Hancock and Washington Counties Master Gardener Volunteers News – October 2021
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Workshops | Recipes |MGV Pofile |MGV Book Group |Obsolete Pesticides| Plant Sale 2022 Prep| Reporting Hours
UPCOMING DATES TO REMEMBER
October 7 Growing Great Garlic workshop
October 8 MG Family Reunion, 5 PM – Pot Luck – Outdoor Event at Extension Office (RSVP)
October 8 Deadline to register for Obsolete Pesticide Collection
October 11 Indigenous Peoples Day (office closed)
October 17. Great Maine Apple Day – (sponsored by MOFGA)
October 21 Apple Gleaning (RSVP needed)
October 22 Rain Date – Apple Gleaning
November 1 Tips & Tipping for Long Lasting Holiday Decorations – ZOOM workshop
November 1 MG Advisory Meeting
November 11 Veteran’s Day (office closed)
COVID Protocols
We will keep you updated on any future Covid Safety protocol changes. Watch your emails. Thank you all for being so patient and cooperative!
Gardening Series – Virtual Workshops
Growing Great Garlic in Maine
Thursday, October 7, 2021, 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Registration deadline: 4 PM on October 7, 2021
Join Dave Fuller with UMaine Extension for a webinar session on growing great garlic in Maine. We’ll cover every step of growing including variety choice, timing of planting, scape removal, dealing with diseases and when to harvest and store your garlic.We offer our program fee on a sliding scale ($0-10)
The event has passed, and registration is closed. – Participants will receive the Zoom information after registering for this event.
Tips and Tipping for Long Lasting Holiday Decorations
Monday, November 1, 2021, 6:00 PM to 7:15 PM
Registration deadline: 4 PM on November 1, 2021
Decorating with evergreen and natural materials during the winter season is very traditional. Our experts will show you how to harvest and handle evergreens and design both traditional and creative new options for making the most of the materials that may be right in your own backyard.We offer our program fee on a sliding scale ($0-10)
The event has passed, and registration is closed.– Participants will receive the Zoom information after registering for this event.
Mainely Dish and Recipes
Did you say Carrots ? Do you have an abundance of Kale, Squash, Carrots?
Check out our Food and Nutrition “Recipes” website. They offer some wonderful recipe ideas!
Master Gardener Volunteer Profile / Article
First and Lasting Impressions
Joyce Fortier
Since 2003, Joyce Fortier has offered the initial response to many in-person and phone contacts at Hancock County Cooperative Extension. Good chance many MGV’s recall that first impression and can still “-ce” the “Joy-” in Joyce as she so pleasantly greeted and welcomed us. As she nears retirement this December, Joyce repeats her aim is always to provide the best first impression possible as well as responsiveness to subsequent requests. That’s impressive…and appreciated!
Interesting that her husband, Dick, is another sort of first responder who has served over 40 years as a fire fighter. Not surprising that their children are also busy assisting people in business management, teaching, and counseling. Joyce seems to almost float as she speaks of her family which centers on 7 delightful grandchildren and their unique interests and talents among which are karate, baseball, soccer, jet skiing, math, music, and let’s not forget tea party time with Grandmother. Then there are the family pets including Joyce’s close companion who happens to be a golden retriever. No wonder that joy abounds and radiates as Joyce and her family prosper!
Such a rich investment in family led Joyce into secretarial work which she began at Life Christian Academy as school secretary where her children attended. As they moved on to Bangor Christian for their schooling so too did Joyce where she also served as secretary. Then as her son began college at Orono, he teased that it had been OK for his mom to follow him to school as a child but that he didn’t want her to continue with him to college. What a surprise when Joyce began her secretarial work with University of Maine and attended meetings at the Orono campus, but not at all surprising that her son invited her to lunch on those days when she there. Delight in family does sparkle in all directions.
Joyce’s light colors and is colored by her engagement with 4-H children, their leaders and volunteers as her employment is focused on helping to support one project after another. Whether it’s helping with style reviews, the food booth at the Blue Hill Fair, or any other seasonal event there’s been plenty of fun and good learning for all in the process. Rich that some of the 4-H’ers Joyce knew as children seem to delight in introducing their own youngsters to her as the family continues with 4-H.
While Joyce’s position involves her in assisting with all programs offered at Extension, her appreciation for MGV’s ultimately drew her into the training and volunteering. As an employee and an official MGV, Joyce has helped with numerous facets of the program and especially enjoys the people who bring their unique color and brightness to the team. She notes the kindness as well as the skill of MGV’s are perfect reasons for being an MGV. Of course, we appreciate that she offers that to us as well. Thank you, Joyce!
