June 2025 Master Gardener Volunteer Newsletter

In this issue…

From the President
MGV Plant Sale Update
Roots: See You Next Month!
Volunteer Opportunity Spotlight: Merrymeeting Gleaners
MGV Projects: Volunteers Needed!
Ask an MGV – Tips & Tricks for Your Best Garden Yet
Upcoming Events

From the President

Herb and vegetable plants growing in a cold frame box.

“I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Old Manse”

If only the excitement, anticipation, and new growth of June could last forever. The longer daylight hours bring a whole new brighter feeling to my days… but it is so much more than that! There are many other reasons why June is special (both new and re-experienced events): graduations, birthday parties, grilling, eating out on an ocean side deck, first beach walks, thoughts of the upcoming strawberry season, seeing the first blossoms on my new peach trees (they survived), garlic scapes and the smell of lilacs and fruit trees in full bloom.

As I write this in late May, my cold frame is bursting with tomatoes, peppers, and annual flowers waiting to get fully out into the summer season. The peas planted by my granddaughter are popping up, the asparagus bed needs weeding, and the cold crops (lettuce, broccoli, cabbage and brussels sprouts) are shivering a bit, yet I am bursting with optimism for this season! Certainly, while the growing conditions have not been perfect, I have managed to stay on schedule this late spring/early summer which makes me hopeful for a wonderful growing season.

While every month of the Maine growing season is a busy one for gardeners, I’d like to make my annual suggestions for things you might enjoy:

First – visit a neighbor’s/friend’s garden or stop by Tidewater. No matter how big or small a garden may be, there will be joy shared. Admire the array of choices, gardening skills, and seek to gain gardening wisdom and insights. The world looks like a much nicer place when we are in a backyard garden without emails, cellphones, political talk and the evening news.
Second – involve and share your gardening expertise and time with young children. It is the perfect time to involve children as school is ending for the summer and despite their many activities, they are more available. I am continually amazed by the children in my neighborhood and my two local grandchildren. They ask great questions and seek answers, simple answers, which are the best! “Poppy, when will the peas/tomatoes be ready?” Enjoy inspiring a “future master gardener”.

A few CCMGVA updates:

Our May meeting was an in-person gathering at the Cumberland County Extension Office in Falmouth. The Advisory was very pleased to gather in person and welcome Janet Kane and Amy Starnes to the Advisory. A big THANK YOU to Pamela Hargest for her hospitality in hosting us.
The Board spent a great deal of time in productive discussion and review of our new Association Guidelines. Be assured the Advisory intends to continue the commitment to our educational and food security missions. It is our hope to strengthen the CCMG Committees and to provide a wider range of opportunities for Association members to be included in leadership and advisory roles through our committees.
A very positive CCMGA Plant Sale planning report was presented. Thank you to everyone who rolled up their sleeves and contributed to our largest fund-raising event.
Again, please keep in mind and leave room in your calendars at the end of the growing season for the Annual Harvest Celebration which we are in the process of planning. More details to be forthcoming after our June Advisory meeting.

Enjoy the growing season. May it yield us not only a beautiful and bountiful harvest, but as importantly, tranquility.

Gary Hoyt
CCMGA President

MGV Plant Sale Update

Thank you to everyone that volunteered in the lead-up to the event, and on the day of! A full recap to follow next month…

Roots – See You Next Month

We’re busy in the garden but will be back next month with a new featured volunteer. Please let us know who you’d like to see interviewed by emailing Heather Wiggins Berger. Thank you!

Volunteer Opportunity Spotlight: Merrymeeting Gleaners

A group of individuals holds a sign that reads "Merrymeeting Gleaners" The Merrymeeting Gleaners program began in 2016 as an initiative of the Merrymeeting Food Council in Brunswick. In 2021, it became part of the MidCoast Hunger Prevention Program (MCHPP) as a way to better manage some of the challenges of scaling up. During the pilot year, all gleaning took place at Six River Farm. Since then, the program has expanded to include 5 different farms: Six River Farm, Goranson Farm, Harvest Tide Organics, Whatley Farm and the Growing to Give.

Summer is the busiest season for the Merrymeeting Gleaners with a packed schedule – along with additional last minute gleans often arising – there is a strong need for more volunteers. As many of our longtime volunteers have been with Merrymeeting Gleaners since the early days, there is a real need to get new volunteers involved. In 2024, an impressive 102 individuals volunteered for at least one shift and 40 of them contributed over 10 hours of service.

