Cornell Cooperative Extension Community Horticulture

Here’s their website with more information:

http://mastergardener.umd.edu/Handbook.cfm

Check out this latest addition to our Home-Grounds and Community Horticulture Resource Library. This is a lending library maintained in the Department of Horticulture and CCE educators are encouraged to borrow items (see more details below).

Borrow this DVD to add an educational component to your Master Gardener Volunteer meeting or if you are working with youth or public adult audiences it could be a nice addition to a garden lesson. It might even inspire your audience to look closer at their gardens and be inspired to do their own filming.

Garden Insects (DVD) a 50 minute long documentary film by Chris Korrow that features colorful close-up photography, an original music score, combined with facts about insect habitats and life cycles offers viewers a documentary film that is aesthetically pleasing, awe-inspiring and informative. Viewers learn about the multitude of insects in their own gardens — which ones are beneficial and which ones are destroying their vegetables, who eats who and why. Organized by insect families: ants; bees and wasps; etc. The unique aspect of this project is that Korrow is both an biodynamic farmer and a professional filmmaker, his insights coming from hard-won hours in the fields and a love for the garden ecosystem. Visually stimulating, the film awakens the viewer to the fact that we are not as separate from nature as we might think. If we have a garden in our backyard, chances are there is more happening out there than we could have imagined!

Filmmaker’s statement:
“Having taught gardening classes for over 14 years, I was inspired to make this film when I realized how little the majority of gardeners know about the insect ecosystem that exists in their gardens, and also that they do have a strong desire and interest to understand it better. From the point of view of an environmental activist this film is important as it gives the viewer an opportunity to connect with the natural world through something that is close and personal — their own gardens — rather than something far away and abstract like the destruction of the rain forests of the world. Garden Insects was filmed almost entirely in my own backyard.”

Home-Grounds and Community Horticulture Resource Library houses hundreds of titles. The bulk of the collection is slide presentations with an increasing number of powerpoints on CDs. There are also posters for display. CCE staff can contact Max Welcome in the Dept of Horticulture for a complete list of resources available or to borrowing any of the resources.

Here’s a new publication from NRAES. It is overkill for most gardeners…

Purchase online here.

The Raspberry and Blackberry Production Guide is the only comprehensive resource for novice and experienced growers as well as crop advisors and educators. It provides information on all aspects of raspberry and blackberry culture including site selection and preparation, trellising and pruning, nutrient management, harvesting, irrigation, pesticide application, budgeting, and marketing. There are descriptions of more than 70 cultivars including summer-fruiting red, black, and purple raspberries; fall-fruiting red and yellow raspberries; thornless, thorny, and fall-fruiting blackberries, and hybrid berries. Field production, high tunnel production, and greenhouse production are reviewed.

CCE Educators

Are you looking for attractive, fun and informative educational displays to add to your next event (plant sale, fair, workshop…)?

This series of (24′x 28″) posters was originally part of a “landscape bloopers” display produced by the Pesticide Education Program of Penn State University for the 2007 Philadelphia Flower Show. The Northeast IPM Community Horticulture working group decide to devote resource to make copies of them more widely available to Extension Educators in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. The posters are fully laminated with weather proof material. If you are interested in borrowing the set please contact well in advance of your event Max Welcome in the Department of Horticulture at (mw45@cornell.edu) or 607.255.5439

See all the posters at this website.

…edited by Richard Bonnano and specialists from across the Northeast, 2007. A 50 page comprehensive pest identification guide that can be carried to the field to better identify pests and select appropriate management measures. It contains color photos of all of the insects, diseases, and weeds that are described in the region’s various Vegetable Management Recommendations, including photos of weeds at the seedling stage and disease symptoms on different crops.

Available from the Univ. of Mass. Bookstore (413-545-2717, umassextensionbookstore.com); $10.00 plus $5 shipping and handling (bulk rate: 80 copies @ $5 apiece plus shipping and handling).

