Author:Jon

Grow It Eat It 2023

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This is a follow-up to my May article, Grow It Eat It Celebrates 15 Years of Teaching and Promoting Food Gardening! I visited a number of amazing Grow It Eat It (GIEI) projects and activities in 2023 that demonstrate its essential role in helping Maryland residents and communities become more food secure. 

So far in 2023, University of Maryland Extension (UME) Master Gardener Volunteers from 18 counties and Baltimore City worked 7,544 hours on GIEI projects, educating 10,125 residents! Here are some snapshots from the growing season.

Teaching the Public

List of Grow It Eat It classes offered in spring 2023

Master Gardener (MG) Volunteers and field faculty teach lots of classes and workshops each year. Carroll County has a popular series of in-person classes that are taught each spring.

Master Gardener teaching how to test soil texture.

Esther Iglich, UME Master Gardener, Carroll County, teaches students how to perform the “ribbon test” to estimate soil texture.

Teaching Master Gardeners

Master Gardener teaching a class about drip irrigation

Robert Cook, UME Master Gardener, Baltimore City, leads a hands-on drip irrigation continuing education event at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.

Master Gardeners went into the MG Learning Garden to use what they learned to help re-install the drip system.

gardeners on tour of the raised bed garden set up on University of Maryland campus

Meg Smolinski, Coordinator for the UMD Arboretum, leads a Master Gardener tour of the Community Learning Garden in front of the School of Public Health. 

gardeners taking a tour of container gardens

Deb Mayfield, UME Master Gardener, St. Mary’s Co., leads a learning tour of the GIEI container garden at their Fairgrounds.

vegetables growing in containers

The container garden is a popular stop during the county fair, demonstrating low-cost methods, like using repurposed containers for growing food in small spaces.

Community Gardens

people holding up a sign that says Farm Unity at a community garden

UME MGs and field faculty provided technical assistance to the new Farm Unity Community Garden at the Crofton Public Library. This is a communal garden with the harvest distributed to people in need of food. The garden was initiated by Jitendra Rathod (second from left).

three gardeners at an information table for the Prince George's County Community Garden Summit

Esther Mitchell, UME Master Gardener Coordinator, with MG Volunteers Linda Campbell, and Betty Gittings at the Prince George’s County Community Garden Summit. Master Gardeners have helped start five community gardens in the county!

Demonstration Gardens

insect netting placed over a row of kale

GIEI demonstration plots and gardens allow for hands-on learning about new sustainable techniques. MG Volunteers in Montgomery County used “micro-mesh” insect netting to exclude insect pests, making insecticides (synthetic or organic) unnecessary.

potted plants and flowers in a demonstration garden

Visitors and classes also learned how to use drip irrigation with a simple timer to water container plants automatically.

a sign that says Building Your Raised Bed

Signage at the Master Gardener Learning Garden at the State Fair helps new and experienced gardeners make informed decisions. MGs from Baltimore City and 12 counties had 3,617 direct educational contacts during the State Fair.

sweet potato plants growing in a container

2023 is the Year of the Sweet Potato for GIEI. Master Gardener Volunteers demonstrated how to grow sweet potato plants on a trellis and in containers in the MG Learning Garden.

Home, school, and community gardens are essential parts of local food systems. Food gardeners collectively produce enormous amounts of produce, much of which is shared and donated. GIEI projects, classes, and demo gardens teach science-based information and practices, help connect gardeners to resources, and facilitate a shared, respectful learning environment. 

I have no doubt that more great work will be happening in 2024!

By Jon Traunfeld, Extension Specialist, University of Maryland Extension, Home & Garden Information Center. Read more posts by Jon.

Composting and Climate Change

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Composting is probably seen by most people as good for gardens and the environment. After all, compost helps make our soils and plants healthier and keeps green waste from our yards and kitchens out of landfills.

But is composting good in the context of our climate crisis? Doesn’t the composting process generate lots of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas (GHG) that traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere? Can composting also mitigate climate change and make our yards and landscapes more climate-resilient? The answer to both questions is YES. This article will show that composting, at the home, community, and municipal/commercial level, is an important global warming mitigation and adaptation tool. As we’ll see, the ways that humans manage this natural process and use the compost can affect the climate benefits.

Composting basics

We don’t make compost! Huge populations of microorganisms do most of the work and we humans manage the process for our benefit. It’s nature’s way of recycling anything that lives and dies, like plants, animals, and microbes.

