Help is Here

Garden Rant, one of the most popular gardening blogs on the Internet, provided a link to some great starter videos.

If you are new to vegetable gardening, especially organic methods, Ed Bruske put a dozen how-to videos on the Monkey See website.

The video topics include: Tools, Soil Testing, Seed Starting, Mulch, Transplants, Watering, Garden Pests and Weeds. Click here to view.

If you are ready and willing to start vermicomposting, here is a link to an entry on TangledFleece that shows exactly what to do through a series of photographs.

Phlox! What a great perennial - scented, dramatic, reliable, insect and disease free. What would my flower beds be without Phlox? GardensOyVey has a nice set of photos and descriptions of 8-cultivars at this link.

In our garden today, all the garlic was pulled and cleaned and hung to dry. More peppers and tomato plants went in.

The thrill for the day was that the black swallowtail butterflies found the fennel we planted for them and the caterpillars are big and fat. It is easy to see those bright green and black striped larva but I have yet to find the chrysalis. This year the fennel is in a raised bed to improve our chances of observing the entire life-cycle.

Believe it or not it is time to start planting seeds of winter vegetables. A Master Gardener newsletter from California provided this link to a chart of germination temperatures for various vegetables. The chart is from the organic gardening organization, Rodale Press.

This link will take you to their Organic Gardening blog.

Happy gardening.

Worm Giveaway at Earth Day

The Junior Master Gardeners and their sponsor were the big workers at the worm giveaway.

We gave away 115 vermicompost kits and ran out by 10:30 in the morning.


Channel 22 was there to interview the master gardeners about the project. They explained how to take care of the worms when adoptive parents took them home.

The Junior Master Gardeners made kits, putting in food and worms.

Everyone had a great time and more than a hundred new vermicomposters got started with saving the earth.

If you came later than 10:30 after we ran out of worms, live locally and want a kit, email me at mollyday1@gmail.com. Maybe we can arrange a way for you to get one.

How to Set Up a Home Vermicompost System

Earth Day 2008 - Here's how to use your kitchen waste in a vermicompost bin.

Growing a garden has too many benefits to list. Even if you do not have time to dig in the yard, you can help the earth by feeding your food scraps to a bin of Organic material makes up two-thirds of the waste in any city. The food in that waste can be recycled through the use of worm composting.
Compost worm information and starter kits will be given away this Saturday when Muskogee Farmer’s Market celebrates Earth Day.
The primary benefits of worm composting include the production of “black gold” worm castings to add to potted plants or back the earth and a way to use up kitchen scraps without sending them to the landfill.

Build a compost worm bin for your home or apartment —
1) Buy a plastic or wooden box 10 to 18 inches deep and drill air holes around the sides about half way up and drainage holes in the bottom. Compost worms, red wigglers or Eisenia fetida, cannot function in light so do not use a clear or see-through container.
2) Compost worms need air to breathe through their skin so make sure the container is not closed with a tight lid. If the container came with a lid you can drill holes in it to use as a top or put it under the compost bin to catch any water that drips out.
3) Worms move by wiggling their muscles and they need loose bedding to crawl around so put moist torn newspaper and shredded leaves in the bin for bedding. They will eat the bedding so make sure it is free of insect spray. Other bedding choices include damp shredded office paper, straw, or moist shredded cardboard.
4) Put food in the container a few days before you add the worms because they have no teeth and have a hard time eating fresh fruits and vegetables. If you cut the food into small pieces it will be ready for them sooner.
5) Bury the food a few inches below the surface and change the feeding spot each time.
6) Food to add includes funny smelling leftovers from the refrigerator (no meat), bread - even if it is moldy or dry, spaghetti, fruit and vegetable trimmings - no matter what condition they are in, eggshells, oatmeal, leftover cooked cereal, cornmeal, teabags, coffee grounds with the filters, etc.
7) Do not feed them meat, fat or dairy.
8) Redworms do not live in soil; they live in leaf piles, manure and dead plants. Gather worms from under a pile of leaves not from under the soil level.
9) Add more bedding when the first bedding seems to have disappeared. Sprinkle a little water on the worm home to keep it as moist as a wrung out sponge but not wet.
10) If the bed is kept at around 70 to 80 degrees the worms will eat everything quickly. In fact, they eat their weight in food every two days. At 45 degrees they hibernate and eat nothing. At 30 degrees they freeze.

11) Lots of other critters could come to live in the worm bin including bacteria, fungi, springtails, sow bugs, fruit flies, and mites.

