From the Desk of the Director | | |
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Marlin Bates
County Extension Director
Welcome to the Summer edition of our newsletter. I hope that you’ll take a few minutes to peruse its contents and dive in where you find interest. While there is always ample opportunity to connect with us, this time of year seems particularly abundant with options. We’re deep enough into the growing season that plant problems begin to appear, close enough to the Douglas County Fair to see 4-H projects in full swing, and days are long enough to cause us to yearn for closer connections to community.
Throughout this newsletter, you’ll find classes and events that we hope you’ll consider attending and you’ll find guidance on some of the most common issues we’ve been hearing about lately. Alongside our own efforts, you’ll note that we’re working with our partners to craft our community’s next health plan and our first open space plan. You, too, can contribute to those planning efforts and we encourage you to take a few minutes to take those surveys.
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As we move toward the middle of the calendar year, our Extension Council and Executive Board are keeping an eye on our progress toward the outcomes in the strategic plan that we adopted late last year. Our Program Development Committees continue to guide our work and their assistance is greatly appreciated. The Executive Board’s nominating committee will soon begin recruiting for next year’s Extension Council, so let us know if you’d like to learn more about those important roles.
We’re excited to be hosting five Summer Engagement Interns. Their presence plus the arrival of new employees Ginny Barnard (LiveWell Douglas County Executive Director) and Sophia Diaz (SNAP-Ed Nutrition Educator) will have this Extension Office full of activity and excitement. Stop by to say hi and see what we’re up to – we can’t wait to tell you about it!
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More Than a Kitchen Sale
Kaitlyn Peine
Community Health & Wellness
Extension Agent
On April 22, 2023, the Community Health and Wellness Program in tandem with the Extension Master Food Volunteers hosted the Kitchen Sale for the first time since 2019. Bargain seekers from college students to seniors shopped our Kitchen Sale. The sale would not have been possible without the gracious donations of gently used kitchen equipment and the patronage of the shoppers.
In February we started soliciting and accepting donations of gently used kitchen equipment. The community response to our ask for donations was outstanding. Thank you to the K-State Research and Extension team who graciously gave up precious office space to store our donated inventory. We received a plethora of great items to not only have inventory for our sale, but also make contributions to our community partners serving limited-income families and individuals.
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The Kitchen Sale is an opportunity for community members to donate kitchen appliances, dinnerware, utensils, cookbooks, and other kitchen treasures. The sale offered a variety of kitchen items ranging in price from multiple items for a $1 to $10 for larger like new appliances. Customers of the sale were sure to find gadgets of all sizes to add to their home kitchens. |  | |
The sale is a fundraiser for the Extension Master Food Volunteer program. This year’s sale profits totaled $849. According to our records, this is the highest grossing Kitchen Sale. The money raised will be used for volunteer training and will fund the organizations community outreach efforts.
Volunteers are at the heart of almost every Extension event and the Kitchen Sale was no exception. The Extension Master Food Volunteers and the Community Health and Wellness Program staff planned and hosted the sale. Over 100 volunteer hours were contributed to the Kitchen Sale. Volunteers organized, staged, and priced kitchen items. The Extension Master Food Volunteers set up, hosted, and cleaned up from the sale.
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Grillin' and Chillin'? Remember food safety, says K-State expert
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State University food scientist Karen Blakeslee says food safety needs to be part of summer parties, especially when those get-togethers involve grilling food outdoors.
“To start with,” she said, “wash your hands. That’s the No. 1 step before you start handling any food, and then wash them again after you’ve handled any kind of raw meat.”
Much like cooking food indoors, home chefs need to keep a food thermometer close at hand, Blakeslee said. For meat, there are three temperatures that consumers should store to memory:
- 145 degrees Fahrenheit for steaks, roasts, chops, fish and other whole cuts of meat.
- 160 F for ground meat, including beef, pork and lamb.
- 165 F for all types of poultry.
Those temperatures include products that are smoked, cooked on a grill or indoors.