DO YOU THINK THERE MIGHT BE ENOUGH INTEREST THAT OUR COMMUNITY HORTICULTURE PWT SHOULD BUY 80. I am not sure what shipping might them be but it might reduce the books from $15 to maybe $8?

New NRAES Book Focuses on Pond Management
The Pond Guidebook (NRAES-178), contains dozens of tips and insights for managing ponds one-eighth acre to four acres in size. It addresses key topics such as water chemistry, construction, measurement, aquatic weed management, fish selection and stocking, nuisance wildlife, annual maintenance, safety, and more.
The book is based on research, experiences of pond owners, and hundreds of site visits. The authors group was lead by Jim Ochterski, CCE Ontario County, Bryan Swistock from Penn State, and Cliff Kraft and Rebecca Schneider, of Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources.
For more information, see NRAES web site, or contact NRAES by phone at 607-255-7654, fax at 607-254-8770, or e-mail nraes@cornell.edu

Peter Smallidge (NYS Extension Forester and Director, Arnot Teaching and Research Forest Cornell University) writes that Brett Chedzoy of Cornell Cooperative Extension - Schuyler County noted nearly 100% mortality of the pignut hickory in the three woodlots.

And wonders if anyone else seen hickory mortality?

Here is fact sheet from Wisc. on hickory mortality (pdf).

New on-line and hard copy Publication from the Department of Horticulture:

High Tunnel Raspberries and Blackberries
Northeast growers can capture more of the lucrative local market for fresh berries by growing brambles (raspberries and blackberries) in high tunnels, according to researchers at Cornell and Pennsylvania State Universities.

These relatively low-cost, usually unheated, plastic-covered hoop houses can help growers fill late-spring and late-fall gaps in the market. Instead of mid-June, high-tunnel berries can be harvested in May. The field-grown season for brambles usually ends in early October. But growers using high tunnels continue to harvest berries through November.

Other benefits of high tunnels include:

• Floricane-fruiting raspberries and blackberries can over winter in climates where they would otherwise be killed by cold temperatures.
• Primocane-fruiting blackberries ripen where the growing season is otherwise too short.
• Berry yields from tunnels can be two to three times greater than field-grown, and the berries can be significantly larger.
• Tunnel-grown berries also have longer shelf-life with reduced pesticide inputs.

The publication, High Tunnel Raspberries and Blackberries, is available online at http://www.fruit.cornell.edu/berry.html or to order hard copies contact Max Welcome of the Horticulture Department at mw45@cornell.edu

Brooklyn Botanic Gardenden (BBG) announces the release of its newest All-Region Guide, Buried Treasures: Tasty Tubers of the World. This is BBG’s first handbook devoted to root vegetables, the underground delights that have sustained cultures all over the world for millennia.

Buried Treasures: Tasty Tubers of the World takes intrepid gardeners and curious epicures on a global tour of edible roots, tubers, corms, and rhizomes, including such underground treasures as Hawaiian elephant’s ear, Japanese devil’s tongue, Chinese sacred lotus, South American canna, and hardy North American spring beauties and groundnuts. With contributions from leading experts Scott D. Appell, James J. Lang, Leda Meredith, and BBG’s Alessandro Chiari, Buried Treasures is a handy resource with detailed tips on buying, growing, designing with, harvesting and cooking more than 30 featured vegetables.

All the plants are illustrated with striking color photos showing both the tasty tubers usually hidden belowground and the attractive and unusual foliage and flowers above. Virtually all the plants in this book also make a garden-worthy aboveground display. Tropical giants like elephant’s ear and yautia are exotic accents in a summer border or container, then transition indoors when the days get cooler to become show-stopping houseplants. Or they may be harvested and cooked into tasty dishes. Hardy plants like the North American natives spring beauty and jack-in-the-pulpit can stay in the ground year-round, providing an appealing floral display in spring and hearty nourishment in fall.

