Posts Tagged: pumpkins
Happy (Bee, Butterfly, Dragonfly) Halloween!
The Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, won't be the site of a...
These three jack o'lanterns represent a butterfly, bee and dragonfly. They were among Halloween decorations at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's annual Halloween parties. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This carved pumpkin celebrates the order Hymenoptera (an order that includes bees, wasps and sawflies). Doctoral student Charlotte Alberts carved this one of a bee and honeycomb. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A spider graces this Bohart Museum of Entomology pumpkin. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
What, you've never seen a pumpkin with a bedbug theme? This is one of the pumpkins featured at a previous Halloween party at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Not all pumpkins at the previous Bohart Museum Halloween parties focused on insects. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC Davis entomology doctoral student Charlotte Herbert Alberts and husband George are a big part of the Bohart Museum Halloween parties. Both are artists as well. Charlotte studies with major professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. With the couple: their Brittany spaniel, Westley. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Griffin, infant son of George and Charlotte Alberts, wasn't born in time for the 2019 Bohart Museum of Entomology Halloween party, but he's not missing out this year in family celebrations. He was born in April 2020. (Photo courtesy of George and Charlotte Alberts)
UC offers an online pumpkin-growing contest for Fresno County 4-H members
Field trips are out, but the learning continues at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center. Students who are involved with UC Cooperative Extension's 4-H Youth Development program will compete virtually in a unique pumpkin-growing contest centered at the 330-acre research station in Parlier.
The program replaces traditional in-person educational events offered to schools, which were suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Instead, teams will be organized and assigned to small plots of pumpkins. The remote teams will act as farm managers and use an imaginary budget to decide on the use of micronutrients, fertilizers, pollinators, pest control, fungicides and irrigation practices. All the farming will be conducted by Kearney staff and progress shared frequently via the pumpkin project's Instagram account, @UCCE_KARE_pumpkins.
As part of the project,
- Prizes will be offered for the teams with the highest yield and quality of pumpkins.
- Students interested in engineering will compete with homemade catapults in a “pumpkin chunkin'” contest
- 4-H members who love cooking and baking may enter items in a cooking and baking with pumpkin contest.
- Artistic participants can submit entries for pumpkin carving and decorating contests.
- Animal enthusiasts will feed pumpkins to elephants at the Chaffee Zoo.
“They will be doing all things pumpkin,” said Ryan Puckett, Kearney outreach coordinator, who is working closely with outreach mentor, Julie Pedraza, a staff research associate at the center.
The Kearney event will give the 4-H members activities in a time when 4-H program opportunities have diminished due to various restrictions and closures.
“COVID hit really hard,” said Predaza, who has served as a judge and consultant for traditional 4-H competitions in sewing, baking, community service and public speaking. “The Fresno Fair might be cancelled. Projects are on hold. 4-H members are waiting to see if they will be able to do regular competitions. We decided to launch our first virtual program.”
The first Zoom contestant meeting will be the first week of August.
Kids in the Garden.
By T. Eric Nightingale, U.C. Master Gardener of Napa County Spring is around the corner,...
Pumpkins for Halloween
Sandy Szukalski and I enjoyed a visit to the McKinley Elementary School Garden this past...
Pumpkins--NOW is the time to plant!
Few other vegetables are more representative of fall than pumpkins. Come October, mounds of...