- Author: Deborah Schnur
As a UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener and UC ANR employee, I am fortunate to have many opportunities to partner with amazing farmers, gardeners, and educators. I am particularly in awe of educators who fully integrate outdoor spaces into their teaching. One of these educators is Jackie Lacey, the Environmental Education Resource Teacher at Kimbark Elementary School. She teaches a combination of Next Generation Science Standards and environmental concepts to all classes from TK (transitional kindergarten) through sixth grade. Jackie has been in her current position for 12 years and teaching at Kimbark for 26 years. Even after all this time, she maintains her enthusiasm for creating engaging, hands-on projects for her students.
Kimbark Elementary is a Technology and Environmental Science Magnet School in the rural community of Devore, about 12 miles northwest of downtown San Bernardino. When I visited the school in early November, the expansive grounds were still green and shaded by a variety of mature trees. The school has drought-tolerant, vegetable, and native plant gardens, and Jackie's classroom is home to a menagerie of animals including fish, snakes, a rabbit, and a tortoise. No wonder the students think Jackie's the “fun teacher”!
When I asked Jackie how she approaches environmental education, she said she uses a conservationist approach. She wants students to go out and experience nature while remembering to conserve resources for future generations. To inspire a love for nature, Jackie takes her students outside as much as possible. She summed it up this way: “I feel like the best way for kids to learn about the environment is by getting out there and getting dirty.”
At Halloween time, her students created “trash-o-lanterns” by filling pumpkins grown in the vegetable garden with trash and burying them in the ground. Around Earth Day in April, they'll dig them up to see what happens. Pumpkins and other organic materials will decompose while plastics and inorganic materials will remain intact. Jackie believes this type of experiential learning will help her students understand the importance of recycling. She wants kids to know they have the power to make changes and choices every day.
Continuing the recycling theme, Jackie created a “trash graph” with the kindergarten classes. She gave the students gloves and helped them pick up all the trash on the playground. Back in the classroom, they dumped the trash on the floor and sorted it into categories including masks, plastic bottles, food wrappers, and pencils. Then they tallied the number of items in each category and made a bar graph. The students discovered that the categories with the largest number of items were wrappers and masks. Jackie used this as a teachable moment to discuss how waste is damaging the environment and how it can be recycled.
Jackie loves using the garden to teach. It's not just about planting, maintaining, pulling weeds, and watering. It's about becoming an investigator. When Jackie and her students go out in the garden, they look for signs of animal habitat and talk about life cycles and food chains. The pumpkin patch is a great place to observe the life cycle of a plant from seed to vine to blossom to pumpkin and back to seed. The students even found a black widow spider living in a pumpkin and preying on insects—an example of a food chain.
Jackie uses produce grown in the garden as the basis for nutrition and cooking lessons, such as making bread from zucchini or salsa from tomatoes and peppers. These lessons give her students the chance to try new foods, and they are more likely to eat foods they've helped grow.
When I asked Jackie how she includes the animals in her classroom in her teaching, she replied that she uses them to talk about the different types of animals and their adaptations. She noted, “There's nothing better to teach about reptiles than to bring out one of the snakes or to go hang out in the back area with our tortoise.” The students examine the underside of a snake and learn how its scales help it slither along the ground. They discuss the functions of the fur and claws of a rabbit and the fins and gills of a fish. Many students have never had pets at home; so caring for animals in the classroom teaches them responsibility and respect for living creatures.
What Jackie likes most about her job is working with all students in the school continually over the years. She says that every day is completely different, and she never knows what's going to happen. While she has set lesson plans, she's always willing to change them to accommodate the students and the circumstances. In the time of COVID-19, Jackie especially enjoys spending time outdoors with the kids, watching them run around and have fun.
The San Bernardino Master Gardeners are collaborating with Jackie and Kimbark Elementary to design a portion of the native plant garden and rehabilitate the vegetable garden beds with gopher-proofing, soil, and compost. By partnering with UCCE San Bernardino, Jackie hopes to gain knowledge and improve her program by asking questions, sharing ideas, and watching Master Gardeners at work.
