Wishing You a HOrT COCO New Year
It's a slow time of the year for this blog.
The MGCC's Help Desk is closed for the holidays until January 3rd. This means I'm somewhat at a loss for timely new Help Desk problems and responses which are the source of almost all the blog posts. I gratefully thank the Master Gardeners who originally produced those MGCC Help Desk responses. All their original hard work makes my work easy. Occasionally, I do post blogs that are mine. This is one of them. However, even for this blog, most of it is from other blogs. I've gathered some hopefully interesting items for your perusal during this time of the gardening year.
While I personally don't think it's been too bad weather wise so far (maybe because I've been inside scraping popcorn ceilings), I do know that it can and probably will be much colder and wetter (hopefully) over the next several months.
So… while thinking those thoughts, how about this “meme” for the upcoming Spring?
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=22874
Wreathes of this type can be used both indoor and outdoors!
And if you are inside looking for some interesting web browsing, how about checking out the many different blogs authored by other UC venues and UC Master Gardeners?... We posted a blog on our phobia “Blog Junkie”. You might find it interesting and subscribe to some of them… Most don't post that frequently and usually not more than a 5 minute read… and can be both interesting and enhance your gardening knowledge.I find the Solano MG blog “Under the Solano Sun”… and UC Davis' “Bug Squad” especially interesting, useful, and entertaining.
Finally, despite the weather, you can always bundle up and put your boots on and maybe under an umbrella (it can get that way sometimes…) get out to the garden and get dirty… Maybe the meme below will show you how and reduce your concerns about how it might look to your neighbors?…
CHEERS
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (SIM)
Note: MGCC's Help Desk will be closed Dec 19th, 2016 through Jan 2, 2017.
However, the UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is usually available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).
Advice from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County
Besides editing this portion of the MGCC's HOrT COCO blog, I'm something of a blog junkie. I probably subscribe to about a dozen of the UCANR blogs as well as others either directly and indirectly. Luckily, most don't publish that often. I used to be an avid book reader, but I'm finding that I'm now using my former “reading” time indulging in web blogs.
One blog I follow on the UCANR server is the IGIS blog. GIS basically being information gained from aerial and satellite mapping has always fascinated me. GIS came too late in my work career to really indulge, but the IGIS blogs on the various uses of GIS I find fascinating and informative.
I'd also recently heard anecdotal concerns that some backyard chicken raising wasn't quite as well-done due to lack of knowledge, and that shortfall could potentially impact the whole poultry community. Apparently from similar concerns, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the UC Cooperative Extension want to assess and remedy this concern and have embarked on a census of the California backyard poultry community. Quoting from their opening statements about the census on http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry/California_Poultry_Census/
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Note: As veterinarians at UC Davis our interest is in working with Backyard poultry and their owners to improve poultry health. The data in this survey is strictly for outreach purposes. We want to work with you. We are a university, not a regulatory agency and, therefore, our focus is on outreach and education and not regulation and enforcement.
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If you are part of the backyard poultry/chicken community, you are strongly encouraged to participate in the UCD census. It's only 2 minutes of your time and the benefits for you and you poultry/chickens are significant… cluck… cluck
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County (SIM)
Note: The UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/blogroll.cfm).