Master Gardener Volunteers Newsletter – Hancock County -February 2025
Table of Contents
MGV ADVISORY 2025 / MEET DAVID STRUCK / OPEN HOUSE PLANS / WINTER FUN / WINTER PROJECTS TO DO / VIDEOS AND WEBINARS / MGV BOOK CLUB / NEWSLETTER NEWS – WE NEED YOU!
Upcoming Dates to Remember!
Feb 17th President’s Day – Office Closed
March 3rd MGV Advisory Meeting – ZOOM
March MGV Annual Enrollment will begin – Date TBD
April 21 Patriots Day – Office Closed
May 17 – Open House at Extension Office
Greeting MGVs! Happy Belated New Year!
It’s a new year, and we have some new MGV Advisory Committee members and new Co-Chairs! We will be introducing new members in the next couple of issues.
Patty Persson, Co-Chair
Betsy Adams, Co-Chair
Lynne Altvater, Co-Co-Chair
Jody Blake, Co-Co-Chair
Pier Carros
Cindy Blake (new)
Dorcas Corrow
Dave Hollenberg (new)
John McClement
Greg Mekras
David Struck (new)
Terri Van Praet (new)
Meet David Struck – MGV 2011′
I have been involved in food production and gardening since I was young. Growing up, working in the family commercial fruit orchard (pears and apples) in Hood River, Oregon, I was engaged in a full range of activities from planting and pruning trees, operating irrigation systems, and caring for and raising fruit trees. Currently, my home and gardens (vegetables, fruit, and flowers) are in Steuben on very shallow soils. I completed the Master Gardener course in 2011. I am returning to the Advisory Committee for the second time. Over the years I have participated in a variety of projects involving food production and education. During the last decade, I have focused on projects in Washington County. For the last couple of years, I have worked on the Incredible Edible Milbridge- Milbridge Commons MG project. It is a community garden available to all local residents in need of quality produce that they harvest. The project is managed and supported by Women for Healthy Rural Living (WHRL); there are a few Master Gardeners involved in the project.
SAVE THE DATE!
The Hancock County Extension Office will be holding an Open House on Saturday, May 17th.
Plans are underway for a fun springtime event here at the Extension Office. MG Volunteers, our 4-H Youth and Volunteers, and maybe some 4-legged farm critters (from our Livestock Program) will be on hand? This will be a great way of showcasing all of our programs at Hancock County.
Some members of the MGV Advisory have signed on to help plan this event. If you’re interested in joining a planning committee, let Sue Baez know. Watch your email for more info in the next couple of months.
What are you doing in February – besides shoveling and plowing?
There’s not a lot of gardening news just yet, but if you’re game to spend some time outside we’ve collected some activities. If you’d rather stay warm and cozy, we have some suggestions for your reading or viewing pleasure. Get outside!
Blue Hill Heritage Trust (BHHT) Winter Hiking Challenge (January 4-March 20)
All ages are invited to participate in our 2025 Winter Hiking Challenge featuring Blue Hill Heritage Trust trails across the Blue Hill Peninsula!
There are signs posted at six designated trails and a mystery letter for participants to collect on a Trail Checklist Card. Hikers will learn about tracks commonly found on snowy trails around the peninsula, as well as some interesting facts about the animals who made them.
Trail Checklist Cards will be available at the BHHT office at 157 Hinckley Ridge Rd in Blue Hill. (After hours they can be found in our mailbox just outside the front door.) We can also email you the PDF by contacting us at info@bluehillheritagetrust.org
Visit all of the following trails – Maps for the trails can be found at bluehillheritagetrust.org/trails/
– John Murphy Trail, Blue Hill
-Greenbie Nature Area, Castine
-Snow Natural Area, Brooksville
-Tallalay Trail, Surry (No Dogs on this trail.)
-John B. Mountain, Brooksville
-Kingdom Woods, Blue Hill
The challenge ends on Thursday, March 20th, the first day of spring! Once you have completed all six trails and assembled the letters to form the mystery word, bring the completed card to our office and collect your prize. EVERYONE will receive a prize for completing the hiking challenge. *In pre-celebration of our 40th Anniversary (coming this summer) there will be additional prizes given to the 1st adult to finish, and to ALL participants ages 10 and younger! *
Note: from experience – bring your ice cleats and a hiking pole.
BHHT Friends from the Field: Winter Tree Identification- LIVE!
Thursday, February 20th, LOCATION TBD
3-4:30 pm (Please note that the timing of this FFTF event has been changed to account for our February sunsets.)
Join BHHT’s Forester, JW, for a special February edition of Friends from the Field: Winter Tree Identification- LIVE! This walk will take place on a BHHT property yet to be decided. Participants will be emailed the location and directions in advance of the event.
*If there is lots of ice on the trail, the location of the hike may change (we will notify everyone who has signed up). Use this link to register. In case of inclement weather, we may opt to reschedule the hike.
Registration is required
Winter Projects
~ Winter sowing seeds that need cold stratification (mostly native)
Wild Seed Project Blog – Ideal Time for Sowing Native Seeds
Maine Audubon – Perfect Time for Growing Maine Natives from Seed
A Way to Garden / Margaret Roach – Winter Sowing of Native Plants
Remember that Chickadee Compost continues to accept compost year-round
~ Tool and Shed Cleaning
University of Minnesota – Clean and Disinfect Gardening Tools
Colorado State University – Tool Care
~ Videos or Webinars to Watch
UMaine Cooperative Extension – Sowing Seeds – Microgreens
BHHT Story of Place – Webinar Series
Even if you’re not interested in the outdoor events, I’m sure many of you are familiar with the BHHT Trails and may have been there in more clement weather. The webinars below tell the stories of many of their properties
Blue Hill Heritage Trust is excited to host a webinar series called The Story of Place, dedicated to the memory of a dear friend and local historian Bob Slaven. “This series will be a celebration of some of the most treasured places on the Blue Hill Peninsula,” commented the Trust’s then-Development Director Chrissy Allen. “Bob’s infectious love of this place, and desire to know “the story” of the peninsula inspired this oral history project.”