Read More Here
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SNAP is Making Partners in Community Health
Hilary Kass
SNAP-Ed Nutrition Educator
Collaboration is a common word used at the Douglas County Extension Office. Our reason for being is to extend helpful research-based information to everyone in Douglas County, and to reach everyone we must have collaborative relationships.
In SNAP Ed our specific target audience is low resource individuals and families that are eligible to receive SNAP benefits. Over the last few months, your SNAP Ed Nutrition Educators have had some great collaborations that we want to tell you about.
In April, the spacious Garden Room at the Senior Resource Center provided a welcoming space for a group that showed up each Tuesday afternoon to learn basic nutrition. But what also happened is that we all had a great time and were inspired to come each week and try new foods and ways of preparing them, as well as simple physical activity ideas. We heard people say, “I wasn’t going to come today but I am so glad that I did”, “I’ve never had this and it is really tasty”, “I’m going to stop at the store and try this recipe at home.
The Create Better Health curriculum that we use shows ways to use common food items to create healthy and tasty meals without requiring specific ingredients. This builds the skill of using whatever foods one has at the time to make a nourishing dish. Each recipe begins with the word Create; Create-A-Skillet Meal, Create-Easy Eggs, Create-A-Smoothie, Create-A-Grain Bowl.
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For Douglas County SNAP-Ed Updates, Click the icon below! | |
4-H Team Contests, Winning at Life Skills!
Nancy Noyes-Ward
4-H Youth Development Program Assistant
One of the first things a 4-H member will do after enrollment is their project selection.
Many project areas have a competitive contest, skillathon, or judging aspect. These contests are integral to project work in Horticulture, Horse, Photography, Poultry, Meat Science, Family Consumer Science, and Livestock, for example.
The first experience with any competitive judging may be practice in the local club setting. This will prepare the interested 4-Her to progress to competition with a team at the county fair, and as they gain skill and proficiency, they then may be on a team to compete at state contests. Oftentimes members progress to events on the national level.
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As youth begin learning the skill of judging or evaluating, they also learn skills that come along with this experience:
-They must learn how to communicate. The team members may give oral reasons to justify their placings of photographs, animals, plants, household furnishings, methods of cookery, etc
-Youth are learning decision-making. They learn the industry standards of each of the (cattle, horse, sheep) species and breeds.They must make decisions by comparing the four animals they are looking at against the breed standards they have learned. They learn to offer reasons for what puts a placing higher but also offer concessions and faults for each. This is an essential negotiation skill...
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4-H of Douglas County Updates
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What to do about that Green
Sharon Ashworth
Horticulture & Natural Resources
Extension Agent
As we head into the warmer months many ponds across the county will turn shades of green. Some shades of green are more problematic than others – blue-green algae can be a problem, but duckweeds are an important food source for waterfowl and fish.
If you are concerned about the green growth in your pond, the first step is to correctly identify the algae or plants growing in your pond. There are basically three groups of aquatic organisms to be concerned with: algae, blue-green algae, and vascular plants. Algae (photo 1) are photosynthetic organisms without roots, leaves, stems, or flowers. Blue-green algae (photo 2) are actually cyanobacteria, not algae. Vascular plants (photo 3) have roots, stems, leaves, and flowers and can be submersed, free-floating, rooted floating, or emergent.
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Aquatic vegetation grows and spreads in response to temperature, light, and nutrients. High nutrient runoff into shallow, warm ponds is the perfect recipe for explosions of aquatic vegetation. For ponds dedicated to wildlife, a seasonal spread of duckweed (Lemna spp.) or pondweed (Potamogeton spp.) can provide food and cover for aquatic life.
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If, however, algae or a singular vascular plant species becomes dominant such that it crowds out other plant life or prevents the use of the pond for swimming and fishing, control measures may be warranted. Treatment may be recommended when aquatic vegetation covers more than 25% of the pond’s surface area....
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For Horticulture & Natural Resources Updates, click icon below! | |
Garden Inspiration Weekend is Finally Here!
