Okaloosa County Master Gardeners!

…for discerning weeders

A Newsletter of the Okaloosa County Master Gardeners Association –– May 2011

Slow Food Lynn Fabian

Do you care where your food is coming from? There are many schools of thought about what

we put in our mouths. Slow Food movement, organically grown, low car-bon footprint, liv-ing green; all of these phrases indicate some level of involve-ment in how you feel about the

food you eat to fuel your body. This article will not deal with the fast food movement!

We first encountered the Slow Food movement in Italy. It has been raised to an art form there. Three words define the movement: Good, Clean and Fair. Good implies enjoying deli-cious food created with care from healthy plants and animals. Clean food is nutritious for our bodies and good for the planet. Fair means food is a universal right and accessible to all. http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/slow_food/good_clean_fair/

The USDA National Organic Program (NOP) defines organic as

food [is] produced by farmers who em-phasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is pro-duced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with syn-thetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. Be-fore a product can be labeled "organic," a Government-approved certifier in-spects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet NOP or-ganic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to your local supermarket or restaurant must be certified, too. http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/nop

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The carbon footprint of food involves the con-sideration of such topics as how far away from you was the food grown; how much energy did it take to raise, process and deliver the food for you to eat.

Living green is about water, energy, waste, landscaping, wildlife, natural history and food. UF has a web site dedicated to the subject at http://livinggreen.ifas.ufl.edu/.

We are already familiar with many of the tenets of Living Green; under the heading “Landscap-ing” are topics such as invasive plants, IPM, mulch, fertilizers and pesticides and many oth-ers.

Some areas of the country have been more in-volved in the organic/slow/green production of foods for longer than others. Try the calculator that lets you test one food over another to see what it “costs”. No guarantees that it is accu-rate, but it does make you think about differ-ences in out-of-season fruit and locally grown choices.http://www.sierraclubgreenhome.com/co2-carbon-dioxide-center/eat-low-carbon-diet/

Take some time to think about your interaction with your environment. I know we can find many ways to improve our carbon footprint and make choices that will reflect in our health and well being.

Share your ideas on the subject. Let’s start a revolution in our own backyards.

Eating is always a decision, nobody forces your handto pick up food and put it into your mouth.

Albert Ellis, Michael Abrams, Lidia Dengelegi

The Art & Science of Rational Eating, 1992

Update on Locally Grown Food Lynn Fabian

I"m going to check out the Okaloosa County Farmer"s Market this week. They are located near the fairgrounds and are open year round on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 6 a.m. until 12 noon.

Aker"s in Baker says the strawberry season will go until the 2nd week in May and later there will be local blueberries. They carry fresh produce in season.

Did anyone find out about a farmer"s market in Destin?

So far there have been no sellers (that I have seen) at the fruit and veggie stand set up at the corner of SR85 South (Government Ave) and John Sims Parkway, but the stand is still there.

Two food co-ops are listed for Okaloosa County:

Emerald Coast Organic Not-for-profit Co-op119 Truxton AveFt. Walton Beach, FLwww.emeraldcoastorganicfoodcoop.org

850-225-9188

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Coming Events !

–MG General Meeting Wednesday, May 4th, 9:00a

–BMP classes, 2nd Wed. each month thru October. (Next one, 11 May, 0930-1130, Annex.)–Nursery workday, Annex, last Wednesday each month thru October. (Also, every Friday morning.)–Plant Clinic, 19 May, 1000-1300, Annex–BIA Home Show in Crestview, 24 Sep–State Conference, Orlando, 24-26 Oct

* June MG Meeting will be at Shalimar Baptist Church

(E-mail events to Editor/Compost Pile)

Thanks to Bill for the list of events.And my apologies for listing the wrong date for Plant Clinics in the April Compost Pile

It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still safe to eat.

~Robert Fuoss

And

Off the Vine Organic ProduceContact Shana Wolfwww.offthevine.org850374-2181

Jane reminded me there is a vendor of fresh

veggies and fruits who comes to the corner of Range Road and Highway 20 E. close to the BP station across from the Bay Drive entrance to Bluewater. He comes on Fridays and Sun-days spring, summer and fall from 7:00 AM un-

til Noon. She believes he has already started coming.

And from Shari: There is a farmer’s market in Crestview on Industrial Dr; northbound on Hwy 85, turn right at the corner of Stillwell and 85N then left on Industrial. The Market is located in the field on the right under the pavilion canopy on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

Remember, local produce is probably fresher than other produce but it does not mean it is organic. It certainly should have a lower car-bon footprint.

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Walk on the Wild Side Linda Meyers

Wow, it feels like summer has already arrived. We're seeing daytime temperatures in the mid-80's and low 90's. Along with higher tempera-tures here are some animal behaviors you should look for this May:

Birds

Brown pelican and white ibis young are now visible in their nests.Bald eagles begin migrat-ing north.Breeding begins for many resident and summer songbirds.The last of the cedar wax-wings and goldfinches head for their northern breeding grounds.

Least terns and Snowy Plovers nest on beaches and sandy flats of the Panhandle.

Mammals

Gray Bats congre-gate at maternity caves now through mid-July.

Reptiles

Alligators begin to court and make loud resounding 'bellows'.Loggerhead sea turtles begin nesting on sum-mer nights.Soft-shell and alligator snapping turtles com-plete egg laying.

Fish

Bluegill are bedding at the full moon.Redbreast sunfish and spotted sunfish begin spawning in rivers.Pompano running in the surf in north Florida.

