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Posts Tagged: free
Will Travel for Bugs! Bohart Museum Featuring Global Collections on UC Davis Picnic Day
You don't have to travel the world to see insects. You can see them at the Bohart Museum of Entomology during the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day,...
Scores of visitors will tour the Bohart Museum of Entomology on UC Davis Picnic Day, Saturday, April 13. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Entomologist Jeff Smith curates the butterfly and moth section at the Bohart Museum. Here he holds morpho butterfly specimens. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garv
The Bohart Museum is the home of nearly eight million insect specimens, collected throughout the world. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Free Webinars: Think of the ABCs in Pollination of Specialty Crops
Think of the ABCs: almonds, blueberries and cherries. Then think of watermelons and pumpkins. All those crops will be discussed in a series of free...
"A" is for almonds. A honey bee pollinating an almond blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
"B" is for blueberries. This is the result of bee pollination. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
"C" is for cherries. A honey bee pollinating a cherry blossom.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
An App for Bee Health
So you want to know about bee health? Yes, there's an app for that--and you're welcome to download it for free. Our good neighbor to the north of...
A frame from the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Want to know about bee health? There's an app for that. Alberta Agriculture has created Phase 1 and is working on Phase 2. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Free Public Plant Exchange-October 12
October 12, 2013 is the date; 9AM to noon is the time for the U.C. Master Gardeners annual plant exchange.
If you have not experienced the fun of this free event, this is what you can expect to find. A variety of plants some the Master Gardeners have propagated, some they and others have brought to exchange for something new they may want to add to their gardens. You will also find books on gardening, magazines, pots maybe some garden tools or garden art.
This is a free event; you do not even need to bring anything to exchange to attend. If you have excess flower or vegetable seeds, plants you no longer want, bring them to the exchange. If you are bringing plants or seeds, please label to identify them as it is very helpful for all that attend. Please no plant in pots over 5 gallons.
For the first 80 participants, there will be available a take home set of pest note cards that help identify pest and how to safely deal with them. Also there is a vegetable planting guide that shows the months that you should plant the vegetables you like, it also show the approximate harvest time.
This year you will have the opportunity to listen to mini talks.
Here is the schedule for these talks.
9:30 Succulents (and their propagation)
10:15 Plant propagation (stem cuttings)
11:00 Fall gift ideas (planting a pumpkin container)
11:30 How to become a Master Gardener
Stay for as many talks as you would like. Between 9:30 and 11:30 there will be fun activities for kids as well.
The address for the plant exchange is: 501 Texas St. Fairfield, kitty-corner from Armijo High School, the school is located at the corner of Texas and Washington Street.
The parking in front of the office is very limited; there is additional parking across the street. You can access it by Empire Street.
Remember the date Oct 12, 2013 time 9AM to noon for this fun free event. This is a chance to add some new plants to your garden.
Gardeners browsing the variety of plants available. (photo by Jennifer Baumbach)
Sample Garden
Everybody likes a deal, especially if that deal is FREE, or almost free! Gardeners and Master Gardeners are no different. In fact this Master Gardener has had to watch out for a few flying elbows at the occasional event when someone has uttered those words “come and get it!” There are deals to be had that you don’t have to risk life and limb. There are giveaways by companies, organizations, and your neighbor if you just take a look around.
Some of the easiest ones to pick up are items are that are “one man’s junk”, for lack of a better word. Both major coffee/tea chains freely give away their used grounds for soil amendment. These are usually kept in a particular place that is easily accessible. If there are none in the bin that day, keep checking back.
Some companies or agencies want you to sign up for their e-newsletter to receive something. The recent one I found was for California Native Seeds at http://www.applyresponsibly.org/ . You take a water wise quiz and at the end enter your information to be sent your seed packets.
Newspaper makes great “landscape fabric”. We’ve been putting it down as a layer before we put down our growing medium for a few years now. For us, it seems to work just as well or better than any we would buy. Just be sure to use a newspaper that uses soy based ink like the San Francisco Chronicle. Unwaxed broken up cardboard boxes work well as a weed block too, or just to plain get rid of the weeds. Be sure to weight these down if they aren’t going under topsoil right away.
Wood chips for garden mulch or even decorative purposes can be had from many arborists. The arborist that cut down some poorly placed trees was more than happy to leave the chipped wood with us and even said he’d be glad to drop some more by if he was in the neighborhood and we needed more.
Garden Supply Company has a pretty good free vegetable garden planner. You can choose the size of your garden by square feet and then either choose a pre-planned garden from their selection, or you can create your own. It seems like that base it on the square foot garden design. You can even change the name of the vegetables if you’d like say to Patti’s Parsnips, or fill in the names of all the different varieties of tomatoes you’ve planted this year. They even allow you to email it to yourself (or your gardener if you’re say Martha Stewart and have one on staff). It will include planting and care directions for those you’ve chosen. http://www.gardeners.com/Kitchen-Garden-Planner/kgp_home,default,pg.html?SC=XNET9009
There is a plethora of goods out there for the gardener to be had for basically nothing, so go and get it, and hopefully you’ll be able to avoid injury.
Patti's Sample Garden.