12) If you plan to keep the compost kit in the house and many people do, put a kitchen towel over the top to keep light off of the worms and to keep fruit flies away. Lots of compost worm bins are kept under the kitchen sink where it stays dark and warm and where food scraps can be easily added.
13) Be sure the bin is draining so it never smells bad. If it starts to smell, add dry shredded newspaper and check the drainage holes.
14) After three to five months dump the vermicompost bin onto a surface where you can provide a strong light. Make several small piles. The worms will wiggle down to the bottom leaving the compost on the top. Remove the compost, wait for the worms to go further down and remove compost again. Put the remaining worms and vermicompost back into the bin with clean bedding and food.
15) Use the compost you harvested. Add it to water to make compost tea, sprinkle it on top of houseplant soil or mix it with potting soil, vermiculite or perlite. Feed your plants with it.
For decades, back yard gardeners have piled yard waste to let it decompose and then put the resulting mulch into their vegetable and flower beds.

As cities around the United States look for ways to reduce the amount of garbage going into landfills, they set up recycling centers, yard waste shredding operations and public compost areas. In a state-wide program to dramatically reduce trash, CA distributed worm composting containers and compost worm vouchers to everyone on trash routes (www.zerowaste.ca.gov).

The red wrigglers for Earth Day at Muskogee Farmer’s Market came from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm in Pennsylvania, www.unclejimswormfarm.com, and Rising Mist Organics in Kansas, www.wackyworldsof.com.

Go green this Earth Day and start feeding your leftovers and scraps to a bin of compost worms to keep that garbage out of the landfills.

Vermicompost Worm Give Away April 19 for Earth Day

I thought you would enjoy an update on the whole composting with red wrigglers idea.



Now we have two compost worm structures going at our house. The tower of worms is outside protected by the shade of a couple of trees. The bin of worms that I'm growing for the great worm kit giveaway for Earth Day is safely tucked inside the garage.



Every day I check them, look for them, feed them, give them fresh newspaper shreds, fresh veggie and fruit scraps from the kitchen. Tonight a friend contributed some well rotted scraps for them.



For Earth Day, I bought 200 plastic cups. They are 32 ounce opaque with a large enough bottom to be stable.



In each cup I'll put used coffee grounds, compliments of our local Starbuck's.



Then, since they will be given to kiddies, I'll put food in the cups. Probably oatmeal and cornmeal for the giveaway. Then a worm goes into the cup.



Each new worm home will be topped off with crushed leaves and damp shredded paper.



Thanks to Vista Print I was able to have 200 cards printed with cute pictures and complete directions for taking care of the worms. The directions include feeding, keeping them moist and checking them periodically to see how they are doing.



Muskogee Farmer's Market is financially sponsoring the compost worm kit giveaway. We are happily doing the raising of the worms. The Junior Master Gardeners from Whittier Elementary School are going to attend the Earth Day celebration to tell other kids how cool it is to raise worms using leftover food. Should be great fun for everyone.



Thanks to a Google alert, I have been able to read about the hundreds of other people who are vermicomposting. There are a lot of us! Maybe there will be a national compost worm day in our future.

Vermicompost With Junior Master Gardeners

Normally, I only put my writing on my blog but here is a column about the Junior Master Gardeners at Whittier Elementary School learning about compost worms. The students made homes for their worms and then were excited to select a worm for their very own.

Junior Master Gardeners learn, squirm with worms

Program 'gives kids exposure to nature,' teacher says

By Cathy Spaulding Phoenix Staff Writer

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. Their duty is helping the vegetables sprout.

That's what the Junior Master Gardeners at Whittier Elementary School will learn in a joint program with Muskogee's Farmers' Market.

Students in Whittier's Junior Master Gardener program spent Friday afternoon filling jugs with dirt, coffee grounds, shredded paper, vegetable scraps, leaves and wet spaghetti and putting a worm in each jug. There, the worms will make compost for vegetable gardens.

How?"The worm eats everything and poops," said Martha Stoodley, a volunteer with Muskogee Farmers' Market. The Farmers' Market is helping with the composting program. The Whittier students will feed and tend to the worms over the next few weeks, then help give out worm composting kits when the Muskogee Farmers' Market opens at the Muskogee Civic Center on April 19, Earth Day.

Whittier's Junior Master Gardener program meets after school two Fridays a month. It is funded through a Learn and Serve grant from the Cherokee Nation.

