Before the Meeting

May 3, 2016 Meeting Minutes

The last meeting of the Putnam County Master Gardeners was held on May 3, 2016, at the Cross of Grace Church in Hurricane, with 17 members in attendanceand one guest speaker, Rob O’Quinn, see below.

Before the Meeting

A card was passed around for signatures to be sent to Ted Boggess who is sick at home.

Kathy Walker passed around pictures of the Arbor Day Landscaping Project which took place in Eleanor on April 30, 2016. She and Lowell Wilkes spearheaded the effort to beautify the Eleanor House and the Town Library with several landscaping projects. Pictures and further details are given below.

Reports

The business part of the meeting was called to order by our new President Kathy Talley at 7:10 PM.

Secretary Bill Walker reported that the minutes from the last meeting on Jan. 16, 2016, wereposted on the web page. An opportunity to comment or correct the minutes was solicitedand no changes were requested. Kathy Walker moved to accept the minutes, seconded by Helen Yater, and the motion passed.

The Treasurer’s Report was read by Kathy Walker. Starting with a balance of $4112.92 from the last report, $245.00 in deposits were received from dues and planner sales, $64.00 for name badges were expended, giving a new balance of $4293.92. Roberta Farmer moved to accept the report as read, seconded by Gene Duncan, and the motion passed.

Chuck Talbott reported that the Putnam County Master Gardener’s received a lot of recognition at this year’s State Master Gardeners Conference. Three Master Gardeners of the Yearawards came from our group: Kathy Walker, Bill Walker and Gene Duncan for their significant work at the Confidence and West Teays High Tunnel Projects.Myra Simmons and Ted Jones received 15 year service certificates. Robert Carter, Dana Campbell, Sara Campbell, Nadine Perry and Kathy Walker received 5 year certificates. Their service pins will come later.

The Program of the Year Award went to our group for the third year in a row because of the excellent youth programs at the high tunnels in PutnamCounty.

Chuck reported that he is writing up a Search for Excellence paper to be submitted at the International Master Gardener Conference in Oregon. He has drafted up some details but it needs to be submitted by a Master Gardener. Kathy Moore volunteered to review and edit this application which will then be reviewed by our Presidency before being submitted on August 1st of this year.

AFood Safety Success paper is to be submitted at a conference in Washington, DC, on June 1st of this year. Chuck has put together this story of our food safety efforts at the high tunnels, such as the Pet Detective program.

Chuck also mentioned the beautification work at the Town of Eleanor. Lowell Wilkes organized the effort, Kathy Walker, Putnam County Master Gardener, supplied expertise, several employees from Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Buffaloas well as eight kids and several moms provided labor. The effort stems from a proposal to make Route 62 a Scenic Byway( has donated monies to help bring this about. The work included landscaping at the entrance to the historic Eleanor House ( and the Eleanor Branch Library (

Landscaping project at the Eleanor House in Eleanor, WV

One particularly hard job was the removal of a tough root from the library lawn which took about 30 minutes to accomplish. One little girl got her first splinter. She should get a purple heart! The town of Eleanor accidentally removed a tree that was not on town property but on a private residence. To compensate for the mistake, a memorial tree was planted at the library because the land owner had a son killed in a car accident. A plaque in honor of him will be placed at the site. A nice Lunch was provided for everybody. More work is needed so another work party will be organized.

Memorial tree at the Eleanor Branch Library

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Chuck mentioned that a new HighmarkCommunityGarden is taking root at the ValleyPark in Hurricane. The Master Gardeners have been asked to provide expertise. There will be 64 raised beds available for leasing to “provide a place for people to work together, build community bonds, provide educational opportunities and grow fresh produce for participants, schools, food banks and businesses. Plots come in four different sizes 2x8 feet (for herbs only), 4x8 feet, 10x10 feet and 4x24 feet - with an annual fee of $10, $20, $30 and $40, respectively. Plots will be assigned on a first come, first served basis.”

A high tunnel is also in the planning for the CommunityGarden area.

The Putnam Gardening Series wants community members to participate this year. They are planning a bouquet making class. This five day series is a good way to get educational hours. Ideas for other topics were tossed around at the meeting - perhaps an herbs in cooking class or a container gardening class. Contact person is Scott Williamson.

Myra Simmons added some comments on the State Mater Gardener Conference. She particularly liked the class on weed management. On Friday, there was a dress-up affair with a Dixieland band providing music. Date for the next conference has been set as March 24 – 26, 2017 at Stonewall Jackson Sate Park.

Gene Duncan reported that planting has taken place at West Teays by the Pre-K, Kindergarten, second and third grades. First grade opted out on planting this year. A pollinator garden with beans, corn and squash is in the works. A big pumpkin bed is also planned – shooting for a 50 pounder. Two beds for fall bearing raspberries will also be planted.

Kathy Talley reported that she harvested, cleaned and presented to the lunchroom a large amount of lettuce at West Teays. She worked with a few special needs children that cannot eat the produce but they were given an opportunity to smell various aromatic foods such as lemons, limes and oranges. She says that West Teays needs a salad spinner.

A question came up about the need for MG volunteers to have a food handlers card to do hands-on work with the produce used by the lunchroom. Kathy Walker has one but some members do not. It can be obtained on-line at

Confidence Elementary has opted to scale back on their high tunnel work this year.

