The updated watering restrictions...This will be a long blog...

Well, as you can imagine, most of the calls I'm getting today relate to two things:

1. The outdoor watering ban
2. The well program tomorrow night

Most of the questions relate to the first item listed! One really good question came from a member of our group--Can we still water the vegetable garden during the total water ban?

I have spent the day sort of obsessing about this in between prepping for my program tomorrow night and answering other calls related to the ban! So I'm going to share my obsessing with you:

In order to try and figure it out, I read through the EPD/DNR's related documents, but still didn't feel certain of the answer:
http://www.paulding.gov/files/Water//Paulding%20County%20Ord%20Level%204%20Response%20Water%20Use%2009%202007.pdf

One thought would be that since this is a food garden and the produce is donated to Helping Hands for the needy, shouldn't we be able to water? "Personal" food gardens are exempt, but ours is a demonstration, so what does that mean for us? On the flip side, isn't this a prime opportunity for Master Gardeners to demonstrate other ways to water, since fall gardens have lower water requirements than summer ones and we are all about education? We have a rain barrel and more could be made and installed. Last year's fall garden did not get watered and did fine with the amount of rainfall we got from Mother Nature.

This is a sticky situation. We're the County Extension Office, so we should be setting an example for all the members of our community and the Master Gardener Demonstration Garden is a great example for our community of good gardening practices! However, this beautiful, highly visible garden is a double edged sword-people are watching our garden and just with hospital/doctor's office traffic, hundreds of people pass by everyday. You might not think lots of them are paying attention, but with the number who stop in to ask about it and the folks out in the community who comment on it, I know it's making an impression. So, if we water it, they're going to notice that too.... And then they're going to want to know why the County Extension Office isn't adhering to the outdoor water ban.

So after a long day of obsessing...I obsessed some more. I called several other Extension folks to ask about it, no definitive answer...I called the state MG office to ask about it, no definitive answer...I read the Cobb Marietta Water Authority website to look for guidance, no definitive answer:
http://www.ccmwa.org/
...and finally I called the Water Conservation Coordinator at the Cobb Marietta Water Authority (who I suspect has had more phone calls than all the local County Agents combined)-right to the heart of the matter! The Conservation Coordinator and I talked about how to interpret the ban and its exemptions and she indicated that for our Plant a Row garden, it was OK to water, conservatively during the ban as long as Master Gardeners use the HIGH VISIBILITY of the vegetable garden as an educational tool.

So, with that advice this is THE ANSWER regarding watering the fall vegetable garden: For now, I have taken the timer off and removed the batteries to conserve some of their juice. It rained an inch about a week and a half ago and the garden was watered on the timer on the last possible day before the ban. Master Gardeners need to post some signage, if we want to continue watering with the timer. We also need to stay within appropriate watering times (Midnight to 10am-preferably the very early morning to prevent disease problems) to conserve water and to demonstrate good gardening practices (disease prevention is particularly important at this time of year). The signs would be a good educational tool to let people know that the Water ban does not apply to food gardens. It would also be an opportunity to make folks aware of what you do with the produce from this garden and to highlight good gardening practices.

The next important question is: WHO will get started on this and WHEN? Betty D has spent lots of time and energy getting the fall garden off to a good start and it looks great right now! I believe she is unavailable at the moment to organize this task. Is there anyone out there who can work on this? Please contact me and let me know if you are interested.

Or if someone is intent on demonstrating other ways to address this critical issue (rain barrels attached to soaker hoses, water collected from the air conditioner condensation, lugging graywater in buckets to the Extension office, rain dance classes for the public....), I would welcome input on the topic!

I'll bring this up again at our meeting later this week! For now, I'll be prayin' for rain,
MC

Wow! It worked -- how cool is this! Travis

PCMGA meeting reminder

Hi everyone! Thought I'd try out this blogging stuff. Don't have any idea what I'm doing. Wanted to remind everyone that our meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 27th at 10 a.m. The location is at the Dallas Library. Doug Davies from White Oak Landscaping will be our speaker. See you then.

Travis

Is anybody out there?

So, I'm wondering if you've stopped by to check this out again?

In case anyone's reading, I have a request for some assistance with the Jr. Master Gardener program at McGarity next week. They'd like for the students to plant a small fall vegetable garden on Thursday afternoon. If you are interested in helping the students learn about fall vegetable gardening and could provide some advice or an activity related, contact Laurie Bartron, the McGarity Jr. MG leader. Here's a link to the Vegetable Garden publication:

http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/B577.htm

It appears to me that the comment section works, so you can leave comments if you are willing to sign up for a google username and password-you can use your own email address as your username and choose your own password. I think you can also link to reply to me via email. But if you want to post something for the group (or at least the ones reading this) this might be an easy way!

Well program sign ups are going well, so if you signed up to volunteer for this, it looks like we're a go! Check in with me on Monday to see where to meet (either here or Paulding Meadows-I need to see when Dr. Vendrell arrives here at the office, so I can take him to Paulding Meadows).

Don't forget: Registration for the October 10th Advanced Master Gardener Training is due to Forsyth County Extension (770-887-2418) by October 1st. I'll be driving the van, if anyone needs a ride and we'll be leaving at 0:dark:30 (I'll keep you posted on the actual time to meet at the office!).

Blog to you soon, MC

Welcome to the Paulding County Master Gardener Blog!

OK, I've decided to try a new format that won't clog up your email inbox. I will send you an email to let you know about it this time, but not everytime I update it! I'll also put a link to it on our Paulding County Extension Website: www.ugaextension.com/paulding

I don't have loads to share today, but I wanted to let you know I was giving this blogging thing a try. I will share with you some of the questions I'm getting in the office recently:

Lots of questions and samples of pond weeds-it should be the end of the busy time for this as it cools down.

Also many people are beginning to plan for fall planting landscape plants-they are looking for recommendations on what to plant and where, so I've been pointing them in the direction of some useful UGA publications online. This is one I particularly like about flowering perennials:
http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/b944-w.html

Many folks are also starting to notice that their trees aren't looking so good...my general thought at this time of year is that after months of hanging on in the drought, most trees aren't looking so good. If they are dead at this point, they aren't coming back, but if they are just losing their leaves, they may just be responding to offset the stress of drought.

I've been getting a lot of interest in the upcoming Master Gardener Training that will begin in January, 2008. Applications will become available October 1st and I'll send you all a link at that time, in case you know anyone who is interested.

Several folks were in last week working on the fall vegetable garden. It looks lovely. You may hear from Betty Drafall about signing up to check in on it during this cooler season. I encourage you to volunteer a little time for this. The fall garden is slower than the summer vegetable garden, so if you can check on it once or twice in a given week, that will probably be enough for harvesting and weeding.

Ms. Tommie will leave us sooner than I care to think about! (I'm happy for her, but sad for us). We could use help any extra help around the office we can get, so that we can continue to provide exceptional education and service to Paulding County residents.

There are some Master Gardener related tasks that could really use attention, if you have a few minutes. Updating "The Paulding Vine" email list with new contacts made at the Paulding Meadows Festival is one that comes to mind.

So that is my blog for today! I'll try to update this periodically, so I hope you'll bookmark it and check in once in a while.