To learn more about the Kimbark's Environmental Education Program, I invite you to attend the upcoming virtual School and Community Garden Collaborative Workshop on Saturday, January 29, from 9 to 11:30 am. Jackie will give a presentation about “Engaging 21st Century Students with Environmental Education”. We will have a great lineup of speakers followed by a breakout session to share feedback and resources. Register on the Master Gardener website using this link. Start the new year with fresh ideas and inspiration from your fellow gardeners!
- Author: Margaret J O'Neill
Here are a few planting tips for your “cool season” veggies:
1) Selecting varieties: There are lots of things to think about when it comes to selecting which type of veggies you will grow. Keep in mind things like disease resistance qualities, flavor, size, quality, pollination needs, and if they are open pollinated rather than hybrid if you are seed saving. If you are shopping at local garden centers rather than through catalogs then that often narrows down the choices you have and can sometimes make it easier to choose. Smaller garden centers should sell fruits and veggies that are appropriate for your area, but it's always good to ask! Larger garden centers that are part of chain stores don't always have seasonally appropriate veggies and often have sales to move plants that did not sell at the end of the season, so keep that in mind when shopping. If shopping through a catalog then be sure the plants you select are appropriate for your area as well since these companies are located all over the county, and sell all over the country and world!
2) Soil quality matters for fruits and veggies! Most veggies and fruits do best in soil that is well draining and rich in organic matter. If you have sandy soil, or heavy clay soil, you can amend your planting area with compost to improve water holding capacity and improve drainage respectively. Adding compost is a great way to increase the organic matter in your soil. Compost is relatively low in nutrients, so it's not a replacement for fertilizer, but it adds to the overall soil and microbe health so it's great stuff!!
3) Fertilizing your veggies: If you are planting transplants that you grew yourself or that you bought at the store you can add fertilizer to the soil when planting and then fertilize approx. every 4 to 6 weeks. If you are planting seeds directly into the soil (which is the preferred method for root veggies like carrots and radishes) no need to fertilize when planting but you can begin fertilizing about when the plant is about 4 to 6 inches tall.
4) Mulch is for veggies too! Adding mulch to your cool season veggies will keep weeds down and help keep moisture in the soil, which is especially important if we have a long dry winter.
5) Keep your plants from getting overwatered! While rain may seem like a distant memory …….sometimes we get too much at one time in the winter and spring. Keep an eye on your veggies and fruits when we get a lot of rain to try to avoid having them sit in soggy or standing water. Make sure if you are planting in pots that they have adequate drainage holes. If you are planting in a low spot of your yard, consider planting on berms or mounds or in a raised bed. For your larger plants and fruit trees that have troughs around them to hold water you may need to open the ring to allow excess water to flow out.
6) Protecting your plants from cold snaps! Having a plan in place to protect cool season veggies from cold snaps will help you be prepared for the handful of days that we have below freezing. You can buy frost cloth from your local garden center, or use sheets to protect your plants. If you use plastic to keep your plants warm be sure the plastic is not touching the plants to avoid frost damage and when the temperature warms a bit in the day it's important that there is some air circulation given to the plants. Leaving the plants fully covered can lead to pathogens that damage your plants.
7) Water born plant diseases, like mildews and molds, can be a problem when we have a wet, humid winters. While we can't control what nature has to offer, we can take steps to make sure we reduce the amount of moisture that sits on our plants. If we haven't had any rain but it's cool and humid in the mornings avoid getting any water on your veggies leaves. In the summer that moisture will usually evaporate off, but in the winter that moisture sits on the leaves longer and is a great environment for molds and fungus. You can also plant varieties of plants that are more resistant to these airborne, moisture facilitated diseases.
8) Pest management in your cool season garden. Common cool season pests are slugs and snails, gophers, caterpillars and aphids to name a few. To learn more about what's “bugging” your garden check out our UC Integrated Pest Management website (UC IPM http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/menu.homegarden.html ) or contact our Master Gardener Helpline for help at mgsanbern@ucanr.edu. The most important thing to remember when dealing with garden pests is to use best management practices to keep your plants healthy, to properly ID your pests so that you are treating the right pest in the right way, and lastly to use least toxic methods possible.
