Winter 2020 - Volume 1, Issue 1
Greetings!

The year 2020 marks a new beginning with new possibilities and new opportunities starting with our new Quarterly Newsletter, "News to Grow By" for which you signed up. Every season we will reach out and happily share the many resources we make available to you:   ask us  or  find us  for the Gardening Questions you might have,  Workshops  or  Talks  you wish to attend, hands-on  Demonstration Gardens  you’d like to visit or to do your own Research on our  Contra Costa Website .

You will be informed ahead of time about Special Events, interesting Books to read, Seasonal Recipes, and much more to prepare you for the next growing season and help give you the confidence to explore new ideas.

Warm Regards,
Hedwig Van Den Broeck, Editor
Image by Capri23auto from Pixabay
Simple Resolutions With A Big Impact
By Kate Verhoef
January is a good time to evaluate priorities and set goals for the year ahead. Here are five ideas for simple resolutions that can have a big impact for 2020 and beyond.

1)   Want to nurture native insects? We all know that native bee populations are under threat from pesticide use and habitat loss. Luckily, it’s not too late to sow a native wildflower meadow. Here is a handy how-to from a fellow Master Gardener over in Marin County: 

If you sow your seeds in early January, by spring your meadow will be a riot of colorful blooms just teeming with grateful insects! As an added mental health bonus, you can set up a comfy spot among the wildflowers to sit and enjoy a cup of tea. Just twenty minutes of this will restore your sense of joy, gratitude, and awe – guaranteed! While you’re sitting and sipping, you can expand your knowledge of native California bees and their relationship to native flowers by reading  California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalist s , by renowned bee expert Gordon Frankie and his colleagues Robbin W. Thorp, Rollin E. Coville, and Barbara Ertter.

Winter is an excellent time to plan
for the next Growing Season
This rainy season puts us Master Gardeners in a good mood! Nature looks so much happier after a rainy day. True, we tend to stay more indoors and the little time we do spend in the garden, we need to bundle up and try not to loose our boots in Contra Costa's most common soil: heavy clay.


And while indoors, why don't you give yourself a head-start by Planning and Dreaming now!
 Click here for a printable pdf for a larger view of UC Davis Arboretum All-Stars planting plan from the landscape outside the west fence of the Arboretum Teaching Nursery as an inspiration for your home garden. 
Our Demonstration Gardens
are open year-round
Come on Out and See Us!

By Lori Palmquis t
CID, CIC, CLIA, CLWM, QWEL, WWLP
Irrigation Education, Consultation, and Design

The Richmond Dry Garden is a water-efficient demonstration garden that currently contains five distinct areas, each with a theme featuring low-water and drought-tolerant plants. 

Click on aerial photo for a better view
The themes are:
California Native Garden
Bird/Butterfly (Habitat) Garden
Mediterranean Garden
Succulent/Dry Garden
Mixed Perennial Border

The garden is tended by the volunteers of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County. We are out working in the garden every Friday from 9:00 am until 12:30 pm. You're welcome to stop by and chat.

During the years leading up its adoption by the UC Master Gardener Program, invasive weeds had taken over the garden. Now that the weeds have been completely removed, a design team of UC Master Gardeners is updating each of the thematic areas. We fully expect the Richmond Dry Garden to re-emerge as a local gem that will draw visitors from far and wide. Stay tuned for our official opening and beyond... Got questions about what we're doing? Contact us at mgcc.richmonddry@gmail.com !

Current state of the garden
Currently, we are restoring the garden to its former glory. We have removed the old irrigation and installed new drip systems. We are 86% finished installing those. We will have a public workshop this spring to install the new drip in the Habitat Garden. Watch for announcements in a couple of months to participate. We have also started the new planting effort and have nearly finished the California Native section. 


Location of the garden
The garden is located next to the Richmond Public Library at the Richmond Civic Center, on Macdonald Avenue between Civic Center Plaza and 27th Street

History of the garden
The Richmond Dry Garden was installed in August 2005, as a joint project of the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) and the City of Richmond. Originally named the "Richmond Demonstration Garden," it was maintained by the City of Richmond until January 2018, when it was adopted by the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County. Our UC Master Gardener volunteers began applying their TLC in May 2018.

What it promises to be
The Richmond Dry Garden promises to be a hub for public education and demonstration of sustainable and water-efficient practices in the landscape. The City of Richmond and EBMUD are still very much involved in a mutual mission and partnership with the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa. They are working together on behalf of the public and the stewardship of our valuable resources and landscapes. The garden itself will feature examples of plantings that can be locally obtained and are proven winners in the unique climate of western Contra Costa County. It will represent the beautiful aesthetics of plants that are adapted to our summer-dry state and to local conditions. UC Master Gardeners plan to hold workshops, classes, and talks at the garden and at the Richmond Public Library, next door to the garden. They are proud to call this garden their own and feel up to the task of achieving their mission through their own efforts, and the collaborative efforts of their partners, EBMUD and the City of Richmond.