The decomposition process produces lots of carbon dioxide (CO2), part of the world’s carbon cycling system shown in this graphic:

illustration of the carbon cycle - plants use carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil to build carbohydrates
Plants exude carbohydrates through their roots to feed soil organisms. Those organisms release carbon dioxide through respiration. Illustration by Jocelyn Lavallee, Ph.D., Soil Scientist

This CO2 release is considered biogenic (happens through natural biological systems), not anthropogenic (people-made), and is not included in the calculations of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that drive global warming and climate change.

The three primary GHGs are:

  • Carbon dioxide (CO2) — 300-1,000 year atmospheric lifetime; 86% of total GHG emissions
  • Methane (CH4) — 84X the global warming potential of CO2; 12 year atmospheric lifetime; 7% of total GHG emissions
  • Nitrous oxide (NO2) — 265X the global warming potential of CO2; 100 year atmospheric lifetime; 6% of total GHG emissions

There are many factors that determine the potential for composting to generate methane and nitrous oxide, like the mix of materials being composted, temperature, moisture, pile size and configuration, and aeration. Compost piles and windrows that are waterlogged and low in oxygen (anaerobic) are more likely to generate these GHGs. Composting is “climate-friendly” when it’s done in the presence of air (aerobic). Home and community composters turn piles by hand to keep them aerated and large-scale composting facilities use mechanical turners and force air into windrows with blowers. Well-managed composting at any scale releases very little methane or nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. 

Direct climate benefits of composting

  • Dumping food wastes and grass clippings in landfills generates large amounts of methane because the decomposition process is anaerobic. Landfills release about 17% of total U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions and food waste makes up 24% of landfill space. Burning organic wastes releases GHGs and toxins. Composting these organic wastes using best practices greatly reduces emissions.
  • Carbon sequestration: Compost continues to degrade after soil incorporation. Some of the carbon cycles through soil microorganisms and some is held tightly to clay particles, protected against decomposition, and becomes part of the long-term reserve of stored carbon.

Indirect climate benefits of composting

The mid-Atlantic climate is becoming wetter and warmer overall, punctuated by localized extreme weather events, like record-breaking rainfall and extreme drought and heat. Intense storms can cause soils and nutrients to wash away and warmer temperatures cause more rapid organic matter decomposition and turnover, especially if soils are tilled and uncovered.

Adding compost to soils makes them more resilient by:

  • Holding more water in the soil during periods of drought and extreme heat
  • Reducing erosion (washing away of soil during extreme rainfall) and nutrient run-off) due to improved soil structure (larger, more stable aggregates or crumbs)
  • Improving plant growth, by slow release of plant-available nutrients
  • Reducing the need for synthetic nitrogen fertilizers which require natural gas for their production
  • Reducing the need for potassium and phosphorous fertilizers (derived from mined mineral deposits that are dwindling worldwide)
  • Binding and degrading toxic metals and pollutants
  • Substituting compost for peat products can help reduce the release of CO2 from commercial peat extraction from wetlands 
illustration of how compost combats climate change - increases water holding capacity - sequesters carbon in soil
Poster by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Home composting

Managing and recycling as much yard waste as possible on-site is often the most climate-friendly approach because it reduces GHG emissions from transporting and processing or landfilling organic waste. You can do this by recycling grass clipping (“mow ‘em high and let ‘em lie”), mulch-mowing tree leaves and leaving them in place, or using them as mulch, composting yard and garden waste, and burying kitchen scraps. These practices help to recycle nutrients on-site and increase soil organic matter. Selecting or building a non-plastic composter can also help reduce GHG emissions.

Municipal/commercial composting

This is the next best option for organic wastes that cannot be managed on-site. Commercial and municipal composting operations do create GHG emissions from the trucks and equipment, powered by fossil fuels, that are used to collect, transport, and process organic waste and compost. The closer the source of organic waste to the facility the lower the emissions and the greater the benefits. On balance, composting on a large scale can also help mitigate climate change.

illustration showing that the carbon sequestration benefits of municipal composting outweigh the greenhouse gases generated by transportation, storage, and processing compost

To summarize: aerobic composting reduces GHG emissions compared to the landfilling and incineration of organic wastes. The resulting compost sequesters carbon when mixed into soils and improves soil health and resiliency. Composting at home and in your community is the most climate-friendly approach but commercial and municipal composting is another important tool that helps mitigate climate change.

References

By Jon Traunfeld, Extension Specialist, University of Maryland Extension, Home & Garden Information Center. Read more posts by Jon.

