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Impact Report

For plan Plant Management Systems: Urban Horticulture (Santa Fe County)
Date November 4, 2011, 6:33 pm
For Objective Short-term Show short-term objectives
Impact Report ABC Garden Club A one-half hour presentation on the Basics of Pruning was presented to the ABC Garden Club in Santa Fe at their January monthly meeting. The 23 members expressed that the information presented re-affirmed their knowledge about pruning and that things haven’t changed much in the last 5 years, but were still grateful for the presentation. Santa Fe Community Gardens A presentation was given to 13 participants representing three city-sponsored community gardens on the basic home vegetable gardening. Some of those in attendance also interjected their ideas and experiences. After an hour and a half presentation, everyone present felt that a great discussion had be had. City of Santa Fe Parks and Open Space Advisory Commission The Santa Fe County Agent has been serving on the City of Santa Fe Parks and Open Space Advisory Commission for the past 4 years. In January of 2010 a subcommittee of the Advisory Commission was formed in which the County Agent was elected to serve as chair of what is the Municipal Tree Board. As requirement to retain “Tree City USA” status, some type of an event must be had as part of Arbor Day. Therefore a tree planting and tree seedling distribution was had in which three trees were planted along a City trail with the assistance of 26 students from a private school and 200 seedling were given to those in attendance. Furthermore, another 500 seedling were given away at the annual City of Santa Fe Community Day. Holy Cross Catholic School Garden Assistance was provided to Holy Cross Catholic Schools in Santa Cruz in the development of a school garden. The goals of the garden were to: 1) provide some hands-on science learning on how food is grown, 2) teach the youth the vocabulary associated with growing vegetables, 3)teach the students about citizenship be having them donate the food to homeless or displaced citizens. The agent provided guidance in the purchasing of equipment and supplies utilizing monies the school received from the Catholic Foundation. Crops grown included: carrots, radishes, peas, scallions, pumpkins, chile, squash, jalapenos, cucumbers and plenty of tomatoes. The younger students were presented information on the life cycle of the plant –from seed to fruit , and the older students learned about the composition of soils and their the macro-nutrients. In the spring of 2011 each one of the 140+ got an opportunity to plant a crop either directly into the ground or to start some transplants. The garden was worked by volunteers over the summer. Upon the start of the new school year in late summer, the students assisted in harvesting the produce. All produce was donated to the San Martin de Porres Soup Kitchen in Espanola. Over 250 pounds of squash, 70 pounds of cucumbers, 12 pounds of radishes, 5 pounds of carrots, 25 pound s of chile, 15 pounds of jalapenos, 28 pounds of scallions, 80 pounds of tomatoes and68 pounds of pumpkins were donated to the soup kitchen. One of the volunteers at the soup kitchen expressed that one of the recipients had indicated that her family wouldn’t have been eating fresh vegetables had it not been for what they had received from the donations to the soup kitchen. Master Gardener Program Two different sections of the Master Gardener course were offered once again during the spring months of 2011 in Santa Fe. The second one was not offered in Eldorado this year for the reason that no one from the community was interested in serving as a host. The 16 week course prepared a total of 60 citizens from Santa Fe County with research-based knowledge on proper gardening techniques of the Santa Fe area. The information which was gained will assist the course participant not only with their own gardening experiences, but also to assist the County Agent in disseminating sound home horticultural advice to other gardeners who have inquiries or wanting to know how to correct their own horticultural problems. Of the 60 students who enrolled in the classes, 58 completed the course successfully. Furthermore, of those students submitting their course evaluation forms, 88% rated the course as "highly satisfactory" in terms of meeting their expectations, with the other 12% of the participants rating it as "satisfactory". In order to facilitate travel cost savings for the specialists once again, the Agent took on the responsible for contacting speakers, developing the course syllabus, ordering manuals for the Los Alamos County Master Gardener Program as well. Furthermore, due to vacancies in the some Specialist positions, some of the veteran Master Gardeners and Extension Agents assisted with instructing some of the class sessions. This Agent taught the sessions on Tree and Small Fruits in Santa Fe. As Master Gardener interns and Certified