Pompano

Least Tern

photo by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

A wonderful bird is the pelican,His bill will hold more than his belican,

He can take in his beakEnough food for a week

But I'm damned if I see how the helican! Dix

on L

an

ier

Merr

itt

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Nursery Crawling Lynn Fabian

What a wonderful outing we had last Thursday! This is just one more in a line of interesting events our intrepid field trip planners have pro-

vided. Klare Fox and Stacey Taylor have worked many hours fig-uring out where to go and how to get us there with the least lost folks. About twenty MGs and friends and family made the trip east.

This latest event took us to the Tallahassee area for two nurseries and down to the coast for a look at Just Fruits and Exotics. I was pleas-antly surprised to find that JF&E had many plants to offer besides fruit trees.

The trip began under cloudy skies and even though I kept assuring Lockey that it was going to clear, I will never make a forecaster. By the time we arrived in Crawfordville, the rain was pouring so hard it was difficult to see. As we drove on the prop-erty at JF&E, a fellow shrouded head to toe foul weather gear came out to see what we wanted. His exclamation of “you came! We thought you wouldn"t come!” reminded us that gardeners are made of stern stuff...or maybe we"re just a little crazy.

The Native Nursery in Tallahassee was the smallest place we vis-ited but we found plenty of things to take away for our own gar-dens. They had a number of native azaleas for sale and that was my downfall.

I saw others pulling carts or holding flats of treasures that found their way into trunks or the back seat. Whether you bought or not, there were plenty of goodies to long for and decide if you really had room for or not (in the garden OR the car!). And when we weren"t selecting and

buying, we were talking about gardening and Master Gardening with our fellow trippers.

The final stop was at Tallahassee Nursery, one of my favorite places. This large, in-town nurs-ery is in a lovely park setting. Just wandering

up and down the areas is a treat. The mix of bed-ding plants and landscape speci-mens and yard art. (Did anyone buy that four foot rusted chicken??) It can occupy

many hours. They have a huge dragon I would love to have but do

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What WAS That Thing? Lynn Fabian

not have room for. No use in terrifying the golf-ers in our backyard; the price tag is a stopper at $3500...but it is a really neat dragon.

All this looking and shopping created some big appetites and the chosen restaurant was Food, Glorious Food. No one left hungry but some of us found a DQ on the way out of town. There are all sorts of glorious food.

I have but one complaint. Can someone work on the shortcut to Tallahassee so the trip is about an hour and a half and not three hours? The trip cannot be shortened. It is three hours plus one for Eastern time no matter how you drive it. Having good company made it seem much shorter.

Enjoy the pictures. I"ll send Marg more for the web site.

It isn"t an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, but it is the next best thing. A wrong turn on the field trip put us in the perfect position to find this wood-pecker working hard to secure her next meal.

We missed the turn into the Native Nursery in Tallahassee and turned into a cul-de-sac to re-verse for our destina-tion. The driveway we entered had a fallen tree and a Pileated Woodpecker was work-ing the rotten stump.

They are beautiful crea-tures and it is a treat to find one so interested in her lunch that she ignored the creatures taking pictures of her.

We watched as she pulled a fat larva from the stump and wiggled it down her gullet. This woodpecker is 15–19 inches long and has a wingspan of up to 30 inches. Weighing in at 8–12 pounds, think small turkey and you get a grasp of the size of this bird. The Florida Mu-seum of Natural History calls it “crow-sized”.

The Pileated Woodpeckers declined as our for-ests were cut. They need large trees to nest in. Today they are recovering and expanding

throughout most of its regions. It occurs throughout Florida.

Overall they are black, males have a bright red crest, forehead, and mustache; females are similar without red forehead and mustache. (Florida Museum of History)

If you look closely at the picture on the left, you can see this is a female.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pileated_Woodpecker/lifehistory#at_consv

Male Pileated Woodpecker

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President"s Message ! Bill Buckellew

The April 22nd Plant Clinic was a real success. Thanks to all who participated. We didn’t have a lot of custom-ers, but that meant everyone who came in got personal, individual service from sev-eral MGs as well as Larry and Sheila. We’re looking at having evening Plant Clinics as well, one at the Annex and one in Crestview, both on a trial basis. Watch for announcements on this.

Good news for the Interns: Work at the Annex Nursery in preparation for the fall Plant Sale will count for fund-raising activity. I know many of

the new class were concerned about this; no problem anymore. Just come to the Annex, get dirty, and get credit. There’s a glitch to the fall Plant Sale schedule, however. The BIA had to move their show to September 24th to avoid conflict with the Destin Seafood Festival. This means we won’t be able to sell our plants then for numerous reasons. We’ll have to have a separate sale sometime afterward. There are a lot of things to work out, so, again, watch for announcements and calls for volunteers.

One more thing I’m especially concerned about: It’s starting to warm up. As MGs, we like to be outdoors, but constantly be mindful of the heat. It’s easy to become dehydrated and heat-stressed – don’t let it happen to you!

The holy grail of birders is to find an Ivory-billed Woodpecker alive and well. Old timers called this bird the “Lord God” bird. Apparently the usual response when seeing it was “Lord God Almighty! What was

that!!”

Last Word Lynn Fabian

I’ve said too much already.

See you Wednesday. –– Lynn

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About Us

The Compost Pile is a publica-tion of the Okaloosa County Mas-ter Gardeners Association.

Okaloosa County Master Gar-deners Association is a volunteer organization sponsored by Oka-loosa County Extension and the University of Florida IFAS.

The Foundation for the Gator Nation...an equal opportunity in-stitution.

Lynn Fabian, EditorLinda Meyers, Co-EditorEd Fabian, First ReaderMarg Stewart, Web Site Coordi-nator