A person harvesting cucumbers from trellises in a large greenhouse. Each week, volunteers harvest at 5 different farms, collect produce directly from several other farms, and visit three farmers markets to pick up produce. The greatest need for volunteers is for help with harvesting and market pickups, especially on Fridays. Most of our deliveries are early in the week, mainly on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A typical glean lasts about two hours and takes place in the morning. Each glean has a “Team Leader” volunteer who supplies the crates, coordinates with the farmer to determine what is available for harvest, and ensures transportation of the produce back to Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program. Often multiple gleans occur simultaneously. Once produce arrives at the Food Bank, volunteers sort, bag, and bunch items, performing additional quality control checks, and packing boxes for various partner organizations.

On average, Merrymeeting Gleaners glean around 60,000 lbs of produce each year and recently surpassed 400,000 lbs since the program began!

A group of individuals sorts carrots into different bins. The fresh food gathered is distributed weekly to about 20 organizations during the summer including Bath Area Food Bank, Oasis Free Clinics, Village Clubhouse, People Plus, Harpswell Aging at Home, Independence, and Head Start.

In addition to gleaning, some of the food is processed – light cooking and preserving – in the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program commercial kitchen

David Baecher who has managed the program since 2023 shares “I enjoy that we serve as a bit of a nexus for the community, connecting volunteers, farms and charitable organizations. Gleaning also supplies volunteers with a sort of agrotourism as they get to meet farmers and to see their farms in an immersive way.”

If you are interested in volunteering for the Merrymeeting Gleaners and helping play a role in increasing access to food in Maine, please reach out to David Beacher.

We’re looking for volunteer projects to feature in our Master Gardener Volunteer Newsletter. If you are interested in having your project featured – or if there is a project you would like to learn more about – please reach out to Kerri Frazier.

MGV Projects: Volunteers Needed!

Are you needing MGV hours or interested in finding a project at which to volunteer? There are several exciting projects that need your energy, creativity, and green thumbs. Whether you love digging in the dirt, educating others, or helping your community blossom, there’s a project that’s perfect for you. This is your chance to get involved, make a difference, and grow alongside fellow MGVs. Let’s cultivate something great – together!

Casco Bay Dialysis Center Garden is looking for several volunteers to join the project at the Casco Bay Dialysis Facility Gardens. The project was established In 2017 by Dr. Patricia Cantlin. She created a raised bed and container garden along the front of the Dialysis Facility in Westbrook. The intention was for it to be wheelchair/walker accessible and to provide fresh herbs and vegetables to the patients who receive dialysis there, many of whom have limited income, food insecurity, limited familiarity with fresh vegetables and changing health and functional status limiting their ability to garden.

We are seeking MGV’s for continuation of this project as several members of our team have retired. This garden has been quite successful, and the patients at the center have been incredibly appreciative of the produce we are able to provide.

If you have any questions or are interested in joining us, please contact Bonnie Moger via email or phone 207-321-8897.

The Ronald McDonald House gardens could use two more Master Gardener Volunteers. If you LOVE ornamentals and are looking for a project for your volunteer hours, this might be the place for you.

We maintain three different garden areas and quite a few containers, with a heavy emphasis on providing constant color for the guests of the Ronald McDonald House. We try to work in pairs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – with gardeners staying for maybe 60-90 minutes each time but are quite flexible with schedules – we all know in summertime people do have trips and company visiting from away! You would be needed to help water the containers and gardens as needed and help maintain all the perennials and shrubs – that usually involves a lot of deadheading and some weeding! The only veggies we put in are a couple of cherry tomato plants.

We have a locker that has a variety of tools onsite, where you should find everything you need.

If you are interested, please reach out to Nicki Griffin (207-272-4753).

The Sagamore Village Food Pantry Garden project in Portland needs additional volunteers for 2025. The goal of the project is to raise awareness of the MGV project, assist the Sagamore Village Community Garden residents, and grow produce for the Sagamore Village Food Pantry. The gardens are a collaboration of Sagamore Village Community, and the Master Gardener Volunteer Program. This is a project to both donate fresh selective produce based on community needs, and also to inspire, assist, and advise residents who wish to grow their own produce for their families use.

By growing and harvesting produce in the Sagamore Village Community Gardens we can selectively address needs or requests of a diverse community with products not always available at markets or with normal food pantry donations. And, by having a successful MGV garden we can hopefully inspire residents to start, upkeep, monitor, and harvest “fruits of their labors” at the Sagamore Village Community Gardens.

This being our third year we observed many raised beds initiated, and left to go to furrow from being unattended. This is one of our top priorities to excite and educate the residents on the possibilities of gardening. If we can continue to produce results in our MGV section of raised beds and show the residents what is attainable, it’s possible we can reverse that trend. And as we apply our efforts to the MGV raised beds we can also assist or advise residents as they tend their gardens. With additional volunteers we can achieve these goals.

If interested or you have questions please contact Allen Cronan or Pam Lanz .