By Janet Miller
We delivered 13,468 pounds of produce to the Monument Crisis Center, which is about 1,000 pounds more than the last two years. Our fruit trees are maturing and really beginning to produce nicely. We harvested over 400 pounds of table grapes from our little vineyard. We are currently still harvesting broccoli, cauliflower, kale and chard. 

We are experimenting with no-till gardening and composting in place, rather than removing everything from spent beds and composting separately. Now when we harvest, we cut the plants off at soil level and leave the roots undisturbed so as not to interrupt the growth of all of the microorganisms in the soil. So far, the results have been very good, our crops have been healthy, disease free and very productive. We'll do a soil test in the next few weeks for a closer look at results.

We are experimenting with new kinds of cover crops including fodder radishes. These are daikon radishes that grow a tuber up to 2 feet long and are excellent for loosening up hard clay soil. We'll leave the radishes in the soil to decompose and feed the microbial life before planting our next crop. 

For the last few years we have grown what we call a "family bed," which is one of our 100 square foot beds planted to demonstrate what a family might grow in their own small garden. That has been a favorite with our visitors and a nice place to experiment with different veggies. We grew a beautiful stand of Christmas Lima Beans, a runner bean that is left in the pod till dry.  

In 2019, our classes included more hands-on demonstrations in the garden, which has been very popular with our visitors. We demonstrated bed preparation, planting cover crops of all kinds, intensive planting method, both summer and winter pruning of fruit trees, espalier fruit trees and grape pruning. We often heard comments like "oh, that's what you meant when said...." Turns out a picture, or in this case a hands-on demo, is worth a thousand words!

We now have a wonderful long list of school, community and church gardens that rely on us for seedlings both in the spring and the fall, and we look forward to their visits each season.

The number of visits from preschool groups keeps growing and our Master Gardeners have gotten really good at touring the kids through the garden, letting them discover insects and mushrooms, and the delights of eating straight from the garden.

Our group of volunteers keeps growing and we seem to keep everyone fairly busy and, more importantly, coming back.  The thing I am most proud of about Our Garden is the amazing community of Master Gardeners that keeps it growing and improving. The mission to share information is important and motivating. Growing food that goes to some of the most needy and vulnerable in our community is meaningful. The friendships formed, not to mention our legendary luncheons under the oak tree, are a true gift to all of us and may just be the most important reason we all keep coming back!
(previously called Mangini)
There’s exciting news in East County! The UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa has established a new demonstration garden,  Rivertown , at the Contra Costa County Fairgrounds in Antioch. 
Rivertown Garden is open to the general public every Tuesday from 10 am to noon, February through October. Stop by, visit and wander, and get your general home gardening questions answered.
Rivertown Garden boasts an indoor classroom for presentations and a large park to have classes under the trees in good weather. Join UC Master Gardener speakers for short demonstrations & classes covering topics such as fruit trees, vegetables, bugs, tools and irrigation, all offered free to the community. And, our Ask A Master Gardener team will be available each class date. 
We are here for you!
Join us for a Class, Free Talk and Special Events
We are in full swing adding talks, classes and special events for 2020. Check the calendar on our website regularly for new additions and special events. For Events by Location , visit
http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Find_Us/Find_Us_by_Location/

 Jan 30 : 6:30-8:00pm Library Talk (Lafayette): 
Edible Flowers
Feb 4 : 6:00-8:00pm Library Talk (El Cerrito): 
Creating a Pollinator Habitat in your Garde n
Feb 11 : 1:00-2:00pm Library Talk (Pittsburg): 
Pomegranates
Feb 26: 6:3-7:30pm: Library Talk (San Ramon):
Successful Fruit & Vegetable Gardening

Mar 7-28 : 9:00am-12:00pm
FULL - Growing Gardeners (Richmond)

Mar 10: 1pm-2pm Library Talk (Pittsburg):
Basic Composting for the Home Gardener

Mar 25 : 6:30pm-7:30pm Library Talk (San Ramon):
Pollinators!

Certainly, don't forget to put dates for our highly popular 9th Annual Great Tomato Plant Sale on your calendar (3 locations). Hope to see you there!
Apr  4: 10am-3pm Walnut Creek GTPS
Apr 11: 10am-3pm Antioch GTPS
Apr 25: 10am-3pm Richmond GTPS
Coming soon: Growing Gardeners Course
en Español
Since early 2018, the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County have been teaching a training for the public that consists of 12 hours of classroom and hands-on instruction in edible gardening.

