by Suzanne Eggleston • Tickets are on sale for the 2023 Jefferson County Master Gardener Foundation’s 25th Anniversary Yard & Garden Virtual Lecture Series. The lectures are offered in a live webinar format, and will run on six Saturday mornings: February 11 and 25, and March 4, 11, 18, and 25. Lectures will be recorded; a link will be provided the Monday following each lecture, and be available for three weeks.
February 11 “Getting the Most Out of Your Next Forest Adventure”
Jane Billinghurst, the translator of Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees, will describe how to get the most out of your next forest adventure by taking a deep dive into the ecosystems around you — whether hiking on your own, camera in hand, or teaching young children how to be forest detectives. Discover fascinating facts about how tree frogs change color, how slime molds travel to find food, which animals and plants glow at night, and how lichens fertilize our forests. Jane is a WSU Skagit County Master Gardener, translator, and author. Her latest book, Forest Walking, co-written with Peter Wohlleben, is all about trails of discovery in forests around North America.
February 25: “Veggies Year Round: Growing Edibles Through All Seasons”
Bill Thorness is a writer, editor, and gardener who has worked and gardened in Seattle since the mid-1980s. He is the author of two gardening books: Cool Season Gardener: Extend the Harvest, Plan Ahead, and Grow Vegetables Year Round and Edible Heirlooms: Heritage Vegetables for the Maritime Garden, both from Skipstone Press. He will address how we can grow veggies year round, in part by using our mild late winter to sprout the edible garden early. That translates to longer harvests and more use of our garden throughout the year. Then, when planting summer crops, Bill will invite you to think about what your garden can feed you in winter — and next spring. With some planning, you can harvest from your garden through the holidays and have a bounty of early-spring vegetables before most gardeners have broken ground. Learn what to plant through the year, and how to fit winter crops into the summer garden.
March 4: Panel discussion: “Growing, Harvesting, and Arranging Amazing Local Flowers”
Candice Gohn is a Master Gardener and native western Washingtonian who has been gardening for more than 50 years. Candice lives in Chimacum where she stewards 20 acres, and is floral designer and jack-of-whatever-needs-to-be-done at Gariss Gardens, a premier flower farm in Port Townsend. She will share the tips and tricks of growing flowers.
Lexi Koch is a farmer and flower arranger who grows and thrives on a small homestead in Port Townsend with her husband and 10-year-old son. Her flowers find their way into arrangements delivered throughout Port Townsend, the wholesale flower market at Seattle Wholesale Grower’s Market and local weddings. She acknowledges that this land she currently farms on and waters she lives by are the traditional homelands of the Coast Salish Tribes, including the S’Klallam, Makah, Chimakum, Twana, Skokomish, Suquamish Nations, as well as many other Indigenous Nations. Lexi will share her floral-arranging secrets.
Sharrai Morgan-Faulkner AIFD, PFCI, has worked in the floral design industry for the past 24 years, and is the former owner of Holly’s Fine Flowers in Port Townsend. She is currently the Northwest Regional Rep to the AIFD national board and also the past president of the Northwest AIFD Region. Sharrai enjoys teaching and sharing floral design education locally, nationally, and now internationally. She was inducted into the American Institute Of Floral Designers in 2012, and into the Society of American Florist Professional Floral Communicators International team in 2021. Sharrai will focus on three to five floral design styles, and discuss how to forage from your own garden first before supplementing from other sources.
March 11: “Plants for a Better Planet with Great Plant Picks”
Del Brummet is head gardener and plant propagation manager at the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle. He has a biology degree from the University of Washington where he worked researching plants and their requirements for seed germination. Del will draw on his experience as a regular observer of Great Plant Pick’s meetings and representative at outreach events to discuss how plants are selected for the program. Del will look at the program through the lens of the theme of “Plants for a Better Planet.”
March 18: “Attracting Beneficial Insects”
Susan Mulvihill is the author of The Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook and The Vegetable Garden Problem Solver Handbook, and co-author of The Northwest Gardener’s Handbook. She is the long-time Sunday garden columnist for The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane, and an emeritus Spokane County Master Gardener. Susan will reveal that there are far more beneficial insects than damaging ones in our environment. She’ll introduce viewers to some of the most beneficial insects to have in the garden — if they’re not there already. Gardeners will leave the talk knowing practical ways for putting out the welcome mat to encourage more beneficials to help out.
March 25: “How Climate Change is Robbing You (and Your Garden) of Nutrients”
Muriel Nesbitt is a geneticist, retired biology professor at University of California San Diego, former director of the Clallam County Master Gardener program, a frequent speaker on sustainable growing, and an instructor for Master Gardener intern training. Muriel will start her talk by focusing on Myzus persicae — better known as the green peach aphid, greenfly, or the peach-potato aphid — its life cycle, and the effect of climate warming on its reproduction, numbers and distribution. From there, she will share her findings on the decline in nutrient content in vegetables, the reasons for it, and in particular the effect of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the garden.
Tickets are $60 for the series, $12 for individual lectures. To buy tickets, visit 2023YardAndGarden.eventbrite.com.