9) Looking to bring more pollinators into your yard? Cool season veggies are often overlooked as a source of nectar for pollinators since we usually eat the leaves, immature flowers, stalks and roots of the plants, but they flower too!! If your crops “blot” (send out a flower stalk too soon) due to late season heat then consider not pulling them out, but instead letting them go to flower for the pollinators (they also make some really pretty flowers) and then maybe you can save seeds from them too!
Hopefully with these tips and list of cool season veggies you are excited to grow a little or grow a lot in your cool season
- Author: Gretchen Heimlich-Villalta
Getting Started with IPM
Now you're clear on what IPM is—and why it's vital to a thriving garden, or landscape, or farm. You're ready to get IPM-ing. But where do you start? There are five main components to a successful IPM program1:
- Pest identification
- Field monitoring and population assessment
- Control action guidelines
- Preventing pest problems
- Integrating biological, chemical, cultural, and physical/mechanical management tools
Why Pest Identification Is Important
Let's start at the beginning—pest identification. Pest identification can be intimidating. Why is it important? Suppose you find a new insect on your peach tree. As an IPM trainee, you know that not all insects are “bad,” and that some are actually beneficial. Your insect is brown, shield-shaped. You will need to identify it in order to determine whether it is an invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bug or a beneficial Spined Soldier Bug, and whether you should squash it, or leave it in peace. Or if you're able to identify the fungus on your grass as Dollar Spot, you may decide to apply nitrogen and adjust your irrigation instead of just applying fungicide. When you can identify all the factors contributing to disease, you will be able to make management decisions that support the overall health of your plant, enabling it to defend itself better against predators and disease. And of course, without accurate identification of your pest, your treatment may be a waste of your time and resources.
What Is a Pest?
The definition of pest seems obvious, until it isn't. My students are often surprised when they learn about the many uses of our “weeds,” both as food and medicine. It's often said, “A weed is a plant out of place.” If you think about it, a “weed” is defined by human needs and wants. Pests, likewise, can be defined as “organisms that reduce the availability, quality, or value of a human resource”1. In other words, if they mess with our stuff, they are a pest. Any organism could be considered a pest, given the right conditions. These organisms are often important members of the ecosystems they inhabit. IPM encourages us to look into our hearts and wallets and consider what amount of pest damage we are willing to tolerate, and to make educated control decisions that will have the least impact on the other organisms with whom we share the planet. Do we need to be able to continue growing oranges and lettuce and broccoli? Definitely. Do we need to kill every last aphid in our garden? Maybe not.
How to Identify Pests
Now it's time to put on your pest detective hat. But where do you start? I've found there are a few key details that can narrow down your pest search considerably:
- Host plant
- Site conditions (recent changes, humidity, temperature, weather, time of year, soil conditions)
- Symptoms (changes in plant appearance)
- Signs (physical evidence of the pest: bacterial ooze, fungal fruiting bodies, frass/insect poop)
Most pests require specific foods and conditions in order to survive. Because of this, knowing which plant species is being affected is a vital first step in identifying your pest of interest. For example, it is easy to confuse a pine beetle and an invasive shot hole borer (ISHB), but since they have different hosts, knowing what tree it was found on can help you narrow down the possibilities.
Resources for Pest Identification
There are a number of resources online to help with pest identification. “.edu” educational websites can generally be relied upon to have good, science-based information, as can the USDA.
In California, the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) UC IPM website is the go-to reference for anyone practicing IPM. The information they've compiled is thorough, science-based, and specific to the plants and pests of our region. Their website has an entire tab dedicated to identifying and managing pests. Narrow your search based on your pest's location (Home, Garden, Turf and Landscape, Agriculture, or Natural Environment). From there, you can narrow your search by plant species or pest category.
*Grass and Identification Key images courtesy of UC IPM.
Obviously, pest identification is a larger subject than I can address in one blog post. Hopefully I've at least gotten you pretty excited to explore the UC IPM website, and to start testing out your identification prowess. And if you're struggling with a pest that you just can't identify, or want specific help with IPM in your own garden, you can contact a Master Gardener volunteer at mgsanbern@ucanr.edu.