Nine subjects are covered over the course of the training. Upon completing all 12 hours of the course, participants become UC-Certified Growing Gardeners.
This program is wildly popular in our county, and often sells out within hours of registration opening. This training is offered three times a year and is moved around to different parts of the county.

Following are the subjects taught:
●      Plant Botany
●      Soil
●      Compost
●      Plant Selection & Care
●      Irrigation
●      Tools
●      Pollinators
●      IPM
●      Searching on the Internet

Several people who have taken this training went on to apply for, and became full-fledged Master Gardeners later. The quality of instruction, and the positive feedback gleaned from the participants has shown all of us how valuable this program is, and we can see that everybody wins.

Now the Master Gardeners are intent on bringing this wonderful training to the Spanish-speaking population in Contra Costa County. We’ve gathered an enthusiastic group of Spanish-speaking Master Gardeners, and have started making plans to launch a pilot of the training sometime in the fall of this year.

We’re looking for ideas
Since we don’t have any outreach channels in place to announce our programs to the Spanish-speaking community in this county, we’re open to any ideas you might have that will help us reach our potential participants. Finding channels for outreach and possible venues to offer training are at the top of our to-do list. We welcome you contacting us at mgcc.growinggardeners@gmail.com if you have ideas for us.
We’re so excited about the prospect of being able to offer this training in Spanish. It promises to be a good time for all.

 
Why I became a Master Gardener
by Jill Cordry, MGCC President

The summer of 2010 was unusually hot for Russia; Peat fires burned on the outskirts of Moscow, smoke filled the city, and the absence of summer showers generated very unhealthy air. People and plants felt miserable! A friend of mine at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Harolyn, asked for volunteers to try and keep the flowers, shrubs and grass alive. 
As a Master Gardener from Oklahoma, Harolyn devoted herself to planting and maintaining a welcoming garden at this 130-year-old church and I decided to volunteer. The following three months, I rose early every day and enjoyed learning and working with my friend. At the end of the summer, we both experienced the satisfaction of seeing the garden survive. 

Gardening was a relatively new interest for me, and most of my experience had been trial and error and more error. My husband and I moved often, and I learned that the plants I enjoyed in my little garden in London weren’t particularly happy living less than a mile from the North Sea in Scotland. When we lived in Libya, I missed having corn-on-the-cob for barbecues so I tried growing it from seed. I have to say, I still missed corn-on-the-cob. Upon returning to the US after our latest stint in Moscow, I took my friend’s advice and looked for a local Master Gardener program.

Like many people who attend an information session, I was surprised to learn that the classes are not offered for "personal gardening information". When accepted, we would learn horticultural best practices in order to inform the public. Additionally, my lack of gardening experience was certainly not a dis-qualifier as I had other skills that were needed and valued within the organization.

Except for a three-year stretch in the tropical rain forest, that is Singapore, I have spent the last 8 years learning from and working with fellow Master Gardeners. I am so thankful that, when my friend Harolyn asked me for help, I stepped up and volunteered!

Jill Cordry is a serial expat and the president of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County.
Website and Social Media
Most of our outreach programs will ramp back up in March and April. Keep an eye out for The Great Tomato Plant Sale , our biggest Spring Event.
Visit us often!
Website ccmg.ucanr.edu
subscribe to our Hort Coco Blog http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/
or follow us on Social Media http://www.facebook.com/CoCoMasterGardeners
Ask a Master Gardener (AAMG) and our Helpdesk
Got a Gardening Question?

UC Master Gardeners have a booth at Farmers' Market s throughout Contra Costa County from April to November so that we can answer your home gardening questions.

Our Help Desk is staffed 50 weeks* of the year, Monday-Thursday 9 a.m.-Noon. Options:
  • Visit us during Help Desk hours at 2380 Bisso Lane, Suite B, Concord, CA 94520, starting August 6, 2018.
  • Call us at (925) 608-6683. If you call outside Help Desk hours, please leave both your phone number and email address so that we may respond to you in a timely manner.
  • Email us at ccmg@ucanr.edu. Please use email if you want to submit photos along with your question(s).
Bonus: Seasonal Recipes
Belgian Endive is often used just in salads. In Belgium you will find this versatile and rather underrated winter vegetable prepared in many different ways; braised, as a gratin with ham and cheese, etc.
Click here for an easy but very tasty soup recipe which only takes 20 mins to prepare.
Do you still have leftover Persimmon from that amazing harvest last fall? Together with Pomegranate seeds, this creamy and very healthy dessert is always a hit!

Click here for the recipe