"The Junior Master Gardener gives kids exposure to nature," said Whittier second-grade teacher Melissa Brown, who sponsors the program. Students in second- through sixth-grade are participating in the program.Program participants got down and dirty in Brown's classroom Friday as they dug their hands through the dirt and ground coffee and ripped apart bell peppers.

They put the coffee and dirt in first, then a bed of shredded office paper, then the food, then the spaghetti.

"I put in dirt, leaves, paper, leaves, dirt, paper so my worm will have two places to stay," said fifth-grader Jacob Hubley. He said he named his worm "Worm Norris, Law of Coffee Bean Town."Jacob already knew a few facts about worms. "If you cut a worm in half, it will poop, too," he said. "I should know. I go fishing with them."

Other students got a hands-on lesson in worm behavior.

"They're mating on my hand," participant Chris Watson said, holding his arm up to show what was going on.

Stoodley confirmed that, yes, that was what the worms were doing.Brown will keep the worm habitats in her classroom.

Fifth-grader Patricia Lemon said she plans to feed her worms lettuce and bell peppers every day.

"You have to keep it in the shade," Patricia said."And make sure your little sister or brother doesn't suffocate it," said fifth-grader Elizabeth Smith.

Brown said the composting program is one aspect of the Junior Master Gardener program. She said students are converting a school courtyard into an outdoor classroom that will include different types of fauna including tropical and desert. The classroom also will feature a butterfly habitat.

Sunny Days Perfect to Garden

It was a great day to be in the garden - sunny and 70 with just a little breeze. All the seeds that are up got to go outside to sunbathe. The lettuce looks like it went from one-fourth inch to a half inch tall in the past two days.

Today's accomplishments: The Devil's Walking Stick from Pine Ridge Gardens went into its new home, two Cherry Laurel trees are now in the ground, Renee's Breadseed Poppy seeds were planted in the ground, the blackberry pruning was completed, the edible pea pods are just popping up in the seed tray, weeds were pulled.

What's happening in your garden this week?

Photo: King's Crown that overwintered in the garden shed and now is blooming in there.

COMPOSTING REDUCES LANDFILL
Southern Living Magazine is very popular in this part of the world. When we lived in California, Sunset Magazine was the one to have. I still use my Sunset garden book even though it is geared for the west. Their plant descriptions cannot be beat.

In today's post, Sunset online has a piece about vermicomposting, called "Fresh Dirt" and it focuses on how much better it is to feed your kitchen scraps to worms than to send it to a landfill in plastic bags.

TERRAPIN LOVE


Photo: Sharon Owen shared a photo of terrapin love in her yard.


CATERPILLAR MEMORY
Science Daily reports that butterflies and moths actually remember what they learned when they were caterpillars. What a remarkable finding.

An associate professor of Biology at Georgetown University, Martha Weiss, remarked that it is intriguing to consider that a caterpillar can remember what it learned even though it turns to soup in the metamorphosis stage before it re-forms as a butterfly or moth.

Miraculous, actually.


Susie Lawrence sent along this announcement and it may be just what you are looking for.
HERBAL SOLUTIONS CLASS AT Northeastern State University, Tahlequah OK
This class will include a short history of herbs and how to identify common herbal plants. You will learn how to store herbs, prepare herbal teas, hot compresses, fomentations and the advantages of tinctured herbs. There will be an overview and discussion of Goldenseal, Echinacea, Ginger, Wormwood etc. Supplies can be purchased from the instructor for approximately $35.
Date: 6 Tues., Apr. 1 – May 6, Time: 6:30 - 8 p.m.
Location: Business & Technology Bldg., Room 102
Fee: $35, Limit: 20, Instructor: Linda “Pickle” Reynolds

Fun Gardening Stuff

The photo is a praying mantis egg case that Mary Ann King at Pine Ridge Gardens took into her greenhouse. When the nymphs hatch they will eat the insects in the greenhouse, providing organic insect control.




There is so much fun stuff out there related to gardening.

The Oklahoma City Council of Garden Clubs made the news on NewsOK. Marilyn Lahr, president said she loves gardening she said, "And you meet the best people in the world.”


No kidding! Gardening attracts wonderful people and garden clubs and classes give us a chance to meet each other.

Here's a great quote from a blog called The Eleventh Stack "With spring on the way, another idea is offered by ORson Scott Card who says, “Unemployment is capitalism’s way of getting you to plant a garden.” It certainly isn’t necessary to quit your job to dig in the dirt, but why not take a day off and grab some seeds and a shovel?"

The Eleventh Stack is a blog for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh PA.

