Master Gardeners announce spring workshops

UC Master Gardeners in Butte County is offering a variety of new and groundbreaking public education workshops this season. Some will be held in person; Others will be shown on Zoom. Most of the in-person workshops will take place in the Demonstration Garden at Patrick Ranch in Durham; A few are scheduled in private residences. Space is limited for all personal workshops. All workshops are free. Registration is required. To register and for more details and regular updates as they become available, go to ucanr.edu/p/56426.

The series begins, appropriately, with seeds starting on Wednesday, February 2. There will be two workshops (one from 10 to 11:30 AM and one from 1 to 2:30 PM) to be held in the demonstration park. If you want to grow different types of summer vegetables than those available from the supermarket, this workshop is for you.

Learn how to start your own plants from seed, and you can choose any type you want. Our focus will be on tomatoes and peppers. We’ll also explore options for starting seeds indoors, including proper lighting and temperature control (no heated greenhouse required!).

Next, on Tuesday, February 15th from 10-11:30 a.m. What’s Bothering You, a new workshop looking at some of the insects that are causing damage in our gardens. We’ll explore how to find the information you need to control and even estimate garden bugs. We will demonstrate the use of a cell phone application to identify insects, online aids to diagnose problems in different host plants, and simple online searches for more information. In addition to discussing the different types of insects and how they grow and feed, we will present a slideshow of common insects and the damage they cause. Finally, we will cover the basics of IPM.

We start March with a new workshop in our summer vegetable garden, Thursday 10 March, 10-11:30 am in our demonstration garden. Get a head start on planning your summer vegetable garden! This workshop begins with the basics of what to plant and how to prepare your soil and planting beds, then highlights management best practices for growing and harvesting summer vegetables. Topics include pest management, irrigation, water conservation, crop rotation, and succession cultivation for a long-term vegetable harvest.

The popular Garden Guide and Journaling workshop returns to the outdoor classroom in the display garden on Tuesday, March 15, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Join us to explore how to make the most of your Butte County Park Guide and Three-Year Journal (available in two versions: bound as book and unbound, ready to add to loose-leaf cover). We’ll discuss using a gardening guide to find the best times to perform seasonal and weekly garden tasks, as well as helpful information on the plants, climate, and soils of our area. An integral part of this workshop is using the Garden Guide to record lessons learned and keep track of useful plant and weather information for your garden over the years. Written by UC Master Gardeners of Butte County, this invaluable resource is filled with material on our local climate, plants, and wildlife, and includes weekly tips and fun facts.

Honeybees are the focus of the next workshop, which will take place at the private residence of the master gardener beekeeper in Durham on Friday, March 18 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. You will want to register for this session. Humans have been fascinated by honeybees for a very, very long time: Beekeeping dates back at least 9,000 years, and humans have been collecting honey from wild bees even before that. In this chapter you will have the opportunity to observe honey bees and learn how to prepare your own apiary. Along the way, you’ll learn what you can do to help honeybees and their pollinators survive and thrive in our current environment. This workshop is designed for those who consider beekeeping as a hobby, as well as for those who would like to learn more about attracting and supporting honeybees and other pollinators.

Three days later, on Monday, March 21, from 10 to 11:30 a.m., we explore the world of native bees, at the home and orchard of another bee expert from Master Gardener in Paradise. Meet the Blue Orchard Mason Bee, an ideal native pollinator for the backyard that contains many fruit trees and early flowering plants. Honey mason bees don’t sting, but they provide superior pollination for three months with little effort. The current understanding of colony collapse disorder (affecting honey bees only) will also be discussed.

A tour of our newly planted succulent garden and discussion of the plants displayed there is the basis of our workshop on succulents, Wednesday, March 30 from 10 a.m. to noon, in the display garden. Succulent plants do well in a Mediterranean climate because their thick, fleshy leaves retain water during the long, dry summers. Their stunning and unusual appearance makes these plants great choices for ornamental gardens. This workshop focuses on the thermal and water requirements of succulents, as well as species suitable for cultivation in the ground and in containers.

We kick off April with a workshop in the Demo Garden exploring companion planting Tuesday, April 5th 10-11:30 am Companion planting is the art of arranging specific plants in close proximity to each other so that they attract beneficial insects and pollinators, deter unwanted pests and provide shelter and food for creatures other. Companion plants provide each other with the things they need, such as nutrients, shade, and physical support. We’ll show you how to achieve this in the home vegetable garden, focusing on the potential symbiotic relationships between different groups of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. We’ll also include time to analyze your own garden and consider plant groups that could work there.

On Wednesday, April 6 from 10 a.m. to noon, we take an in-depth look at the topic of Biochar. This workshop, held in the outdoor classroom in the exhibit garden, begins with an overview of biochar, how it is made and how you can use it in your garden, followed by a live demonstration of how to mix biochar in raised beds. A short tour will be included in the biochar experiment taking place in our display garden.

A new and just-in-time Exploration of Soil Science workshop is being presented via Zoom on Friday, April 8 from 11am-1pm. You will discover how to build a more resilient garden, work less to maintain it and help prepare for the hot, dryer summer. We’ll discuss garden practices to stay away from so we can instead focus on growing microbes underground rather than the plants above, for healthier gardens with fewer weeds and pests. And we’ll look at biochar, a long-term investment in gardening vitality. This workshop invites you to imagine life underground and pave the way for a new kind of gardening.