The Baxter County Master Gardeners are a fun group of folks who enjoy sharing their love of gardening with any visitor.

At our meetings we have speakers, refreshments, & fun.

Come join us!


Next Meeting Date:
June 13, 2019 from 1:00 - 3:00 pm

Meeting Place: 
The First Presbyterian Church
1106 Spring Street
Mountain Home, AR

June Speakers: 
Guest Speaker: Debbie Blakeslee, Master Gardemer
Topic:  Water Management Systems -- Rain Barrels

Horticulture Table: Janice Rose
Topic: Plants to Bring to the Fair
​
​Master Gardeners Monthly Radio Program:
Mountain Talk Radio June  19th on 97.1   7:15 a.m. - 8:am.
Master Gardener Hosts this month are Tommy Hagan and Ceil Gasiecki

Directions:
From Mountain Home
Take US Hwy. 62B East through Mountain Home until you come to Cardinal Street. Cardinal Street is the intersection just past Harp's Grocery.  Turn right onto Cardinal Street and travel South until you come to the first stop sign which should be Spring Street. Turn left onto Spring Street and go down the hill past the bridge and the First Presbyterian Church will be on your right hand side. 

From Gassville:
Take Hwy. 62/412 towards Mountain Home. Once you get to Mountain Home continue on into Mountain Home on US 62B. This will take you through town till you get to Harp's Grocery and you come to Cardinal Street. Cardinal Street is the intersection just past Harp's Grocery.  Turn right onto Cardinal Street and travel South until you come to the first stop sign which should be Spring Street. Turn left onto Spring Street and go down the hill past the bridge and the First Presbyterian Church will be on your right hand side. here to edit.

Here are some things gardeners need to be considering for May:

• Remember to feed hummingbirds with 1 part sugar and 3 or 4 parts water. There is no need in using red food coloring. Replace sugar water mix at least once a week if it is not emptied sooner.
• As early vegetables bolt, go ahead and harvest what you have; cutting off the seed stalk will not encourage new growth.  Broccoli heads may not be as large, but harvest while they are full and closed.  Yellow blooms means the quality is going way down.
• To ensure that you will have the largest onions in the neighborhood, fertilize weekly using a liquid nitrogen fertilizer or 34-0-0 fertilizer (1/3 lb. per 100 ft.). Onions need a constant level of nitrogen to perform their best.
• Watch for caterpillars on cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and ornamentals and take control measures early by using Bacillus thuringiensis (Dipel, Javelin and other trade names). Larger, more mature caterpillars are harder to control and you may have to use Sevin.
• Warm season vegetables – tomatoes, pepper, squash, okra and corn can be planted.  As you plant, broadcast a complete fertilizer in the soil, then repeat in about 6 weeks.  Mulch and water as needed.  Watch for insects, diseases and weeds.
• To prevent early blight on tomatoes, start spraying with chlorothalonil or mancozeb when first bloom clusters are noticed. This disease causing fungus can stay in the soil for several years. Mulching will help some, which prevents the splashing of soil onto the lower leaves. Planting tomatoes in a new spot will help, but contaminating your new garden site can happen so quickly. This disease is transferred to a new garden by wind-blown spores, contaminated tools and shoes, buying diseased plants, or chewing insects.
• Keep a clean garden.  Mulch around plants with 3-4 inches of mulch to help maintain moisture and discourage weeds.  Organic mulches also break down slowly, releasing nutrients into the soil.  Mulch also cuts down on soil borne diseases such as tomato blight.
• Herb gardens are an easy way to have an ample supply of fresh herbs for cooking. Most nurseries carry herb plants. Many are perennials and some are evergreen and can be used in the landscape as well as to eat. Rosemary is a semi-shrub and thyme makes an attractive evergreen groundcover in full sun. Be careful with pesticides around herbs – remember you are going to eat them!
• Prune spring flowering shrubs as soon as the flowers fade.  If you prune in the fall or winter, you will remove next season’s flower buds.
• Check azaleas for lacebugs. This small sucking insect prefers to feed on azaleas or pyracantha but can spill over onto any kind of adjacent plants. The leaves of infested plants are yellowed and stippled on top. Black deposits from the lacebug are left on the underside of the leaves. To control, apply acephate, imidacloprid, bifenthrin, or permethrin according to label directions.
• Fertilize warm-season lawns – zoysia and bermuda – as soon as they are totally greened up.  Use a high nitrogen fertilizer.  Most of the weeds that have been blooming are winter weeds and should be on their way out.  Start watching for summer weeds – crabgrass and nutgrass – and catch them as they emerge and try to stop their spread.
• Spring flowering bulb foliage needs to remain as long as possible (minimum of 6-8 weeks after blooming). Foliage can be removed at first signs of yellowing. As foliage begins to yellow it’s a good time to dig and divide clumps of overcrowded or unwanted bulbs while foliage is still visible.
• Dogwood, flowering plum, ornamental cherry, crabapple and related plants are prone to borers. Borers usually enter the trunks of these trees at soil line and can cause death in one or two seasons. A preventative control for borers is an application of insecticide applied to the trunk of trees in early May and repeated at six week intervals 2-3 times. Permethrin or bifenthrin work well in protecting these valuable ornamental specimen trees. Also, applying a 2-3 inch mulch around these ornamentals helps prevent damage to the trunk from lawnmowers and string line trimmers which helps prevent borers too.
• Houseplants can safely be moved outside if you haven’t already done so.  Expose plants to sunlight gradually.
• When pansies and violas start to fade, replace them with summer annuals for summer color.  There are lots of excellent annuals to choose from.  Some to consider are the penta which likes the sun, attracts hummingbirds and butterflies and comes in pink, red, white and purple and Dragonwing Begonia is another one for partial shade.

 
            For more information on gardening, contact the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Baxter County Extension office at 425-2335.

Thanks to all who supported our plant sale; it was very successful! We started out with 1,016 plants that included perennials, annuals, succulents, trees, bushes, ground cover and grasses. We were basically sold out by 10:15 a.m., and there were only a few house plants left. There were a total of 166 customers who bought plants.

Mark your calendars  for next year's plant sale,  April 25th, 2020. Our sale is always the last Saturday in April. 

Thanks again for your support.
 
The 2019 Plant Sale Committee

The next two International Master Gardener Conferences in 2021 and 2023.  

The State of Virginia will be hosting the next conference September 12 - 18, 2021 in Norfolk, Virginia.  It will be held at the Hotel Conference Center: Hilton Norfolk The Main (http://www.themainnorfolk.com/).
And for those who like to plan ahead, add Kansas to your travel calendar for 2023.  We don't know any other details right now but look forward to hearing more in the years to come.

​Happy gardening to all. Hope to see you at Valley Forge, PA in June!
Deb Soutar and Nancy Knauss
2019 IMGC Co-chairs