Fleur-de-PlantSale

Each May, on the weekend following Mother’s Day, Penn State Master Gardeners of Centre County hold a plant sale at Penn State’s Ag Progress Days site in Pennsylvania Furnace, 11 miles southwest of State College.

The financial goal of the sale is to raise money to pay for our part-time MG coordinator and to support our many programs throughout the year. These include demonstration gardens, Wings in the Park pollinator festival, Food Bank plant distribution, environmental classes at Muddy Paws Marsh, and weekly horticultural therapy classes at the county nursing home. For me, our outreach and educational impact at the plant sale, despite long hours and hard work, reap the biggest treasure.

You never know what horticultural question you will be asked. A young couple, dad with his newborn babe strapped to his chest, asked me for a tomato variety they could plant—with a catch. It turns out they are from the Lorraine region of France (which borders Belgium). They will be returning there for the month of August and want to grow (and eat) homegrown tomatoes in State College before they leave. My suggestion was “Fourth of July”, named for when it ripens, which bears 4-ounce fruit (larger than cherry tomatoes but not full-blown slicers). My MG friend Chris assures me it is reliably ripe on that date, and by Bastille Day (July 14), the couple should have plenty of garden ripe tomatoes. I’m growing “Fourth of July” this year for the first time (last year we only had a few plants and sold out early).

Two other Penn State international students were standing near my potted up elderberry seedlings. I bought a bundle of bare root starts from the county Conservation District, planted some and potted others to sell. For a good 10 minutes I expounded on the joys of growing the native Sambucus canadensis—making elder blossom cordial, elderberry jelly, elderberry wine, and elderberry pie, where the berries taste like crunchy blueberries. I figured the two must be working on their PhDs because when I told them the shrub wouldn’t fruit for another three years, they didn’t wince.

As they picked up a pot and headed to the tally station I glanced at the price of the elderberry seedlings—$2 each. What a deal, just to get me to shut up!

Besides the elderberries, I propagated several Polka Dot begonia youngsters from my mother plant (a gift from my sister) and felt like I was watching my children get on the school bus as the plants and their new caregivers headed to the checkout line. I also dug up black raspberries from my asparagus patch, potting them for sale, and divided the offspring of Solomon’s seal and leopard’s bane that my dad planted years ago and transplanted them into containers.

Pesto Perpetuo

The sale starts at 9 a.m. but we volunteers aren’t allowed to shop until 11 a.m. I was happy to get a new-for-me basil plant: Ocimum x citriodorum ‘Pesto Perpetuo’. It smells heavenly of basil but has fancy variegated leaves. The columnar, tender perennial can grow 48 inches tall and I plan to move it into the atrium in the fall. The plant does not flower, so I’ll be able to continuously harvest the leaves for a perpetual pesto supply.

For part of the sale, I was the checkout control officer—directing families pulling wagons of peppers and petunias, couples lugging boxes of nasturtiums, Kniphofia, and Nepeta, and singles weighed down with pots of Echinacea and Rudbeckia to line up and wait for an “open” cashier. The cashiers totaled each bill and also asked a few key questions, such as: What plants would you like us to add next year?

“Luffas,” one woman answered. The cashier summoned me to her station.

The woman, it turns out, makes soap. She and her mother-in-law bought two luffa plants from us last year. The first didn’t make it, but the second vine was going strong until her father-in-law tripped over the vine, amputating the roots from the vine—sudden death syndrome. She was hoping to have better luck growing luffas this year.

Looks like Luffa Laurie might need to seed a few flats of luffa seeds in 2018. Laurie Lynch

Feeding the Help: Our volunteer kitchen is a great perk for workers. MGs bring their specialties: rhubarb tart, blueberry cobbler (still warm from the oven), asparagus and pea strata, roasted asparagus spears, spinach balls warmed in a crockpot. Here is a recipe for a healthy spring or summer soup.

Sharon’s Easy Spring Soup

1 cucumber

1 avocado

Juice of ½ lime

Salt & pepper to taste

Put ingredients in a blender, and presto, soup. This soup can be made ahead and chilled overnight. I’m thinking that later in the summer a few sprigs of fresh cilantro would give it a nice kick.

Winter Squash Microwave Alert: MG Fran, who I mentioned in my last entry, spent some time checking out my blog. Many moons ago I wrote that some people microwave winter squash to soften it, making it easier to cut.

“I have done that for years and recently failed to punch enough deep holes into the squash…blew the microwave door open and squash all over the kitchen…also blew the circuit and had a few quick flames. I learned my lesson and will be sure to put lots of holes in a squash if I am using the microwave.”

Garlic Leafminer Alert: Bev, another MG, emailed some photos of her garlic. It looks as though tiny flies called allium leafminers have visited it. The females puncture the leaves of alliums in this dot pattern (see photo), males and females feed on the exuded juices, and the females lay their eggs. The eggs hatch into larvae, pupate, and burrow through the plant—and can wipe out an entire crop.

Punctured Garlic Leaves

This garlic-shallot-onion pest is native to Poland and Germany where it was first detected in 1858. By 2004 it had spread through Europe and made it to the United Kingdom. The first confirmation of an allium leafminer infestation in the Western Hemisphere was in Lancaster County in December 2015. By 2016, allium leafminer was found in 18 counties in Pennsylvania. Now it looks as though it has moved into Central PA. Bev called the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and they are coming to her garden to confirm the expanded range of this devastating pest.

Fleur-de-Unicorn

A few years ago, our Master Gardener group was looking for ideas on something to grow in our Ag Progress Days high tunnel. I suggested luffas.

