Ever

wonder

why a

plant just

won’t take

off?

Here’s a

hint….

It’s not the

plant’s

fault.

Getting The Yard

I Want!

Every year I strive to get the perfect yard I want. I read garden magazines, go to professional horticulture work-shops, watch OPB gardening programs AND put on my own gardening classes and invite instructors with expertise to teach them. Mindy and I have planned quite a gardening series this year, for us and for you. We call it “Getting The Yard I Want”. We have divided our program into two series, one on designing your landscape, the other on edible landscape. The “Designing Your Landscape” series will include: How to Know What I Want: this class explores different means to help you understand what you want and ideas on planning your landscape. Knowing My Micro-Eco-Systems: this class will help you know what the different microclimates of your yard are, i.e. microclimates dictate what you can grow and where you can grow it. Ever wonder why a plant just won’t take off? Well, it could be that you planted it in a microclimate in which it just can’t survive! (It’s not the plant’s fault. Well, it could be, but I want you to come to the class. David is teaching it.) Lawns-the Area Rugs of My Yard: I think of my lawn as an area rug. Around it are my flower beds, etc. People in Baker spend a lot of time and work maintaining their lawns. Ever wonder how to keep that lawn looking

lush, green, and weed-free? You’ll get the answers in this class. Remodeling My Landscape: learning about the aesthetics of a landscape, i.e. focal points, color coordination, texture, shapes, the best use of and defining space. This is what I need. I waste a lot of space in my yard. Shopping For My Landscape: Mindy and I thought this was a catchy title. This class puts all the knowledge you have learned from the series into creating your beautiful landscape rooms. The “ Your Edible Landscape and Series” will include class topics: Fruit Tree Care, Maintenance and Pruning: You will be able to take care of your fruit trees and prune them yourself after attending this class. We will be going on-site to practice our new pruning techniques so I need someone to volunteer their fruit orchard; not too far out of town, please. The best practice orchard would include apple, peach/apricot, plum, cherry. Each species has different pruning techniques. Call the office if you have a fruit orchard that fits the need. Vegetable Gardening: You will learn the specifics of some vegetable families, planting, watering, fertilizing, harvesting, etc. Soil and seeds will be provided so you can bring a container to start some veggies. Small Farm Production: this is a special class. Taught by Ariel Agenbroad, University of Idaho Small Farms Extension Agent, she will cover

Eastern Oregon Gardening January 2017

OSU Baker County Extension Service

Janice Cowan Horticulture Agent 2600 East Street

Baker City, OR 97814 Ph. 541.523.6418 Fax 541-523-8225

janice.cowan@oregonstate.edu

exploratory topics for new and beginning small farmers; what can I do on a small farm, exploring options, learning basics about planning and marketing. This class will help you if you want to start a small farm business. Ariel is an expert in this field. I’ll have more information in the next newsletter. The Landscape Series will be from 5:30 pm - 7:30pm during the week. This will be “brown bag dinner.” We provide drinks. The Edible Landscape Series will be on Saturday’s, 9 am - 2 pm. We provide lunch. This was my idea– feed them and they will come! We will need to cover handouts, instructor expense and Saturday meals so there will be a cost. It won’t be much. More details and registration information in the next newsletter.

Had enough snow yet? Here are some tid-bits that might make your snow conversations a little more interesting? 1. IT’S A MYTH THAT NO TWO SNOWFLAKES ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. In 1988, a scientist found two identical snow crystals. They came from a storm in Wisconsin. 2. THE LARGEST SNOWFLAKE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 15 INCHES WIDE. According to some sources, the largest snowflakes ever observed fell during a snowstorm in January 1887 at Montana’s Fort Keogh. While witnesses said the flakes were “larger than milk pans,” these claims have not been substantiated. 3. SNOW IS TRANSLUCENT, NOT WHITE. Snow, like the ice particles it’s made up of, is actually colorless. It’s