Beth Hanson, editor of Buried Treasures, says, This book is a cornucopia of information about the mysterious world of geophytes, as tubers are known to botanists. We wanted to demystify and explore the little-understood tuberous plants that have sustained civilizations for millennia. In addition to the fascinating history and lore of tubers that have captivated ethnobotanists, the book offers tips on how to forage responsibly for wild tubers, how to grow tubers in your home garden, and how to enjoy them in the kitchen. And with more shapes, sizes, colors, and textures than a fashion magazine, the book shows how these exotic plants dress up any meal and steal the show at the dining table.Hanson added, anyone who loves plants, food, or both is sure to be thrilled by the encyclopedia of more than 30 tubers in this easy-to-use guide.

Buried Treasures features:

• A feast of more than 30 tropical and hardy tubers that are easy to grow, great to look at, and delicious to eat
• Detailed tips for growing and harvesting
• Delicious recipes from around the world
• An extensive list of nursery sources

Buried Treasures provides great recipes from around the world and shows readers how to pick out the healthiest tubers and plants at markets, where to buy hard-to-find varieties, and how to make more tubers at home. Dig in!

The New York Times Book Review called BBG’s handbook series a “brilliant collection of little gardening handbooks…Each one takes a small bite of subject matter and chews it thoroughly… the mix of common sense, practical advice and, on occasion, pointed debunking…makes these slender volumes do the work of books twice their size and three times their price. And what the handbooks…lack in acreage they make up for in authority.

Ordering Information

Buried Treasures: Tasty Tubers of the World (ISBN-10: 1-889538-34-5) is available at a discount direct from Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s online store at shop.bbg.org, or by calling 718-623-7286. It is also available in bookstores and at garden centers for $9.95 in the U.S./$11.95 in Canada. For wholesale ordering information, call Sterling Publishing at 800-367-9692 or visit its website at www.sterlingpub.com. To receive a free brochure of current and past handbook titles, call 718-623-7241.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden handbooks have been published continuously since 1945. They are the only series of popular gardening books published by a botanic garden in North America. Written by top gardening experts and packed with spectacular color photos and illustrations, All-Region Guides offer 120 pages full of ideas on how to make your garden beautiful, bountiful, and ecologically sensible.

The Garden Writers Association Foundation (GWAF) is pleased to announce the release of the 2007 Summer Gardening Trends Research Report with some very interesting insights on consumer gardening attitudes and expectations for the current gardening season.

In early spring, the GWAF asked consumers where they planned to buy most of their spring plants. In a surprising response, more households indicated they planned to shop at garden centers and local stores (47%) as compared to DIY and mass merchants (44%). This change in planned shopping patterns represented a significant shift from prior years.

In a June survey, The GWAF asked consumers where they actually purchased most of their spring plants. Consumers confirmed that garden centers or local gardening stores got most (43%) of their business while mass merchants and DIY stores came in second (39%).

Other findings of the summer gardening trends survey include:

• The most popular method of insect control that American households plan on using this summer is a combination of organic and chemical products (28%). About one-fourth of households plan on using only organic or natural products (24%).

• One in four consumers (23%) want more information about annual vs. perennial flowers, 22% want information on vegetable gardening, 20% on pest control, 19% on weed control, and 19% on organic gardening.

• When comparing 2006 to 2007, more Americans have no plan to save water this year (31% in 2006 vs. 39% in 2007)

• Almost half (47%) do some form of container gardening.

• This summer, about half of consumers will use their garden for relaxation or as a spiritual retreat (48%). More than a quarter of consumers are planning to use their garden or yard for food production or as a children’s area (28% and 26%, respectively).

For more details, get your copy of the 2007 Summer Gardening Trends Research Report today. The summer gardening survey was conducted in June and covers consumer expectations and attitudes for activities and purchases planned for the next few months. The survey was conducted by TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, a national consumer polling organization, and statistically represents the attitudes of 110 million households with an accuracy of 95% (+/- 3.1 percentage points).