The Smiling Hill Farm Kinder Garden is looking for new volunteers located at Smiling Hill Farm in Westbrook.

Project duties range from planning, planting, regular watering, maintenance, harvesting, and donating the harvest as part of the Harvest for Hunger Program. The MGV chooses which pantry to bring the harvest to. We also have clean-up on a few seasonal group work days. Opportunities to grow seedlings at home to kickstart and lengthen of Smiling Hill Farm Kinder Garden season is available. Gardening education happens by chance, depending on MGVs flexible hours on their chosen work day, when visitors wander in, or when SHF participates in outreach like Open Farm Day.

There are a plethora of other perks for volunteers at SHF’s Kinder Garden. Swapped tips and delight with tourist visitors from around the country. Another perk of volunteering at the SHF Kinder Garden include non-human friendships with the Barnyard buddies who love our weeds and scraps. And lastly the easy access to ice cream and snacks next door at the cafe after sometimes-sweaty shifts on the sunny and windy hill.

Curious children can reach into a mailbox for free coloring sheets about gardening and recipes for what and the garden grows. Signs and volunteers also encourage visitors to sample the fresh fruits, veggies, and herbs when ripe. MGVs enjoy challenging visitors to try new foods like rhubarb or edible flowers from our popular Tasting Garden.

The returning project team hopes for more volunteers. There’s few limits to what expansion could look like with more people-power, from regular educational programming for the SHF summer campers to increased harvests. The Smiling Hill Farm Kinder Garden would love more MGVs to become part of the diverse ecosystem of plants, pollinators, barn animals, and humans of all ages. Consider joining us!

Please contact Sharon or Rachel if you’re interested in getting involved.

If your project is needing additional volunteers, you would like it announced in the newsletter, please reach out to Kerri Frazier.

Ask an MGV: Tips & Tricks for your Best Garden Yet

Q: I’ve been looking forward all winter to my two young apple trees blooming this spring – but there are only a few blossoms on each! What’s going on?

According to Jonathan Foster, Home Horticulture Outreach Professional, there are a few reasons why your apple trees might not be blooming this spring:

“Aggressive pruning can sometimes stimulate the tree to flush out vegetative growth rather than flowering.”
- From our gardener: Nope! Haven’t pruned at all since installing them.
“Additionally, insufficient sunlight can inhibit flowering.”
- Gardener: Not this either as they are both in full sun….. Except this spring, when we’ve had SO MUCH RAIN…So drought’s likely not an issue, either!
So…. maybe too much rain? UMaine extension writes that “trees should be planted in well-drained soil since flooding favors root rot and asphyxiation. Apple trees are very sensitive to flooding and can be killed by long periods in waterlogged soil.” It’s unlikely, however, that this would impact only the buds…
Another weather-related culprit can be late frost. Says Foster: “If the buds have begun to develop from warming temperatures and then a hard frost hits, they can be damaged to the point of never opening. Sometimes this is obvious, sometimes it’s inside the bud. Unsurprisingly, this is something that happens to flowering plants all over Maine periodically because of our climate. If the buds you see don’t open, that’s probably what happened and next year the tree should recover.”
- Gardener: I don’t think this is the issue either, as there aren’t buds that aren’t opening – there simply aren’t many buds!
Foster goes on to share that heavy fertilization of turfgrass “near a crabapple may run into [low bloom production]… The extra fertilizer signals the tree to put its energy into vegetative shoot and foliar growth instead of bud development.”
- Gardener: We don’t fertilize our lawn….

Of course – there are reasons unrelated to tree health that might result in fewer blooms. For example, popular varieties such as Fuji, Cameo, and Honeycrisp are biennial bearing, “a condition in which the tree produces few flowers one year and a large number the following year. Biennial bearing is a complex phenomenon caused by the presence of fruit on the tree during the same time that next years’ flower buds begin to form. In summer, prior to the season in which they bloom, flowers form in the young developing buds. A large number of fruit at this time inhibits flower formation, and buds remain leafy instead” (UMaine Cooperative Extension). Upon sharing this with our gardener, we learned that their two trees are Jonagold and McCoun, both of which can be biennial.

We’ve promised our reader to feature ways to address biennial bearing in a future article. If you have experience in this area, please let us know!

We want to help you with your gardening issues. To get help from your fellow MGVs, submit your questions to Heather Wiggins Berger.

Upcoming Events

University of Maine Extension Events

Community Events

Past Editions: Missed a previous newsletter? View them all HERE (password: ladybug)

About this Newsletter: The Cumberland County Master Gardener Volunteer Newsletter is edited by Clarissa Brown, Kerri Frazier, and Heather Wiggins Berger. If you would like to submit an event, article,or help with any aspect of the Newsletter, please contact Heather Wiggins Berger, the newsletter coordinator.