translucent, which means that light does not pass through it easily, but is rather reflected. It’s the light reflected off a snowflake’s faceted surface that creates its white appearance. The reason we see objects as colors is because some wavelengths of light are absorbed while others are reflected. Since snow is made up of so many tiny surfaces, the light that hits it is scattered in many directions and will actually bounce around from one surface to the next as it’s reflected. This means no wavelength is absorbed or reflected with any consistency, so the white light bounces back as the color white. 4. EACH WINTER IN THE U.S. AT LEAST 1 SEPTILLION ICE CRYSTALS FALL FROM THE SKY. That’s 1,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000 — 24 zeros! 5. THE MOST SNOW TO FALL IN A 24-HOUR PERIOD IN THE U.S. IS 75.8 INCHES In 1921, over six feet of snow fell between April 14 at 2:30 p.m. and April 15 at 2:30 p.m. in Silver Lake, Colorado. 6. NOVA SCOTIA HOLDS THE RECORD FOR THE MOST SNOW ANGELS EVER MADE SIMULTANEOULS IN MULTIPLE LOCATIONS In 2011, 22,022 Nova Scotia residents in 130 separate locations all plopped down in the snow to make snow angels. 7. FEELING DEVILISH? THE LARGEST SNOWBALL FIGHT ON RECORD TOOK PLACE IN SEATTLE. Exactly 5,834 snow fighters came together to exchange frozen barrages to create the largest snowball fight in the world on January 12, 2013.

The Largest

Snowball

Fight Took

Place in

Seattle.

5,834 People

Had a Snow-

ball Fight!

Cool Facts About

Snow

Not another article on how to stop deer from eating your garden?!? I assume you already have your fences up or you are unable to build a fence to protect your garden. I did find an article in Garden Gate on repellents and unpalatable plants that could be an alternative to a fence. Before you blame the deer, check the cuts. If you see clean cuts, they’re most likely from a rabbit or ground-hog. The photo at left shows the ragged leaf edges deer typically leave. Since deer don’t have upper incisors, they tear instead of bite, causing the damage you see here. There are lots of ways to protect your plants from hungry deer, but the most effective is the fence. If you don’t have a fence the next best things are repellents, scare tactics or plants they don’t like to eat. While no repellent is 100-percent effective, using one helps. The keys are to start using the repellent early and to rotate products so deer don’t get used to the smell or taste. Deer are creatures of habit and feed along regular routes. If you can prevent them from showing up in the first place, you won’t have to retrain them. There are dozens of recipes for homemade sprays using rotten eggs, hot peppers or both. There’s one home remedy that doesn’t require any mixing and smells pretty good, too. Get a bar of soap that contains tallow, which is an animal-based fat. (Irish Spring is one that’s often suggested but the brand doesn’t matter.) Avoid soap with coconut

oil. Place the tallow soap in a cheese cloth or plastic mash bag and hang it from a stake, within 3 feet of the plant you want to protect. (see left) Soap with tallow may attract nibbling rodents; that’s why it’s best to hang it from a stake rather than in a tree.

Commercial repellents are more costly but have the advantages of a consistent formula with a long shelf life. The USDA National Wildlife Research Center found that those with a sulfurous odor of rotten eggs are most

effective. “Liquid Fence”, and Deer Away” have all done well in various trails. There really are plants that deer won’t usually eat. Look for plants with foliage that’s sticky, prickly, thorny or hairy, bleeds thick sap or has a pungent scent, such as mint or citrus. Rutgers University has been testing hundreds of plants and rating them from A to D, depending on how often that particular plant gets eaten. You can see the complete list of test results online at https://njaes.rutgers.edu/deerresistance/ OR I had Angela make a complete list of the “A’s” only (1 1/2pages) and it’s here in the office. It lists annuals, shrubs, bulbs, trees, ornamental

grasses, perennials, ferns, groundcovers, of which many can grow in our climate zone. Come by the office for a free copy.

Even with all these ideas, gardening with deer around is a big challenge, but we can do it!

#@!* Deer!

Eastern Oregon

Baker, Union,

Grant Counties

Program Quick

Stats

7 trainees (92%

completed service)

4 veterans (74%

recertified)

11 Master

Gardeners

898 people

reached

106 MG CEU’s

earned

472 volunteer

hours valued at

$19,738

Gail Langellotto, State Master Gardener Coordinator, files an annual report of the statewide program every year. Below are some 2016 highlights of the Oregon Master Gardener program and the volunteers that have made a difference throughout the state. To the left shows what we accomplished in Eastern Oregon. We may be small, but we do many good things too!

