Opportunities and Resources –
Opportunities:
I will be offering a series of classes for home gardeners in October. Classes will begin at 6:00 p.m. and end no later than 8:30. Gardeners are encouraged to bring supper to class. Soft drinks will be provided but no food or snacks. There is no charge for these classes, but you are encouraged to pre-register. In order to assure any handout materials please call 919.542.8202 to pre-register at least one week before the scheduled class. Space is limited.
The following classes are scheduled:
October 9 – Gardens and Drought
October 16 – Landscaping with Native Plants
October 23 – Perennials for All Seasons
October 30 – Plant Propagation
Those who have attended previous classes will be interested to know that the sessions on native plants and on perennials will include plants not covered in previous classes. Beginners are welcome but should be aware that some basic knowledge of gardening is assumed for this group of classes. More basic concepts of gardening under local conditions will be offered in the winter.
Resources:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/homehort/homehort.html
Unfortunately, since I reworked my page on soils, the NC Department of Agriculture has done major revisions to all its web pages. So links to NCDA sites are not all working at this point. Since they have not completed their overhaul, I have not invested a lot of time in fixing broken links yet. But I will get to it. If there’s something you really need and can’t get to, let me know. I may be able to help you out.
There is another page I’ve been working on but have not yet linked from anywhere. It’s “Rainwater Harvest, Storage, and Use” at http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/rainwater.html It provides a brief introduction to rainwater, cisterns, and rain barrels and a large number of links to more in depth publications on how to do it. It still needs a little work, but you’re welcome to start using it. Also watch for the article “To Harvest the Rain” in a soon to be published issue of Green Thumb Prints, http://chatham.ces.ncsu.edu/content/GTPindex
An internet based decision-aide entitled the Turf Irrigation Management System (TIMS) has been developed and is now available to the citizens of North Carolina through a cooperative effort between the Department of Crop Science and the State Climate Office of North Carolina at NC State University.
The system guides you through your account set-up by asking a few simple questions about the type of grass, soil, and irrigation system you have. After set-up, it calculates the amount of irrigation you need and keeps track of when and how much water you actually use. Once you have entered your address, climate information is read from the closest weather station which is part of the NC Climate Retrieval and Observations Network Of the Southeast (CRONOS) and the irrigation needed by your turf is calculated based on recent weather conditions including precipitation and evaporation.
This system will help you practice better water conservation for your lawn, landscape or other turfgrass areas in this critical time for water resources. It is free to the public in NC and can be accessed at http://www.TurfFiles.ncsu.edu/TIMS I will be interested to know if you use this system and if it makes a difference for you.
I guess you know we live in interesting times.
alcooke