The 2008 Mid States Cactus an Succulent Conference will be held in Grand Junction Colorado. The dates are June 12 to 15 and it is reasonably priced at $85 for the entire conference. Click on the link above - it will take you to the informative website.





Take a minute and look at this


Smell Like Dirt blog. On the entry "Global Worming" the author, Carol Buie-Jackson, has a video of herself setting up a worm composting system. Great tips and she shows how easy it can be to get started.





Friendly Worm Guy gives encouraging information and advice and also tells how to use the worm castings on your plants. And ZWire has a story about a grandmother who started vermicomposting to help her grandchildren learn to be green.





We are feeding our worm hotel and spraying the bedding to keep it moist for them - we should have a bin of organic plant food in a few months. We will not be attending, but if you are ready to learn to make money through worm farming, there is an entire conference dedicated to the topic. May 19 and 20, click on the Composting Council's link for more information.





The Jig Zone has an online jigsaw puzzle of daffodils in a scene. Fun diversion for this cold week.





The seed planting continues in the garden shed with at least one vegetable, annual or perennial seed planted every day. The veggie garden progress report: In the ground - broccoli and Brussels sprout starts, English and edible pod peas, radish seeds.

Hydrangeas, Shrub Pruning, Vermicomposting, Black Magic Ivy Geranium

Linda Orton, president of the Mid-South Hydrangea Society sent out a great newsletter this month. I wish they were closer because their quarterly meetings always look so enticing.

The Mid-South Hydrangea Society is located in Memphis Tennessee. Their quarterly newsletter is worth at least $10 a year and members get to attend the members-only annual tour. This year's tour is June 7th and I can't wait to go.

Orton said she had resolved in 2007 to limit her plant purchases to only those that would fit into her garden. (Don't we all make that promise to ourselves every year?)

The newsletter covered an international hydrangea tour and a pruning chart from Walter Reeves' website. If you have any pruning still to do (;-) check out his guidelines at this link for what to prune month by month. Another version is at this link. They are both Adobe pdf.

If you want to join, contact membership chair, Linda Lanier at hydrangealady@comcast.com.


A thousand vermicompost worms arrived in the cloth bag inside a paper bag inside the box pictured. Some were crawling out of the bag between the fibers. The box is cute enough to save.
Check out the Black Magic Ivy Geranium I spotted at Blossom's Garden Center in Muskogee. It would blend well with pink or white Ivy Geraniums or other vining plants in the same pot.

The cardinals are everywhere in our yard right now. They nest in a pair of old pine trees in the front. I'd like to remove those old trees but don't have the heart to displace the cardinals.

Several trays of seeds were planted yesterday and today - early veggies and a few flowers. I planted them in sterile seed starting mix in those trays that hold 32 plants. They are misted every day in the hope that this year I won't drown them with kindness in the form of too much water.

What are you planting?

Late Winter Gardening and Vermicomposting: The Worm Hotel Is About to Have Guests

Lowe's has their late winter vegetable starts in. Packs of 9 plants are about $3.50. I want to plant Brussel sprouts and broccoli using starts so I asked Sue Gray at the OSU Extension in Tulsa for some guidance. Here is her response.

"Go ahead and plant your brassica starts, but DO protect those tops….especially whenever it's going below 32 degrees F……the storebought transplants are probably not hardened off….so you may want to spend a little quality time on them or go ahead and cover with some kind of protection from wind, extreme light AND cold."
So, my new babies are inside under lights for now since we are supposed to get several more freezing nights this week. I'll transplant them out of these cells because there are two plants in some of them.

THE WORM HOTEL
Composting with worms, vermicomposting - Hubby built a four-story hotel for the compost worms we ordered from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm. I called Uncle Jim and the Red Wrigglers (Eisenia foetida) are supposed to be shipped this week.
We saw a similar four-story structure on the Internet and followed other instructions from the book, "Worms Eat My Garbage."
Basically, compost worms eat fruits and veggies plus shredded, damp newsprint. Many composters keep them in a can or plastic bin under the kitchen sink since that is a handy, warm, dark place for feeding and keeping track of them.

They do not try to escape all the time like caterpillars, but rather, keep to dark places under several inches of the damp, torn newspaper or shredded office paper.
You can tell by the design that they need air and plenty of bedding.

Also, note that the bottom tray is lifted with wood blocks under it and a drip tray on the floor. "Worms Eat My Garbage" said all these features are important for this type of setup.

I'll take a few more photos of the excited worms when they see their new digs. They should be dancing - I'll keep the blog updated.