Annuals Report of OSU Master

Gardener Volunteers

Expanding Our Reach: Master Gardener certification training was delivered in Union county, and provided to Grant and Baker Counties via a Webex connection Volunteering in the Community: Union county volunteers completed over 141 hours of community service work at parks, gardens, and afterschool program sites. Conducted plant clinics at farmer’s markets, county fairs. Regional Garden Symposium: Baker Master Gardeners sponsored their 3rd NE Oregon Garden Symposium. 42 attendees, 9 instructors and 4 local vendors. Classes included: organic gardening, growing table grapes, pruning, xeriscaping, growing berries, lawns, garden weeds, bees, and flower arranging.

Do pests, plagues and history belong together? You’d better believe it. Insects have played, and continue to play, an important role in history. It took centuries for the connections between many diseases and insects to be verified, and a quick review of some of today’s plagues, such as malaria, Zika virus and Lyme disease shows that political decisions regarding prevention, treatment and funding are still making headlines. See where you stand when it comes to basic knowledge of the impact of pests on human history. 1. What proportion of all animal species are insects? A. 1/20 B. 1/10 C 2/3 D 4/5 2. Which insect-borne disease contributed to the failure of Napoleon’s campaign to conquer Russia? A. Yellow fever B. Bubonic plague C. Malaria D. Typhus 3. Which insect-borne disease contributed to the U.S. purchase of the Louisiana Territory? A. Yellow fever B. Bubonic plague C. Malaria D. Typhus 4. By weight, approximately how much insect is the average American going to (accidentally) eat in his or her lifetime? A. Zero to 0.1 lb. B. 1 lb. C. 2 to 4 lbs. D. 8 lbs. 5. Food nutrient levels: which of the following has the highest percent protein? A. Beef B. Termites C. Eggs D. Fish 6. Which insect-borne disease contributed to a boom in the European textile industry? A. Yellow fever B. Typhus C. Lyme disease D. Bubonic plague 1. D. Insects make up four-fifths of all animal species. The number of living species of insects has

been estimated to be as high as 30 million. 2. D. Researchers found evidence of typhus in a large percentage of the remains at a burial site of

Napoleon’s Grande Armee soldiers. Typhus is spread by body lice, mites and fleas, but not head lice and they had multiplied in the conquered and impoverished villages.

3. A. A yellow fever epidemic in the Caribbean in the late 18th century reduced the number of French troops in what is present-day Haiti from 60,000 to 7,000. Napoleon abandoned his quest to secure power in North America, leading to the famous sale of the Louisiana Territory and the important seaport at New Orleans.

4. B. One pound. The Food and Drug Administration regulates the acceptable levels of insect parts per food item to ensure that the food is not unsafe to consume, but the amounts add up over a year. Standards allow an average of 30 or more insect fragments per 10 grams of ground allspice, an average of more than 2,500 aphids per 10 grams of hops and an average of 20 or more Dro-sophila fly eggs per 100 grams of tomato puree.

5. B. Termites. The protein content can vary depending upon cooking method-from 20 percent when eaten raw up to 37 percent fresh weight when fried or smoked.

6. D. Bubonic Plague, which is spread by fleas. The “great pestilence” which killed 25-60 percent of the European population in the 14th and 15th centuries reduced many peasant populations to the point that it was no longer profitable to till large acres of land for agriculture. Land owners turned to the more lucrative raising of sheep, which required much less labor, and to the manufacture of woolen cloth and other textiles.

A Quiz About Pests, Plagues and History

Despite their lack of brains, plants have exhibited a certain level of awareness in scientific tests. Plants are certainly alive, but are they conscious? Well, they don’t have the apparatus-a brain and nervous system-that makes us conscious. But science has found that many of the features of awareness are found in plants. Recent discoveries are pretty amazing. Do plants have memory? Dr. Monica Gagliano, University of Florence, chose to work with Mimosa pudica, which droops and folds up its leaves when touched. Monica dropped the plants from a six-inch height into cushiony foam that prompted the folding response but didn’t injure the plant. After repeated falls with no harms, the plants stopped folding their leaves when dropped. They seemed to remember that being dropped into foam can be safely ignored. Of course, forgetting is the reverse of remembering; another scientist suggested that the sensitive plant might be learning to forget to fold? Anyway, the Gagliano study showed that plants can at least become accustomed to insults, and that’s a form of learning. As any human who has experienced jet lag knows, we have an internal clock in our bodies that produces a 24-hour-based circadian rhythm; and so do plants. Sunflowers that turn their flower heads to follow the sun across the sky show better growth and development than the same species that are prevented from