Few people in our Zone 5 Central Pennsylvania habitat had grown luffas, so the group decided to give it a try. Within one growing season, our high tunnel turned into a luffa jungle.

We held a Master Gardener class on luffas to spread the word.  Last year, at both our winter Home Gardening School and our May Plant Sale we sold luffa seeds, luffa plants, and dried luffas for scrubbing pots, scrubbing potatoes and carrots, and yes, even scrubbing gardeners’ grubby hands.  We filled door prize baskets with luffa sponges and homemade soaps.  During 2016, The Arboretum at Penn State grew luffas on the garden’s trellis tunnel—a showstopper display.

My 2017 resolution was to give it a rest.  I was talked out and tired of being Luffa Laurie.

But elsewhere in a tiny corner of Centre County, an imaginary luffa seed sprouted and sparked.  Fran, a fellow MG, picked up the luffa torch.  For 10 years Fran has been leading weekly horticultural enrichment sessions at a nursing home in our county seat of Bellefonte.

She asked for a few props, a few photos, and voila, she put together a Luffa PowerPoint and looked at the luffa from an entirely different perspective, creating an art project for Centre Crest Nursing Facility’s recreational horticulture program.

The MG crew at Centre Crest compared luffas to cucumbers and gourds. They explained how luffas are grown and harvested, and the various uses of the plant. Then, they got down to the business of “fun stuff”—they helped residents create abstract design notecards using luffas and poster paint.

One of the volunteers entertained as the group worked on their cards. She put a dried and skinned yard-long luffa atop her head and trotted around the room—the Centre Crest unicorn. Laurie Lynch

Cuban Connection: Fran sent photos of Luffa Day to a Humphrey Fellowship student who used to help with the programs at Centre Crest. She is in her mid-50s and from Cuba. The luffa photos brought back memories. “We have that in Cuba and many years ago it was used to clean the pots from the kitchen,” she wrote to Fran. In the countryside, people used it when coming back from dirty labors to wash themselves, the woman continued, but due to modern times and climate changes it is not as popular as it was.

Shameless Plug: Our 2017 MG Plant Sale is Saturday, May 20, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Ag Progress Days site, Rock Springs. Free admission and lots of beautiful plants for sale!

Written on Slate: “Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way, thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

Fleur-de-Profile

As a teenager in the 1960s and 1970s, I learned one lesson about hair—it doesn’t matter. I promised myself that when I was a parent, I wouldn’t fight over the length of hair, sideburns, etc.

My son recently reached the quarter-century mark and I don’t think I ever gave him unsolicited advice about his hair. He grew a beard and I teasingly called him “my Amish son”.

Once or twice he asked if I thought he should trim it. I told him I prefer the stubble look, rather than a full-blown beard. I’ve always loved what used to be called the “5 o’clock shadow”. But I’m just his mom. He kept the thick but well-groomed beard. He joked that he might grow the chin hair down to his knees.

Mom & Wisteria “Whiskers”

Richard lives in what The New York Times refers to as the “Islamic State of Molenbeek” where he fits in with the other bearded men, mostly Muslim, in his Brussels neighborhood.

But in the last few months, the beard seemed to draw unwanted attention.

The first time was in February. Richard had just left an employment meeting and was coming out of the metro with his backpack. It was a cold, rainy winter day in Belgium. Two Belgian police officers stopped him, asking for his ID. He handed them his residency card. The officer called on his walkie-talkie for a records check. All clear. They let him go on his way.

It was a cool, gray April day in Belgium. Richard was riding the metro while talking on his phone. He was wearing gloves with the fingertips cut off, so that he can keep his hands warm while not having to take the gloves off to use his phone. He was carrying a black duffle bag. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, but he’s not sure if the hood was up or not. Two police officers exited the metro at the busiest station, De Brouckère, then pointed and motioned for someone to get off. Richard turned around to look. They were motioning to him. So Richard got off, two stops before he intended. He told the person on the other end of phone he’d call back.

Again, the officers asked him for his ID. They asked why he was wearing gloves. “Dry skin.” (The guys in the Brussels airport bombing wore single left-hand gloves to hide their detonators, my son tells me.) Again, the officer radioed to check his ID. “Oh, you are from the U.S. Which is better, the U.S. or Belgium?” Richard diplomatically said, “It depends on what you’re looking for.” The officers asked him to open his duffle bag. Unluckily for them he was on his way home from the gym. His duffle bag was stuffed with a sweaty T-shirt, socks, and gym shorts.

Richard understands. He is more than happy to cooperate. But still, being stopped at a crowded metro stop in front of of everyone is embarrassing. A fellow from the gym saw him being questioned by the officers. Humiliating.

My son found a new barber in Brussels. His chin hair and all of the rest is close-cropped stubble, a trimmer, less targeted, profile.

I had a panic nightmare after he told me the story. Imagine if I were a mother whose son had black skin or whose name was Rafiq, or with a passport from the “evil” seven—nightmares every night. Laurie Lynch

Written on Slate: “There was an old man with a beard, who said, “It is just as I feared! — Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren, have all built their nests in my beard.” —Edward Lear

Stinking Rose Pixie Dust: I was shopping the other day at a favorite market and noticed a cute, squat jar with a tempting label that said Garlic Dust. Ingredients: Dehydrated garlic. All I could think of was my recycled mayo jar of homemade garlic powder that could use a makeover—some of Tinkerbelle’s magic.

Lamb Laughs: Well, the three lambs have a new nickname—The Three Stooges. I fed them a scoop of grain in our vintage cast iron bathtub trough. Immediately Gary hopped in the tub, lying on the grain. Gruff stuck his snout right under Gary to get his share. Poor Freckles stood timidly watching.