Master Gardeners, this group of volunteers continues to provide a great amount of service to the greater Santa Fe area in the form of education, outreach and community service. Over 3700 hours of volunteer service valued at minimum of $59,500 was provided by the Master Gardeners from the Fall season of 2010 to the late summer of 2011. Some of the ways in which the Master Gardeners provide volunteer hours to the County Extension Office are as follows: The seventh annual Gardening Fair was organized and facilitated which included four different gardening-related presentations and other short demonstrations. For the fifth consecutive year, the master gardeners also developed a directory of landscape and gardening related businesses and organizations which were distributed at this one day event. Also inclusive of the Gardening Fair once again this year was the trade-fair in which 34 organizations and businesses were invited to have an information table. The estimated attendance was 1900 people which is slightly less than last year. The one thing that remains constant from last year is that there is a renewed interest in people wanting to grow their own food. A plant sale was held once again in conjunction with the annual Garden Fair with the proceeds being used to cover the cost of projects that the Master Gardeners have been working on or are in the process of developing. Some of the plants that were sold were plants which the Master Gardeners themselves. The planning of the Gardening Fair is becoming a year-round process. The Master Gardener Home Gardening Hotline is staffed by Master Gardeners who take turns in checking messages on the hotline answering machine at least twice per week from May to the end of October. This dedicated phone line provided by the County Extension Office was established in 2002 received an average of 4 calls per week. Several demonstration gardens continue to be managed and cared for by the Master Gardeners. 1) The Herb Demonstration Garden continues to be maintained by the master gardeners. This demonstration garden which was originally developed as a Rio Grande Basin Initiative project, demonstrates the efficiency of drip irrigation in backyard gardens while demonstrating varieties of culinary herbs suitable to grow in the Santa Fe area. 2) The Xeric Demonstration Garden in front of the County Extension Office continues to be maintained to demonstrate low water use ornamental landscape plant material. It also serves as an outdoor classroom to teach the interns how to maintain these types of plant material. 3) The Randall Davey Audobohn Center Native Plant Demonstration Plot is a small garden which was planted and has been maintained since 2003. The purpose of the plot is to demonstrate native plants that can make for an attractive landscape and yet attract small wildlife into the landscape. To support the master gardeners in their efforts, the Agent provided a pruning demonstration to the work crew at the Audobohn once again in April. The group expressed that being able to see how to prune the trees and shrubs in the way that they were done helped them to understand why certain practices were used. The nurseries recognize that Master Gardener volunteers are well trained in the subject of horticulture and can provided unbiased and sound information to the public. Two nurseries in Santa Fe asked the Master Gardener Association to come back to their locations to staff information tables while an additional nursery offered the same opportunity. One location had an information table staffed on Thursday mornings from May thru July and the other two locations had an information tables staffed on Sunday afternoons. Through the information table the master gardeners provided literature, answered questions, promoted the hotline and promoted the Master Gardener course. Approximately 1400 contacts were made through the course of the market season with the vast majority of the contact being related to gardening questions or problems. In addition to some of the other Master Gardener projects, the Master Gardeners Continuing Education committee offered a Gardening 101 series in later winter which consisted of a series of4 class sessions. The class was full with 30 participants each time. The committee also co-sponsored a Meadows conference in the fall of 2010 with the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens. The attendance at the conference was 60 in which participants learned about the establishment of natural meadows in landscapes. Day-to-Day Contacts An average of 6 calls were received on a daily basis beginning in March on best gardening practices including pest identification and their control, vertebrate pest management, soil fertility, watering practices, pruning, and the use of mulches. These types of call continued on through mid-October when Santa Fe has experienced a hard killing frost. This does not take into account the office walk-in traffic which would average out to 2 persons per day.