Sunshine Community Gardens

6 June 2019

www.sunshinecommunitygardens.org

Gardener's Picture page

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Tomato Tasting Event - June 8th

This Saturday, June 8 at 9:00 am, Sunshine will have its annual tomato tasting and potato show and tell.

If you have not attended before, members bring what they've grown in their gardens. There are bags and markers so you can identify them. Bringing them early allows the score sheets to be done in advance. The bags and markers will be in the trailer in the room to the right with the AC on. Be sure to place them in the boxes marked for the tomato tasting.

The day of the tasting you get to sample a large number of tomatoes and hang out with your fellow community gardeners. Judging is done by giving the tomato a numerical score and commenting if so inclined.

Everyone is welcome, even if none of your produce is ready. Please come and if you want to help, arrive early and we will put you to work (bringing a knife and cutting board will be a big help).

Got a question? Kay scg.plots@gmail.com or Randy jartdaht@gmail.com.

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Sunshine Potato "Show & Tell"

Sat. June 8th, 9:00 A.M. in conjunction with Tomato Tasting Potato Growers - Share your growing experience and Show your potato crop! Wanna be growers - Come learn from others, learn the what and how! As a companion event to our Tomato Tasting, we are offering everyone the opportunity to share information about potato growing at Sunshine or from your other gardens (home, community, etc).

Current Potato Growers:

Fill out the simple form (blank forms on the main room table in the trailer, fill in the information and be on hand to share your potato experience with other interested gardeners).

Leave a few potatoes of each type with the form as part of the show and tell, including one to cut on Saturday, to show the texture, flesh color, etc.

Coordinators will arrange a table of samples with the information for all to learn from on Sat AM, June 8. Please leave your samples in the trailer by 4:00 on Friday, June 7 (you can bring them Sat AM before 8 if you cannot make the Friday deadline).

Wanna Be Growers:

Come to Sunshine Gardens for the combined Tomato Tasting and Potato Show and Tell - see what your fellow gardeners have produced, learn their methods and see samples of their potato crops.

Call Gail Reese - 512 451-0913 if questions regarding the Potato Show and Tell

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Vine Borers

This "cute" little devil is an adult squash vine borer and is on a sunflower. Photo by Randy Thompson or Janet Adams.

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Tomato Tips - Vine ripening with "tomato socks"

By Charlotte Jernigan (19-years at Sunshine)

Having a bird peck your tomatoes just as they blush is frustrating. Growing yellow or lime-green tomatoes instead of red or purple helps somewhat but all gardeners want to increase their chances of being able to truly "vine ripen" their tomatoes.

You will see many suggestions in action around Sunshine:

• Bird netting - lots of drawbacks but some use netting successfully.
• Red Christmas tree ornaments as decoys.
• Keeping water out for the birds to reduce thirst driven pecks.
• Flags, streamers, old-CDs spinning from strings, wind-wheelies, owl-statues, etc. In other words, various motion-makers to "spook" the birds.

I want to share a method that has worked well for me. You can perhaps combine this method with some of the above. I buy cheap, opaque mocha, suntan or black panty hose and cut the legs into segments. I cover my non-cluster tomatoes individually with these "socks." See pictures below. I use the larger remaining panty segment to cover some of my cluster tomatoes as a group.

While this is not 100% fool proof, it works 80% of the time. In 20% of cases, either a bird pecks the tomato anyway or a tomato rots-out inexplicably. In rare cases, insects get under the nylon and do some damage. Getting rain or water on the "socks" increases the chances of problems but I find that these actually dry out faster than brown-paper sacks or cotton socks upon which this panty-hose method is based. I hope some of you have success with this, as I have! ++cj charlotte@cybermesa.com

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Upcoming Events at Zilker Botanical Garden

Native and Adapted Perennials for Central Texas

Saturday, June 8, 2019 - 10:00am to 12:00pm
http://www.tcmastergardeners.org

Dear Master Gardeners and Interns,

I just wanted to remind you of the upcoming gardening seminar. Master Gardener Reeve Hobbie will share dozens of his favorite tried and true perennials that thrive here with minimal care in our climate and soils.

Reeve's collection of beautiful slides and plant descriptions will also highlight how perennials add color and texture to your landscape.

The seminar will be held on June 8, 2019, from 10 AM to 12 PM at the Austin Area Garden Center in Zilker Botanical Garden.

Invite your friends and neighbors to join you. And remember, you can earn CE hours.

Thanks,
Peggy Hart

Austin Organic Garden's Monthly Meeting - "Ice Cream Social"

Monday, June 10, 2019 - 7:00pm to 9:00pm
http://www.austinorganicgardeners.org

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Spring Service Hours Deadline Nears

Sunday, June 30 is last date to complete spring season service hours - both TSBVI and regular. Don't forget to record your hours in the Virtual Green Binder on Sunshine website. An unrecorded hour is an unworked hour. Gardeners can also use the Green Binder to see how many hours they need to complete. Unworked hours will be billed: TSBVI: $50/hr. First Two Regular: $30/hr; Subsequent Regular: $10/hr. To help gardeners complete their hours, workdays are being scheduled the last two weekends in June. Watch future Weeders and your email for additional information about the workdays and tasks needed to be done.

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Mural to be Painted on TSBVI Shipping Container

Remember that TSBVI shipping container many of us painted on last summer? Below is a photograph of the drawing for the upcoming mural to be painted on the container. Harrison Gay, lifelong friend of Marie Taylor in Zone 6, has graciously offered his services to paint a colorful mural onto the beige storage container in the southwest corner of the Gardens near the chicken coop area. He is an elementary teacher who has done other murals and projects around town. The board voted to pay for materials, and his labor is free. TSBVI has signed off on the project.

Harrison will commence work on the mural (weather permitting) on June 8 & 9. If you happen to see what appears to be a highly skilled tagger/graffiti artist, you will know the story behind the sight. Please come over to thank him for his kind offer.

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Weeder Content

Please email your article or suggestion to Holly Gilman by end of day Wednesday.

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