Vegetable Problems Update

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Wildfire smoke

Persistent wildfire smoke is new for Maryland gardeners. Experts seem to agree that smoke and ash do not pose a health risk for garden produce. Smoke diffuses sunlight but will probably not significantly reduce the total amount of light for photosynthesis. We have not heard/seen any reports of gardeners picking up smoky flavors in harvested greens or other vegetables or fruits.

  • Wash all produce prior to eating it raw or cooking with it
  • Wear an N-95 quality mask when working outside on days when wildfire smoke worsens air quality
  • Hose off plants if a noticeable soot layer develops from prolonged, intense smoke

Wildfire smoke has been shown to boost the levels of ozone and other air pollutants which can injure plants. Watermelon, squash, pumpkin, beans, and potato are especially vulnerable to high ozone levels (above 75 ppb).

Drought and damaging storms

Wildfire smoke interfered with weather patterns and likely contributed to cooler and drier weather across much of the state. 

Mid-May through June:

  • Lower average temperatures
  • 75% of state in moderate drought on July 3rd
  • Slow start for warm-season crops

July:

  • High heat and humidity
  • Spotty rainfall
  • Insect and disease issues increasing
Maryland drought status map
The Maryland Department of the Environment announced a Drought Watch on July 10, encouraging voluntary reduction in residential water use.
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Grow It Eat It Celebrates 15 Years of Teaching and Promoting Food Gardening!

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Food gardeners are an important part of any local food system. In Achieving Sustainability through Local Food Systems in the United States (PDF) (2013), agricultural economists Dale Johnson and James Hanson, Ph.D. state: “By far the greatest, but often overlooked, local food source in the United States is gardening.”

About 35% of Maryland households are doing some type of food gardening and have lots of important questions: What’s this worm eating my kale? How do I improve my soil and test it for lead? How do I start a school garden? Where can I take a vegetable gardening class?

Since 2009 many residents and communities have received science-based food gardening answers and help from Grow It Eat It (GIEI)– one of the six major sub-programs of the University of Maryland Extension (UME) Master Gardener Program that teaches and promotes home, school, and community food gardening. This article serves to introduce this amazing program and some of its successes. I plan to write a second article later this year on some of the exciting 2023 GIEI projects from around the state.

What is GIEI?

Grow It Eat It was developed late in 2008 by UME staff, faculty, and volunteers in response to the Great Recession. Many people were already interested in trying their hand at food gardening as a way to eat more fresh produce and connect with nature. The economic collapse forced folks to find ways to reduce household expenses.

The main GIEI objective has been to increase local food production by combining the power of grassroots education and technical assistance delivered by field faculty and Master Gardeners, with UME’s digital gardening resources. Master Gardeners (MGs) have taught hundreds of classes, developed demonstration gardens, and helped thousands of individuals and groups start food gardens and learn and use best practices. Residents can learn about GIEI classes and events by visiting their local Extension web pages and connecting on social media. MGs also help residents solve food gardening problems at Ask a MG Plant Clinics around the state. The Home and Garden Information Center (HGIC) supports GIEI by training MGs, creating and maintaining digital resources, and answering food gardening questions through the Ask Extension service.

GIEI intersects and collaborates with other MG sub-programs– Bay-Wise Landscaping, Ask a MG Plant Clinic, Composting, and Pollinators– and with UME’s nutrition, natural resources, youth development, and urban ag programs. This helps the program address four of the five Strategic Initiatives guiding the College of Ag & Natural Resources.

5 strategic initiatives of the University of Maryland Extension College of Agriculture and Natural Resources

As the faculty lead, I have loved every minute spent working with UME faculty, staff, and volunteers to shape, improve and expand the program. Master Gardener Coordinators and Volunteers decide how to best shape GIEI to meet local needs. The State MG Office organizes regular GIEI statewide planning/sharing meetings and continuing education classes, and provides seeds, teaching, and marketing materials. MGs responded to the pandemic by moving GIEI classes online. GIEI projects and activities steadily increased in 2021 and 2022 and should surpass pre-COVID levels in 2023.

packets of sunflower and green bean seeds
75K seed packets have been distributed to residents to promote food gardening and the UME MG Program. Sunflower and bean seeds in 2023!
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Try Growing Sweet Potatoes This Year!

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I am very excited that 2023 is the “Year of Sweet Potatoes” for Grow It Eat It, the statewide food gardening program run by University of Maryland Extension (UME) Master Gardener (MG) Volunteers.

