with a tour of the weed garden at the Arlington

Agricultural Research Station, where we saw examples of perennial,

biannual, and annual weeds. Then Mark Martin spoke about the history

of the Goose Pond prairie sanctuary. We learned that the sanctuary’s

prairie wetland supports 253 species of birds and 26 species of mammals.

A few reminders for Columbia County MGVs: (1) Continue to monitor

and record the results of the blight-resistant tomatoes for our project;

(2) Submit your volunteer and professional development hours no later

than October 1; (3) Consider writing an article on gardening for

publication in the Portage Daily Register; (4) Consider serving as an

officer for our volunteer organization next year.

After the September MGV conference, my

husband and I will travel to Europe from

September 17 to October 6, where we will visit

friends and take a river cruise on the Danube

River. So, I will need to miss the September 27

meeting and the guest speaker from Root’s

Chocolates. See details on the meeting in this

newsletter.

Page 4

MGV October Meeting & Tour

October 25, 2016—4:30 pm

Paul Bergum’s Wreath Shop,

W4690 Bradley Road, Rio

You may arrive any time after 4:30 pm. Paul will talk about

different plants used for wreath making and will work one on one

with wreath making. The amount of material depend on the

weather.

Regular Meeting—6:00 pm

6:30 PM—Call to Order (Carol)

Secretary’s Report (Kelly)

Treasurer’s Report (Barb)

Introductions

Old Business

Regional Conference Report (Becky)

Newspaper Articles

MGV Hours Due Oct. 1

Other

New Business

Let’s Get Green & Growing 2017

Potential Marigold Project w/A&W

Next Meeting October 25 Wreaths with Paul Bergum (garden tour

4:30 and demo at 6:30 p.m.)

Location of November Meeting

Other

Page 5

At the September 27 Master Gardener meeting, Lisa Nelson of

Roots Chocolates will talk about how she uses products from her

Wisconsin Dells area farm to make artisan chocolates. Among

the farm-grown products in her chocolates are tart cherries, heir-

loom tomatoes, chili, lavender, squash, rhubarb, raspberry, basil

and mint. She makes the chocolate from cacao beans grown in

Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Hawaii. Lisa has traveled to Nicara-

gua and Hawaii to meet and work alongside some of the farmers.

Roots Chocolates are available at specialty stores in Madison,

Baraboo, Wausau, and at tasting events throughout the region,

at Fermentation Fest in Reedsburg, and also can be purchased

online.

We make fun, creative chocolates and confections. Made in small batches right on my 4th generation-owned farm, each chocolate is created with a passion and love for the uniqueness that ingre-

dients from our farm, local and global ingredients provide. Roots Chocolates - An International Chocolate Awards Winner for

the Americas!

Page 6

Columbia County Master Gardner Volunteers

Meeting Minutes—August 23, 2016

Attendees visited the Arlington Ag Station’s weed garden display with the help and

input from our guest speaker Mark Martin who helped in identifying and clarifying

plant species.

Mark & Sue Martin (Madison Audubon Society)did a wonderful presentation on the

local Goose Pond Sanctuary. They covered a wide array of information including but

not limited to the history of the area, the future goals and plans for the sanctuary and

much about the plants and animals that reside there. Volunteer hours could be accu-

mulated by helping with things like seed collecting (Saturday mornings), bird watch-

ing, spring and fall, monarch tagging. For more information on volunteering at Goose

Pond, contact our Goose Pond Resident Land Managers by email at

goosep@madisonaudubon.org or call us at 608-225-2473.

We went around the room and did introductions of all attendees.

The meeting was called to order at 7:45pm.

Last meeting’s minutes were approved.

Treasurer’s Report

Reminder about Regional conference coming up on September 14-17th.

Newspaper articles are still running approx.. 1 month behind. We still need more

writers and articles. Let George know if you need help with a top or if you have ideas.

Tomato project reminder

CC Fair – A big thank you to all who participated and helped out.

Current Master Gardener class will be finished on Sept. 26th.

July Officer Meeting – Jan Meeting (2 newbies to do presentations), Plant Sale Reloca-

tion? Other Events? Survey Reviews, member attendance. Move the November meet-

ing location to Wyocena? Looking for bus tour ideas for next year’s event.

LGGG (Let’s Get Green and Growing) Committee is working on solidifying the date

(Becky, Ardyce, George) are talking to the school, hoping to get a date set so we can

lock in a keynote speaker in advance.

Reminder – Hours are due Oct. 1st, micro farm scheduling with schools, looking for

volunteers. Oct. meeting will be wreaths at Paul Bergum’s.

Next Meeting: September 27th in the Bidwell Room at the Portage Public Library – 5:30pm, Roots Chocolates is the guest speaker.

Page 7

MGV Timesheets

Thanks to the two MGV members who have turned in their time-

sheet already. They get the Early Bird Award.

I know some of you are waiting until the end of the MGV Re-

gional Conference in the Dells. I am expecting very high volun-

teer hours from several of you since you have been working

hard to plan and coordinate this action packed conference.

Please don’t cheat yourself on the timesheets. Give yourself

credit where your hours credit is due.

Just a reminder, if you worked at the MGV booth at the Colum-

bia County Fair. Please record those hours as Community Edu-

cation. If you were a judge for the MGV awards at the fair, those

are support services hours, since you weren’t really teaching at

that time.

If you have any questions about completing your timesheet

please feel free to give me a call or send an email with your

questions. I would much rather help you complete the form cor-

rectly in the first place than have to correct things later.

Finally, please remember to complete the questions on the back-

side of the hours report form dealing with race, ethnicity, gen-

der, year of birth, and open records release. I know you com-

plete it each year, however, I have to complete and submit it

each year and so it saves me from looking up your responses

from last year. Thanks for all you do for the children and citi-

zens of Columbia County during the year. You truly are a won-

derful group of caring, giving people. I am very proud to be as-

sociated with each one of you.

George

Page 8

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