Author info:
Gretchen Heimlich-Villalta is an ISA™ certified arborist who has been a San Bernardino County Master Gardener since 2014. She received her AS in Integrated Pest Management from Mt. San Antonio College, where she has helped teach IPM since 2020. She received BA degrees in Creative Writing and Photography, and is currently working on her Ph.D. in Plant Pathology at the University of California, Riverside, where she is researching citrus root and soil health; she also helps manage the Strub Avenue Community Garden in Whittier.
Sources:
- Flint, M. L. IPM in Practice, 2nd Edition: Principles and Methods of Integrated Pest Management. (University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, 2012).
o you want to help residents of San Bernardino County garden and landscape more sustainably; grow food in home, school, and community gardens; and improve the health of our communities? Becoming a University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Master Gardener volunteer may just be for you!
To become a Master Gardener volunteer, you must complete a 50-hour online training course taught by UC and other subject-matter experts.
Important Dates: December 15, 2021: Deadine to complete online application Continuous (through January 7, 2022): Rolling acceptance of applicants on an individual basis.
January 31, 2022: $150 class fee paid online, Master Gardener handbook purchased (not included in tuition: $28-$40), and background check completed (not included in tuition: $25-$40)
April 30, 2021. Final date to complete on-line course requirements (view and complete quizzes for all modules, complete a midterm and final exam, and a class presentation online or in-person.
June 30, 2023: Final date to complete your required 50 volunteer hours. MG program graduation requirements include viewing and completing quizzes on all classes, passing an open book midterm and final exam, and co-presenting
UCCE will ensure the health and safety of accepted applicants and the public served through the program by requiring physical distancing and other precautions as necessitated by COVID-19 throughout the training and volunteer period, including returning to all on-line formats if necessary.
In addition to completing and submitting the online application found here: https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=36040, you must attend (via Zoom) an information/Q and A sessions about the program. Saturday, November 20, 2021 (2-4 PM) Tuesday, November 30, 2021 (7-9 PM) Wednesday, December 1, 2021 (7-9 PM) Saturday, December 4, 2021 (3-5 PM) Saturday, December 11, 2021 (9-11 AM). 
Why did you decide to apply to the UCCE Master Gardener program in San Bernardino County?
I decided to become a UCCE Master Gardener because I was interested in improving my knowledge in pesticide -free food production. I had been growing vegetables and fruit trees but a lot of experimentation and trial-and-error was involved. The UCCE Master Gardener program provides researched based gardening information and training that MGs can then share with diverse communities in a variety of settings.
Tell us about the “climate-ready” landscape tree mulch/no mulch research project you've led for the past several years.
As of February of 2019, I meet up with a group of several UCCE Master Gardeners to measure tree trunk circumference as part of a citizen-science project. The trees for this climate-ready tree study are located at the Chino Basin Water
Note from UCCE Lead Researcher Janet Hartin: Irene and her team (MGs Wayne Borders, Christian Ordaz, Roger Lai, Esther Martinez, Judy Scott, Debi Adams and Kit Leung) have played a critical role in identifying the impacts of mulch vs no mulch on drought, heat, and pest resistant trees that stand up to the challenges of climate change. Properly selected and cared for landscape trees cool urban heat islands, provide shade and habitat, and - at maturity - absorb and store carbon produced by the burning of fossil fuels. The four species of trees (‘Bubba' desert willow, ‘Maverick' mesquite, ‘Red Push' pistache, and ‘Desert Museum' palo verde) included in this project were selected from a larger project at UC Riverside due to our interest in determining the impacts of mulch on tree growth and development and water conservation due to less soil evaporation. Irene's team has meticulously taken quarterly data on tree circumference at two heights and photographed the trees throughout the project.This is just another example of how UCCE Master Gardeners help UCCE's mission to develop
I would tell a San Bernardino resident interested in becoming a MG to apply to the program. They will find that the decision to learn further about gardening and sustainable landscaping will not only enrich their own life but also that of those they share the information with. They will also likely make new friends with others who are also passionate about nature. 
