Seven members and two guests, Connie Schuld of Great Bend and Lori Tompkins from Alabama, gathered for their November Garden Club meeting with Pam Sweeney and Jeannine Girton serving refreshments.
For their program, Teresa Tompkins introduced Barbara Davenport and Gary Weiser, two members of the area’s Master Gardeners who are interested primarily in vegetable gardening. For two years they have maintained what they call a Learning Garden in one of the three raised beds located in the garden area near Washington Elementary School in Great Bend.
Their raised bed is three feet high by seven feet wide by 54 feet long. Initially they received some help from Rip Winkel, who was at that time the extension horticultural agent. By the second year they were doing research of their own and experimenting with different ways of amending the soil, seeing to the proper watering of each individual vegetable, and protecting the plants from disease. Their goal is to experiment with different specimens of a wide variety of vegetables in order to recommend the best ones for growing in this part of Kansas.
The raised beds are in a secured area as they belong to the Great Bend School district, but when the gates are open, they are there maintaining the garden and they welcome visitors to come look and ask questions. The produce they raise is gifted to places of need in town and the flowers are gifted to businesses and to school personnel who provide them with the garden bed.
They shared with Garden Club members, many helpful hints about vegetable gardening from the use of grow bags to avoid soil induced diseases, to using you own mixture of insect repellent (one ounce of hydrogen peroxide to 10 ounces of water). They recommend using soil Ph testers to determine the soil’s acidity which in turn determines what to add to the soil in terms of fertilizer. The K-State Extension Service will analyze those samples. They also recommended testing the temperature of the soil before planting (50 to 55 degrees), mulching the beds, and using a few flowers, colorful zinnias for example, to make the vegetable garden appear more attractive and to draw pollinators. A special tip for the predicted hard winter this year is to water newer trees and shrubs (one to three years old), by hand or a drip container with five gallons of water several times throughout the winter. They use each winter holiday as a reminder to water. And older trees and shrubs need water over the winter also.
The next meeting of Garden Club will be at 10 a.m. on Dec. 19 in the Cottonwood Extension Service meeting room. The program will be by Pam Martin from the Cheyenne Bottom’s Wetlands Center. Visitors are welcome.