Niki Kennif
Agriculture & Horticulture
Program Assistant
The Douglas County Extension Master Gardeners will host the Garden Tour, Native Plant Sale and Garden Art Sale will all be taking place on Saturday, June 3rd and the Garden Tour will continue on through Sunday, June 4th.
The Garden Tour will highlight 6 unique local gardens in Douglas County.
One garden on the tour highlights the transformation from lawn to garden with an emphasis on water conservation/management.
| When viewing this eclectic garden, visitors may not think that it began as a plain, grassy lawn twenty-five years ago. Rather than putting all that work into plain grass, they began removing it one section at a time. Now, instead of grass, portions of the garden are a flower garden, a vegetable garden, and an herb garden, creating a mix of function and aesthetics. | |  |
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Another garden featured on the tour might be described as a cross between a Japanese garden and an English garden. The home-owner tries to add a major feature each year – a new area, focal point, or bed. He loves reusing quality materials that need a new home. Most of the materials in the gardens’ décor were discovered on Craigslist and Marketplace, or scavenged from junk piles.
One garden in Old West Lawrence can be best described as eclectic and focuses on a combination of shade-loving annuals and perennials.
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Extension Master Gardener Resources & Updates | |
Renovating Broom Sedge Infested Grasslands
Margit Kaltenekkar
Agriculture Extension Agent
Many callers ask about restoring productivity of our grasslands in Douglas County. Many pastures and hay grounds are infested with ‘Broom sedge’ (Andropogon virginicus), also known as ‘Broom sedge Bluestem’ or ‘Poverty Grass’ is not a true sedge, but a warm season - native grass resembling Little Bluestem (Schizycharium scoparium) with its red, fluffy seed heads. Broom sedge becomes a problem in fields or pastures that are frequently hayed below 3 – 4 inches, or over-grazed, but not routinely fertilized. Poorly managed pastures and hayfields – have bare soil, leaving them vulnerable to weeds of all kinds. Broom sedge thrives in “poor”, low pH (acidic) and low phosphorous soils which is why it is commonly called ‘Poverty Grass’. Highly un-palatable to livestock, Broom sedge takes over pastures as they selectively graze around it;– it goes to seed! Its control is a matter of soil fertility, lime, and grazing management and possibly summer burning or glyphosate herbicide.
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Sustained productivity of lush grass pastures demands regular fertility and intensive grazing management, (or MIG). By supporting the health and growth of the grasses you wish to favor, the noxious weeds will decrease over time with proper management. In some cases, reseeding pastures is another way to increase production of the grasses you wish to favor, but a lot can be done with proper management alone.
Soil test and adjust fertility. Follow the K-State recommendations for fertilizing your pastures. Broom sedge favors soils depleted in phosphorous and lime. Boosting pH and soil fertility will strengthen the stands of the warm and cool season grasses giving them a chance to outcompete some of the Broom sedge, but it takes at least 1-2 years for lime to dissolve in the soil. If you choose to follow the conventional, chemical fertility approach you will need to follow through with a fertility program for a few years prior to seeing noticeable change in the grassland.
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Kansas net farm income holds strong in 2022
By Pat Melgares,
K-State Research and Extension News Service
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Despite rapid increases in input costs, widespread drought and low yield, net income on Kansas farms held strong in 2022, according to a report from the Kansas Farm Management Association. In fact, KFMA executive director Mark Dikeman said he is “relieved that income was as high as it was” considering the adversity that many Kansas farmers faced during the past year. This year, Dikeman notes, Kansas net farm income came in at $164,914, just below a five-year average of $173,660, but well ahead of the five-year period between 2016-2020 when the state’s net farm income averaged $99,497.
Listen to an interview by Shelby Varner with KFMA economists on the weekday radio podcast, Agriculture Today...
Read More Here
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Kansas State University is committed to making its services, activities, and programs accessible to all participants. If you have special requirements due to a physical, vision, or hearing disability, contact K-State Research and Extension Douglas County, 785-843-7058. Notify staff of accommodation needs as early as possible. Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service K-State Research and Extension is an equal opportunity provider and employer. | | | | |