This member of the morning glory family is an amazing and nutritious vegetable crop. Plants grow rapidly with minimal care and produce edible new shoots and leaves and delicious roots that can be stored through the fall and winter.

Reasons to grow sweet potatoes: climate-resilient crop, few pest and disease problems, easy to grow
Graphic design: Steph Pully


The Growing Sweet Potatoes in a Home Garden webpage has the detailed information you need for success. I’m sharing some tips in this article that I hope will further entice you to join the fun!

Getting started

  • Pick a full-sun location.
  • Use a garden fork, spade, or tiller to loosen the top 10-12 inches of soil
  • Mix compost into the soil prior to planting
  • Space plants 1 foot apart in the row or 2 feet apart in each direction if planting in a wide bed
  • Stick a flag or marker in the ground next to each plant so you’ll know where to dig when it’s time to harvest

Varieties and plants (“slips”)

  • Georgia Jet, Centennial, O’Henry, Murasaki, Beauregard, and Covington are some recommended varieties. Vardaman, and Bunch (Bush) Puerto Rico have compact vines and take up less space
  • Sweet potato plants produce few flowers and little or no viable seed. They are propagated year-to-year by sprouts (baby plants aka “slips”) that grow from stored sweet potatoes
Finding sweet potatoes - local garden centers, nurseries, mail-order companies
Graphic design: Steph Pully
sweet potato plants growing in a container
This small container produced enough “slips” for several gardens. The Start and Multiply Sweet Potatoes video shows you how to grow your own “slips” in 5-6 weeks. Photo: Jon Traunfeld
baby sweet potato plant
This baby plant, pulled from a mother sweet potato, is ready to plant in the garden. It’s
already developing a root system! Photo: Jon Traunfeld

General growing tips

  • Water young plants 1-2 times per week if rain is lacking
  • Fertilize as needed; soils high in organic matter may not need to be fertilized
  • Control weeds the first month after planting. Vines will grow rapidly and shade out weeds
  • Vines can be trimmed back 20-30% without significantly reducing the harvest
  • Use new leaves and shoots fresh in salads or in soups, stir-fries, omelettes, etc.
  • Sweet potatoes have fewer pests and diseases than most other garden crops! Fence out deer and groundhogs and check the enlarging roots for vole (meadow mouse) feeding.
sweet potato plant growing in a pot
Sweet potatoes grow well in containers, including fabric bags as shown in this photo. I usually suggest planting one plant in a 10-gallon although a co-worker recently told me she harvested around five pounds of sweet potatoes from a 5-gallon bucket! Photo: Jon Traunfeld
sweet potatoes growing on a bamboo trellis
Save space by training vines to grow vertically. These sweet potato plants growing on a bamboo trellis at the UME Master Gardener Learning Garden at the Maryland State Fair. Photo: Jon Traunfeld
large Korean sweet potatoes have a nutty flavor
This large Korean sweet potato, also called chestnut sweet potato because of its nutty flavor, is my favorite to grow and eat. They are very productive, store very well, and have a firm texture, making them more versatile in the kitchen than most other varieties. Photo: Jon Traunfeld

Harvesting tips

  • Sweet potatoes are ready to harvest 85-120 days after planting (depends on variety)
  • Storage roots don’t stop growing. Check for size when plants reach their expected harvest date.
  • Harvest roots as soon as they reach eating size and before a frost. Roots can crack and become woody when overgrown
  • Loosen the soil about 1 foot from the base of the plant. Use your hands to find and lift the roots
  • Treat them with tender care. Gently remove excess soil; don’t wash!
newly harvested sweet potatoes laying on sheets of newspaper
Newly dug storage roots curing in mid-September on my porch. Photo: Jon Traunfeld

Curing and storage tips

  • Curing improves the flavor, quality, and longevity of harvested roots. It toughens the skin, heals cuts, bruises and scrapes, and promotes the conversion of starches to sugars
  • Commercial sweet potatoes are cured for 7-14 days at 85⁰ F and 90% RH. One week of curing during warm, humid weather in a protected, outdoor location is helpful. Don’t worry if that’s not possible. Your sweet potatoes will still be sweet and tasty 
  • Store sweet potatoes in a cool, humid location – basements work well
  • Use slatted crates, baskets, or cardboard boxes. Fill only 2-3 layers deep
  • Check for and remove spoiled roots
sweet potatoes stored in boxes
Sweet potatoes being stored for the winter. Roots that were accidentally cut during harvest have healed over. Photo: Jon Traunfeld

Check with your county/city Extension office to learn more about vegetable classes and workshops, and demonstration gardens.