Stories will include properties protected by BHHT, as well as others of cultural and historic significance to the Blue Hill Peninsula, and conversations with the people behind so much of our work. The Story of Place will be a series of live online presentations with special guests from BHHT’s past and present sharing stories of how some of the Trust’s most popular properties came to be, as well as local history buffs from around the region.
The Gardener – If you haven’t had a chance to watch The Gardener, it’s available on Amazon Prime, YouTube, and a number of other platforms. Include “Frank Cabot” in your search or you’ll end up with completely unrelated movies. This is a documentary from 2018 about the creation of Les Quatre Vents, in Quebec. Created over 75 years and three generations, it stands as an enchanted place of beauty and surprise, a horticultural masterpiece of the 21st century. See how Frank Cabot gave birth to one of the greatest gardens in the world. Watch YouTube Link Native
Gardens of Blue Hill (NGBH) Recorded presentations available on YouTube:
Landscaping with Native Plants
hosted by Green & Healthy Maine as part of its “Home + Energy Chats” series on June 8, 2021
Native Gardens
hosted by Camden Garden Club
on February 16, 2021
Why Use Native Plants in the Garden?
hosted by Blue Hill Heritage Trust in July 2020
Women for Healthy Rural Living
Check out www.whrl.org, aka Women for Healthy Rural Living, based in Milbridge. They also have a Facebook page. They were introduced to me by MGVAC co-Co-Chair Lynne Altvater, and are mentioned in David Struck’s bio. There is way too much information on their programs to include here, but you won’t be sorry if visit their website.
GardenFit
It’s never too early to start getting fit for gardening season. Patty Persson, co-Chair of the MGVAC highly recommends getgardenfit on Instagram. GardenFit is about taking care of your garden while taking care of your body, and as a bonus the show travels to a lot of beautiful gardens to help their gardeners get “garden fit”. Adam Schersten, the fitness trainer and co-host gives his advice on stretches and general posture and movement aimed at gardeners.
Wild Seed Project
This is a great resource for learning about biodiversity and resilience in the face of climate change. The link below will lead you to their resources. They also sell native seeds and now is the time to plant them.
https://wildseedproject.net/blog
https://shop.wildseedproject.net/collections/shop-all-seeds?sort_by=created-descending
MGV Book Club
Please join us! Hancock/Washington County Master Gardeners’ Book Club.
The Hancock/Washington County Master Gardeners’ Book Club meets once a month, September through May (skipping the month of December) starting at 9am each third Thursday of the month. Those in attendance find that being in touch with other Master Gardeners outside of a garden is energizing; and learning together is especially rewarding. We meet at the Moore Community Center (Art Room) at 5 General Moore Way Ellsworth. The books are typically intriguing and focus on some aspect of the natural world. There are always lively collegial discussions.
ALL are welcome. Should you have any questions regarding the book club, please contact this year’s coordinator, Jane Ham, at jdham48@gmail.com
Remaining Reading List for 2025
February 20, 2025 Scientist E. O. Wilson: A Life in Nature by Richard Rhodes, 304 pp
“The scientist, naturalist, and two-time Pulitzer winner – who died in 2021 – ‘popularized the term ‘biophilia,’” our reviewer Andrea Wulf explained, ‘defining it as the love for the natural world and ‘the rich, natural pleasure that come from being surrounded by living organisms.”
March 20, 2025 Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon by Melissa L. Savigny, 304 pp. “In 1938, the botanists Elizada Clover and Lois Jotter overcame critics and a doubtful press to make a contribution to their field that informs science to this day, as Sevigny demonstrates in her lively history.”
April 17, 2025 Of Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery, 304 pp
“Compassionate and deeply researched, warm and astonishing, this book is an invitation to slip into turtle time – not the tick-tock hurry of human hustle, but the sacred, eternal time of daylight, darkness, and seasons. It’s a story that shows us a way to mend a world beset with unprecedented perils, shell by shattered shell.”
May 15, 2025 Book Selection discussion for 2025-2026 book list
Take lots of pictures of your MGV projects!
Send them Sue Baez at sue.baez@maine.edu for use in the Recognition Event video
This newsletter gets sent to about 152 people every month. Do you know an MGV who doesn’t receive the newsletter and would like to? Let us know! MGVnewsletterinput@gmail.com
You may remember from the last issue that we will probably put out 6 issues a year going forward. We’re still looking for new members and/or contributors to the Newsletter Committee. You need not be on the MGV Advisory Committee. I’m still looking for a co-chair if anyone would like to raise their hand. And don’t forget, you get credit for any MGV hours that you spend in meetings or writing. My thought, as editor, is that every member should commit to writing or soliciting at least 2 or 3 articles a year. We will have our first meeting of the new committee, probably in late February or early March after this issue comes out to discuss possible topics and the best times to publish, depending on the season. Please contact Betsy Adams at bluehilldesign@gmail.com if you would be interested in joining the committee or writing an article or three.
Thank you from the Newsletter Committee
Betsy Adams, Lynne Altvater, Jody Blake, Nicole Gurreri, Jane Ham, and Mary Hartley