Hopefully, I can involve the Junior Master Gardener Program at Whittier Elementary School in the project of raising another generation and making compost worm kits to give away on Earth Day at Muskogee Farmer's Market.

The City Farmer website has all the information you need to do a Red Wriggler composter.

A few points emphasized on the site:

Damp bedding is what the worms live in and can include cardboard, shredded leaves, straw, sawdust and aged manure - the more variety in bedding the better the resulting garden compost.

They also need a bit of sand or soil as grit for digestion.

Since worms are like us and are made up mostly of water, the bedding has to be moist to support their life. (They can't go get a glass of iced tea when feeling dry.)

Do You Know About Vermicomposting or Mazus Reptans?

Photo: February Fussing over plants in the shed.

VERMICOMPOSTING

In preparation for my compost worm giveaway at Muskogee's Earth Day celebration, I'm reading "Worms Eat My Garbage" by Mary Applehof and have set up a Google alert for anything related to vermicomposting.

In case you don't know, vermicomposting is practiced by making a container of moist, torn newsprint, kitchen food scraps and Red Wriggler worms. The worms eat through the materials over time, creating the most perfect way to maximize the use of kitchen scraps.

Reading on the web, some people get into the hobby to reduce landfill, others do it to produce sterile fertilizer for their garden or houseplants. The stuff pigs and cows produce is called manure. The stuff worms produce is called castings and it sells for big bucks at the organic garden shops online.

One blogger claims that Red Wriggler castings are the purest humus in the world and that they prevent harmful nematodes, bacteria growth, pathogens and fungi.

If you know about vermicomposting from experience or find useful information on the Internet, please let me know about it before my first 1,000 worms arrive at the end of February.

MONARCH WATCH

The Monarch Butterfly support network, Monarch Watch now has a blog with up to the minute updates on Monarch Butterfly waystations, migrations, tagging and population numbers.

NEED HELP SELECTING A GROUNDCOVER THAT CAN BE WALKED ON?
Classy Ground Covers is offering a variety of discounts during February - a sort of a pre-season jump start. For example: 50-bare root daylily plants for $53.50 and 50 hostas for $68.50. Plan to put all these in pots with good, sterile, potting soil for a few months until after our last freeze date on April 15. The site has links to help you choose plant possibilities.

I liked this semi-evergreen choice for zone 7, full sun - Mazus reptans (Purple Mazus: Scrophulariacaea).

Further research indicated that it grows 2-inches tall, prefers moist soil, can take occasional foot traffic, is NOT invasive, no pests, no disease problems.

Perennial Gardening on the Prairies, a Canadian garden site shows the plants a year after they were grown from seed. The site owner said the runners could become a problem but the lcoation I'm thinking of would not support vigorous growth.

Have you heard of or grown Mazus reptans? If so, let me know how well it grew for you.

Stepables is a company that garden writers learn about during conferences but we do not see their products in very many plant outlets. Their plant search link provides a quiz to help you identify the plant choice that is right for your yard.

Thinking about an area between the back door and the hammocks, I put into the quiz: Walk on it twice a day, in full sun, low water requirements, any height, any growth rate, zone 7, any color, clay soil.

The result was four choices that I had not considered - Links to more information on Mineature Veronica Speedwell, Lotus Plenus ('Double Bird's Foot Trefoil'), Sedum John Creech and Helichrysum Dwarf Strawflower.

Lots of attractive possibilities to consider. I especially like those I can start from seed.

Eliot Coleman at Horticulture Industries Show in Tulsa, January 2008

Chelsea Green Publishing

was a new name to me until I became interested in growing greens here at home. Food safety, convenience, freshness and the joy of growing were my motivations. "Four-Season Harvest" is one of the top resources for anyone considering growing their own food for home use or to sell at markets and restaurants.

Today's column in the Muskogee Phoenix summarized the book and an upcoming horticulture show where the author, Eliot Coleman will be speaking. Enjoy!

Published December 26, 2007 06:05 pm - Garden column: Gardeners and those who are interested in selling at farmers' markets will find a treasure trove of information at the Horticulture Industries Show in Tulsa on Jan. 4 and 5.

The Kerr Center, Oklahoma State University, the Arkansas State Horticulture Society and other organizations sponsor the show so costs are kept well below a usual two-day conference.

This year's show, "Celebrating Horticulture Four Seasons of Success," will offer several topics: growing fruit, Christmas tree farming, growing and selling herbs, public gardens and master gardeners, farmers' markets, vegetables and sustainable agriculture.