We can celebrate the fact that Joyce’s first impressions are indeed lasting ones yet not the last ones. Even in retirement Joyce will remain part of our MGV group, and we will have the continued brightness of her presence just as she will have good cause to smile as we offer our sparkles. Let’s look forward to us all growing along together in the gardens as next season arrives.
written by: Rita Buddemeyer
MGV Book Group
This group is open to all MGV’s!
Meeting on Zoom on the third Thursday of the month at 9am. Contact Karen Johnson at kaj810@gmail.com FMI. If you can’t make the meeting, you might still find a good book for your Fall or Winter’s enjoyment. See our list below!
October 21, 2021 
H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (Memoir) 2014
One of Slate’s 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years 283 pages
Nov. 18, 2021
Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again by Page Dickey 2020
When Page Dickey moved away from her celebrated garden at Duck Hill, she left a landscape she had spent thirty-four years making, nurturing, and loving. She found her next chapter in northwestern Connecticut, on 17 acres of rolling fields and woodland around a former Methodist church. In Uprooted, Dickey reflects on this transition and on what it means for a gardener to start again.
January 20, 2022
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert 2014
A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a 10,000-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE 335 pages
February 17, 2022
Nature’s Nether Regions: What the Sex Lives of Bugs, Birds, and Beasts Tell Us About Evolution, Biodiversity, and Ourselves by Menno Schilthuizen 2014
Menno Schilthuizen invites readers to join him as he uncovers the ways the shapes and functions of genitalia have been molded by complex Darwinian struggles: penises that have lost their spines but evolved appendages to displace sperm; female orgasms that select or reject semen from males, in turn subtly modifying the females’ genital shape. We learn why spiders masturbate into miniature webs, discover she dung flies that store sperm from attractive males in their bellies, and see how, when it comes to outlandish appendages and bizarre behaviors, humans are downright boring.
March 17, 2021
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard 2021
From the world’s leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest–a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery. 305 pages
April 21, 2021
The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees Douglas W. Tallamy 2021
Oaks sustain a complex and fascinating web of wildlife. The Nature of Oaks reveals what is going on in oak trees month by month, highlighting the seasonal cycles of life, death, and renewal. From woodpeckers who collect and store hundreds of acorns for sustenance to the beauty of jewel caterpillars, Hardcover 155 pages
Lavon continues to recommend this book and if others are doing journal entries, we could have a discussion about our observations at a separate meeting at some time.
Repeat suggestion: The Naturalist’s Notebook for Tracking Changes in the Natural World around You by Nathaniel T Wheelwright and Bernd Heinrich
208 pages with first 95 pages “nature content” and the remainder as a 5yr calendar journal. I have kept my “mostly animal journal” for 2 1/3 years now and started a “mostly plants journal: in late March of this year. I LOVE to see the year to year comparisons and since there is only a little space each day I am not prone to over recording and/or avoiding. I feel more relaxed about this journaling than most efforts to record life. I would LOVE for us to record for a year and then have our discussion of observations/experiences.
The Naturalist’s Notebook: An Observation Guide and 5-Year Calendar-Journal for Tracking Changes in the Natural World around You by Nathaniel T. Wheelwright (Author), Bernd Heinrich (Author) 2017
Become a more attentive observer and deepen your appreciation for the natural world.
Great Maine Apple Day 
Come celebrate the harvest at Great Maine Apple Day, Sunday October 17th!
Join the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association for Great Maine Apple Day, a celebration of the history, flavor and tradition of Maine apples while honoring the importance of a diversified, perennial agriculture. This annual event takes place on Sunday, October 17, from noon to 4 p.m., at MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center in Unity. Admission is $2 for MOFGA members and $4 for nonmembers; kids get in free.
More Information and to Register
Obsolete Pesticide Collection
Each October, the Maine Board of Pesticides Control conducts a program to collect and properly dispose of banned and unusable pesticides from homeowners and farms. Preregistration is required and collections are held at four sites across the state. More information about the program may be found below.
Our next collection will be held during October 2021, one day each in Presque Isle, Bangor, Augusta, and Portland. Registration is required for the October 2021 collection. More Information and to Register
MGV Plant Sale Prep
We know better than to count our chickens before they hatch, but the time is right for sending in photos of plants you plan to donate to our 2022 plant sale. Please e-mail your snapshots of perennials that you clicked before you picked along with plant name, descriptive details helpful to customers, and quantity of divisions of the plant. Your info will be safely stored until spring at: MGVnewsletterinput@gmail.com Now is also the time to put markers in the ground so we’ll know where to dig those plants in March and April.
Did you know? 
Our On-line Publications site has a whole new look!
University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s publications and books help “extend” University of Maine resources to the Maine public:
VISIT ONLINE HERE!
Please be reminded to REPORT your Master Gardener volunteer Hours monthly
September/October Hours are due NOW – REPORT HERE