News

December 2023 Garden Update

December 2023 Garden Update The growing season officially came to an end with our final planting in mid-November. Our friends from Khmer Maine and 4-H joined us as we celebrated the beginning of our partnership by planting garlic and eating delicious treats, such as homemade num kroch (or nom kroch), a traditional Cambodian snack. The […]

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October 2023 Garden Update

As the days grow colder and shorter, we begin to reflect on the season and make notes for next year. Like so many gardeners, we experienced a difficult start to the season with all the rain we received in June and early July.  This year, we started many of our flower and vegetable seedlings indoors […]

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7th Annual Donation Drive for Preble Street Resource Center

By Becky Gray, Administrative Support Specialist Thanks for Giving! The University of Maine Cooperative Extension Staff in Cumberland County is once again holding a donation drive to benefit the Preble Street Resource Center in Portland, Maine during the month of November. Thanks to generous donations from staff, volunteers, and community members, we have been able […]

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6th Annual Donation Drive for Preble Street Resource Center

By Sara Conant, Administrative Support Specialist 4-H The University of Maine Cooperative Extension Staff in Cumberland County have held an in-kind donation drive for the past five years to benefit The Preble Street Resource Center in Portland, Maine. With the help our volunteers, members, and community, we’ve been able to donate hundreds of warm clothing […]

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2019 CCEA Annual Meeting Pie Contest Winners

The Cumberland County Extension Association (CCEA) Annual Meeting was held last night at the UMaine Regional Learning Center, in Falmouth due to impending storms. This event is a time when our UMaine Extension Cumberland staff honor outstanding volunteers from all program areas. This year we also celebrated fifty years of the Expanded Food and Nutrition […]

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Browntail Moth Caterpillar on leaf

211 Now Available for Browntail Moth Questions

Maine Government News AUGUSTA – The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC), Maine Forest Service (MFS), and 211 Maine announced today a new way for Mainers to get information about browntail moths. People with questions can now call 211 Maine to speak to a specialist regarding browntail moth biology, management, pesticide options, health […]

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Common Ninebark Plant. Flowers and leaves.

Native Plants at the Master Gardener Plant Sale

Where can a gardener go to grow a thriving, easy, inexpensive garden which helps native pollinators?      Come to the Master Gardener Plant Sale! Master Gardeners are a wealth of knowledge on the selection and care of plants. Any Master Gardener will say, plants tend to do better in the habitats they are native to. […]

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4 browntail moth caterpillars on a tree

All About Browntail Moth Caterpillars (BTM)

What Browntail Moths Are & What You Can Do: Last week at the UMaine Extension Cumberland County office, we noticed a few caterpillar nest tents in the branches of the crab apples. The caterpillars had just begun to hatch. We removed them by cutting the nests out of the trees. It is important that even […]

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A cartoon sweet potato holding a sign that reads "See me at the Master Gardener Plant Sale May 18th!" with UMaine logo

Growing Sweet Potatoes: An interview with Tom Witwicki, Master Gardener

  Did you know that you can buy a single sweet potato from the grocery store and turn it into many pounds of food from the garden? Fascinating! In this interview for our blog readers, Master Gardener Volunteer, Tom Witwicki describes sweet potato cultivation. He suggests that red garnet and Japanese purple are two varieties […]

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