following the sun and have their circadian rhythm interrupted. When night falls, how do unimpeded sunflowers return to face east to wait for sunrise? They have no muscles. But they do have genes that control growth. During the night, genes stimulate growth on the west side of the stems only, forcing the heads to turn back to the east. During the day, growth is stronger on the east side, turning the heads with the sun, all of which means the sunflowers are coordinating light signals, their circadian clocks, and genetically-driven growth rates on different sides of their stems. Some plants can count. A team of scientists at the University of Wurzburg in Germany knew that Venus flytraps only expend energy to close their traps when the hairs on the traps send 2 electrical signals within 20 seconds. That means the plant remembers the first signal for a short time, but two taps on a trigger hair will not induce the plant to make digestive enzymes to turn its prey into nutrient-rich soup. That takes more than three taps—or as many as a struggling victim would produce. So not only can the plant count, but it can decide something’s fishy if the count isn’t right and refuse to take the bait. If only we humans were smart enough to do that!

OSU Extension Office

Wednesday,

February 15,

12 noon – 1:00 pm

Mindful

Eating? Look

what I have

for breakfast

about every

day!

Come to this class with

me. Robin Maille, FCH

Extension Agent in

Union County, is

teaching this class

which will help us

become aware of and

focus on choosing to

eat food that is both

pleasing and nourishing

for our bodies. Mindful

eating can help reduce

over eating and binge

eating, which can

result in weight loss.

More important, it can

also help improve the

symptoms of Type 2

diabetes. It’s FREE!

Smarty Plants Stress Less with Mindfulness:

Mindful Eating

Sunflowers coordinate light signals, their circadian clocks and genetically-driven growth rates to follow the sun and to face east by the morning.

Oregon Small Farms Conference OSU Campus in Corvallis at the LaSells Stewart Center and

CH2M Hill Alumni Center Saturday, February 18, 2017

The Oregon Small Farms Conference is a daylong event geared toward farmers, agricultural professionals, food policy advocates and managers of farmer’s markets. Twenty-seven educational sessions are offered on a variety of topics relevant to the Oregon small farmers and include a track in Spanish. Speakers include farmers, OSU Extension faculty, agribusiness and more. PRICE: Register between Dec. 16 -Jan. 25: $50 Register between Jan. 26 - Feb. 10: $75 For more information type: smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/small-farms-conference-registration-open

2017 International Master Gardener Conference July 10-14, 2017 Portland, Oregon Oregon Convention Center 44 concurrent session classes 16 tours Open reception 3 movie film festival Keynote Speakers, and more For registration information google and type in 2017 International Master Gardener Conference and it will come right up. Registration has been extended to February 28, 2017.

Union County Extension Office 10507 N. McAlister Rd. La Grande, Oregon 541-963-1010 Union County will also be having horticulture classes this winter/spring. Nothing is set yet, but you could call their office and get on a mailing list.

Non-Profit Org. PRESORT STAND-

ARD U.S. Postage

PAID Permit #13

OSU Baker County Extension Service

Horticulture Newsletter 2600 East Street Baker City, OR 97814

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

Oregon State University Extension Service offers educational programs, activities, and materials without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual

orientation, national origin, age, marital status, disability, and disabled veteran or Vietnam era veteran status as required by Title VI of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Why Does My Christmas Cactus Bloom Well Before Christmas? It’s likely that you have a Thanksgiving cactus, which blooms about a month earlier in the fall than its fellow holiday bloomer. The most obvious way to tell the difference between the two types is to look at the leaflike stems. The Thanksgiving cactus has pointy edges; the Christmas cactus has smooth, round edges. The Easter cactus has star-shaped flowers rather than the tubular shape of the Christmas and Thanksgiving. Each of these holiday cacti require well-drained soil and do not like to be overwatered. Wait until the soil is dry before watering. Cool evening temps, around 50 to 55° F. and 12 to 14 hour nights promote bloom set.