Many of the classes are repeated on both days so you will be able to attend most of the sessions of interest.Keynote speaker, Eliot Coleman, is a big draw at this year's show because he is so well known. Coleman designs garden tools for Johnny's Selected Seeds. His books include, "The New Organic Grower," "The Winter Harvest Manual" and "Four Season Harvest."

In addition to keynote addresses on both days, Coleman is giving two workshops on Jan. 5. Coleman has been an organic grower for 40 years, raising vegetables in the field and in greenhouses, cold frames and unheated tunnel greenhouses. In fact, he and his wife, Barbara Damrosch, sell fresh salad greens and vegetables from October through May in Maine using minimally heated greenhouses.

One of Coleman's passions is the importance of small scale organic growing. Coleman's wife, Barbara Damrosch, was his co-host of the television series, "Gardening Naturally," and now Damrosch's gardening advice appears in her weekly column in the Washington Post. "Four-Season Harvest" is the book a person needs to have if they want fresh homegrown vegetables all year for their own healthy meals or for selling to restaurants and at markets.

Most vegetable gardeners grow from May to October, then can freeze for the winter. Coleman and Damrosch grow spinach, scallions, arugula, radicchio, miner's lettuce, radish, Swiss chard, corn salad, tatsoi and other cool season vegetables in season-extending structures such as cold frames. Coleman suggests starting a four-season garden on an area the size of a tablecloth.

Selecting the right seed variety, building healthy soil and working with nature are the keys to success Coleman presents in optimistic detail. Living soil, built of compost is the foundation of Coleman's healthy plants. Straw is at the base the foundation of the compost pile and the compost-holding structure can actually be built of straw bales placed under deciduous trees. Legumes, such as peas are planted for eating and for their ability to improve soil fertility. Coleman suggests planting legume seeds under beans, eggplant, corn and other crops so that the peas create green manure while they cool the soil and prevent weeds. They can also be planted in any bed you want to improve for the future.

The chapters on planting and cultivating have sketches of possible methods: structures, rows, beds, cold frame and low tunnel construction, temporary A-frame, and the use of garden-improving tools (including ducks).

One of the cold frame potting soil recipes will serve to illustrate Coleman's practical approach: three buckets sifted peat moss, two cups organic fertilizer blend (made of green sand, phosphate rock and cottonseeds meal), one bucket perlite and three buckets compost. The bucket is eight quarts.

Greenhouse construction, seed selection and growing, planting charts, natural pest control in a balanced garden and charts of planting dates round out the text. "Four Season Harvest" published 1992 and 1999 by Chelsea Green Publishing Co., http://www.chelseagreen.com/ and (800) 639-4099. The publisher's green-theme blog is at flaminggrasshopper.com.

A write up on Coleman's journey to organic growing is at http://family-friendly-fun.com/leisure/gardening/Eliot-Coleman.htm .Four Season Farm is the name of the Coleman/Damrosch business and their Web site is http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/. A Web cast of Damrosch speaking about her love of gardening during a Library of Congress Book Festival is at www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=3532.

Highlights of the two-day horticulture show

Anyone who would like to grow herbs will find these seminars of interest since successful growers and sellers are teaching the workshops. Their topics range from growing and cooking with herbs to fall blooming flowers. Sharon Beasley of Beasley's Bounty in Newcastle is speaking on "Flowers that Bloom in the Fall.""Fall does not have to be a sad time of year for gardeners and flower lovers," Beasley said. "There are many plants you can get color from in the fall such as cool weather perennials and annuals like beauty berry, Texas salvia, Toad Lilies and Mexican sage." Beasley said five gallon and other large pots planted with fall bloomers could make a big difference in the landscape. She will provide lists of choices at the seminar.

In the public gardens classes, the Jan. 4 topics include: "Polite Fences — Privacy with Plants," "Rustic Structures in the Garden and Hydroponics."

On Jan. 5, presentations include: landscape design, honeybees, vermicomposting and unusual plants. The fruit presentations are split over two days. Jan. 4's topics include: apples, peaches, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and pecans. On Jan. 5, viticulturists, food scientists and horticulture specialists will speak on wine grapes.

Friday's workshops for vegetable growers include: onion production, growing multiple crops, hoop houses and organics. On Saturday, the sessions include: farm labor, plastic mulch and specialty melons. Christmas tree farmers will learn about species selection and disease prevention.

Anyone interested in growing to sell will benefit from attending.