Master Gardeners

my babies that are now safe inside

Enrollment is full and I made it into the class.  There I sat, shoulder to shoulder will fellow soil, compost, pest, propagation, and new-tender-green-thing comrades.

The excitement was palpable as we sampled tomatoes, took soil sample cores, evaluated each other's soil brought from home in canning jars, and shared best practices.  The course is every Tuesday and Thursday from now until December 1, at which time true gardeners  give it up for a month and begin again with seeds, mail order catalogs, planning, and seedlings in January.  On Tuesday I learned:

• have your soil tested by a county agent, just mail in the sample
• don't trust those selling "top soil", have it tested
• use the special recipe for soil from Square Foot Gardening for raised beds because of compaction
• at 35 - 38 degrees, your tomatoes are toast
• ripen tomatoes until late November by bringing them indoors to a cool location
• the earwig infestation in Utah is due to too much watering
• it takes three years for proper ripening of compost
• eco scrap has the best compost, lowest salinity