Resources:

By Jon Traunfeld, Extension Specialist, University of Maryland Extension, Home & Garden Information Center. Read more posts by Jon.

Fruit in your future? Start with small fruits, not tree fruits

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Small fruits give you lots to eat,
Tree fruits often spell defeat.

I am 100% pro-fruit! I would love to see more fruit plants of all types grown across Maryland. But it saddens me to see gardeners become frustrated and disenchanted with fruit growing because their first attempt was with apples or peaches.

A National Gardening Association survey showed that 41% of U.S. households grew edibles in 2021, a 24% increase since the start of the COVID pandemic. Many new vegetable gardeners naturally see fruits as their “next frontier.” Most vegetable crops are annual plants while all fruit plants are perennials, living year-to-year in the same garden space for years and requiring year-round attention. You need to up your game for fruit growing.

My advice for the fruit-curious gardener is to start off with some of the small fruits that are well-adapted to Maryland’s climate and soils. Strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, grape, and currants get their generic “small fruits” name because the plants and their fruits are small relative to tree fruits. Apple, European pear, peach, cherry, plum, and apricot are all popular tree fruits in the Rosaceae (rose) family. They also grow well in Maryland and many people plant or inherit them without fully understanding their requirements and challenges. As a result, we get a ton of tree fruit problem questions every growing season through Ask Extension.

blackberries ripening
‘Shawnee’ blackberry plant fruiting
blueberries ripening
Blueberry fruit ripening (Photos from Ask Extension)

If you had your heart set on planting apple and peach trees this year, please put down the mail-order catalog or close the browser window showing an everyday gardener picking bushels of fruit from a pristine apple tree and consider this:

  • Small fruits are less expensive to buy and maintain and take up less garden space. Even dwarf apple fruit trees can take up 75 sq. ft. of space. 
  • Small fruit plants are easier to incorporate into a home landscape. They are also easier to prune and manage and to remove if they don’t work out or eventually succumb to old age or disease. (Mature grape plants with their massive root systems are the exception). Removal of a fruit tree can be costly.
  • It’s easy to overcrowd a part of your yard with fruit trees by planting them too close to each other, to structures, or to other trees in the landscape. Shading leads to poor growth, pest and disease issues, and low yields.
  • Fruit trees need to be trained and pruned in a careful and timely manner, especially in the first 3-4 years. Small fruits tend to be more forgiving regarding training and pruning. 
  • Yes, small fruits have plenty of potential pests and diseases but they can be grown organically with very good success. Some problems can be tolerated, like the fuzzy gray mold fungus that attacks strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry fruits in wet weather. Others can be prevented or managed through good gardening practices (like proper spacing and pruning) or applying an organic pesticide (like spraying lime sulfur in early spring to reduce disease pressure).
  • Tree fruits, conversely, have more insect pests and diseases that are more difficult to prevent and manage without synthetic pesticides. Trees must be monitored more closely for signs and symptoms of problems. Even if you spray effective pesticides at the correct time, you can end up with poor control if your sprayer is not capable of covering the entire tree including the tops and bottoms of the leaves. Multiple applications are usually needed to control the major pests and diseases.
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Food waste reduction: It’s everyone’s job!

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Our society wastes food at every point in the food chain from farms and gardens to home kitchens, restaurants, supermarkets, food service companies, and large institutions like universities that feed  thousands of people daily. Last December I was astonished to lean about the extent of food waste at the MD Food Recovery Summit organized by the Maryland Department of the Environment. 

Surplus food is the term used to describe unsold and unused food, like crops that don’t go to market because prices are too low, perishable items tossed into supermarket dumpsters, and groceries and restaurant meals bought and not eaten. 

In 2019:

  • 35% of all U.S. food went unsold or unused 
  • 23% of all surplus food is fruits and vegetables 
  • Only 15% of Maryland’s 900K+ tons of food waste was recycled 

Why it’s a problem:

  • Huge economic and environmental costs of producing surplus food
  • 1 in 6 U.S. residents are food insecure. Surplus food can feed hungry people
  • Surplus food is the #1 landfill material (24% of landfill space) 
  • Food waste in landfills generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas that can trap 28X as much heat/mass unit as CO2
  • The value of wasted food at the consumer level is $161 billion/year
Compost, recycle, and trash bins
Food scrap collection at Maryland Day event at UM/College Park campus. Photo credit: Jon Traunfeld
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