Chuck conducted Pet Detective and Food Safety classes at both GW and Hometown schools. The kids at GW caught some crickets and placed them in their collection box. Then they caught a Wolf spider and placed it in the box. Immediately the spider attacked one of the crickets and killed it. The kids loved watching this episode! It is a dramatic way to show them how a good bug (the spider) can rid your garden of bad bugs (the crickets, which are leaf eaters). At West Teays, a Black Widow spider was found. It’s actually a good bug for your garden but a bad one because it is poisonous.

The kids are keeping logs at the high tunnels where information about temperature, soil condition, good and bad bugs collected, amount of produce harvested and other pertinent data are recorded. The Americore representative, Doug, assists in this work

A grant has been submitted to get better tools for the Food Safety Program such as digital cameras and 16x magnifying glasses for bug identification.

The Rock Branch high tunnel will be built this fall. The free timbers obtained from WVU Extension Farm at Bobby Carter’s place will be used. Also, Bobby Carter and Bill Walker delivered enough coconut fibers donated by Gritt’s Greenhouse to provide a good soil base at Rock Branch.

Nadine reported that quite a few T-shirts are available for possible fun projects for the kids at the high tunnels. The T-shirts have a picture of a leaf and a caterpillar on them that could be colored with fabric paints. Perhaps a contest could be set up?

Old Business

Bobby Carter reports that the timbers at his place are drying out and splitting. They should be used as soon as possible. They are available for the Rock Branch project. Recall that these timbers are the property of the Putnam County Master Gardeners.

At the meeting in January, elections were held and every office was filled except Vice President. Nadine Perry agreed to serve as Vice President until a permanent one could be elected. At this meeting, a motion was made by Kathy Walker nominating Nadine Perry for that office. That Nomination was seconded by Helen Yater. No other nominations were made and Kathy Moore made a motion to close the nominations which was seconded by Joan Galford. A vote was taken and Nadine Perry is now the official Vice President.

New Business

Karen Johnson from the Putnam Aging group visited our meeting and reported that a grant has been approved for $1000 to provide a Green Thumb Garden for the seniors, particular good for those with arthritis. These gardens will be provided at three centers at Hurricane, Buffalo and Hometown. Pre-built raised bed cedar forms have already been purchased. These are wheel chair compatible. Each site will have a competition bed with peppers and tomatoes, plus beds with herbs and flowers. The produce will be harvested and used in the lunchrooms. She needs soil and plants. It was suggested that she contact Matt and Penny Goff who will give her good prices on these items. They may also have some more coconut fibers to donate.

Karen also mentioned that there will be a picnic on May 20th sponsored by the Putnam Aging Group. A flyer will be sent to Kathy Talley with the details and we will post it on our web page.

The cicadas are coming!

Chuck said that it is good that we decided not to have fruit tree sales this year. This is theyear for the ugly, noisy cicadas to come out of their 17 year hibernation. Actually, cicadas do not eat leaves. They suck the sap and the leaves wither and die. Protect your tress with nets if at all possible. They will peak in July and August and may reach a density of 1.5 million per acre. Birds eat them and so do Chucks pigs. Some people eat them too; deep fired cicadas are served in China.

Roberta Farmer mentioned that tent caterpillars are showing up already. There is a spray that will target them -Bacillus thuringiensis. Some people burn them out with a blow torch. Bill Walker has done this with a particularly bad infestation in some pine trees. Reasoning that the treeslooked awful anyway, he used a BernzOmatic torch and cooked them all. The tree lived and the caterpillars didn’t – and it was a cheap solution. Is it recommended? Surprisingly, it is listed as a method to control them on several websites. But they say to cut off the branches infected and burn them in a pile.

Nadine Perry mentioned that the WVU extension services in some counties are loosing their funding due to budget cuts. Cabell, Mason and Wayne have opted not to have a county extension agent. As a result of neighboring counties not having an agent to call, the number of calls coming into Chuck Talbott’s office has significantly increased. Nadine proposed that this could be a way for Putnam County Master Gardeners to earn volunteer hours by helping out in the extension office answering phones, doing filing, and serving as a go-between for the county and the state on pest control and plant disease problems.

Kathy Moore is currently working as a Master Gardener volunteer to keep track of Putnam County Master Gardener member’s volunteer and education hours.

Helen Yater asked if a Putnam County Fair schedule is out yet. Chuck says that it is in the works.

Budget

Kathy Walker reviewed last year’s budget and as a group we revised it. The revised budget was voted on; Helen Yater and Gene Duncan moved and seconded a motion to accept the revised budget and it passed. Kathy will publish it later.

Kathy Talley closed the meeting at 7:40 PM.

Next Meeting

To be announced on the web page:

Speaker

Rob O’Quinn gave an informative talk entitled “Why Native Plants”. Rob left the corporate arena after 27 years and opened up the Birds, Blooms and Butterlfies shop, 3475 Teays Valley Rd., Unit B, Hurricane, WV, 25526. He is on-line at birdsbloomsandbutterfliesbtdesign.com.

Native Plants are the species that occur naturally in a given area; includes ferns, grasses, water and marsh plants, herbaceous perennials, shrubs, trees and vines.

Some reasons for using native plants are less watering, fertilizing and no pesticides. They reduce mowing requirements, provide food and shelter for wildlife, and decrease erosion and invasive plants. Working with them provides an opportunity for public education about the environment and knowledge of our unique natural splendor.