– Christine Gelley, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County, OSU Extension

With mushroom season upon us, when foraging for wild edibles be sure you know which are safe to eat.

Every spring questions ring in about some of the most desirable and delicious wild foods you can find in Ohio- morel mushrooms. Foraging for wild edibles is a topic that I find incredibly challenging to address with clientele because proper identification of a plant or fungus can be the difference between a gourmet dinner and a grueling stomachache or worse, an untimely death.

Fortunately, morels are one of the easiest mushrooms to identify, but if you have any doubt that the mushrooms you have found are not true morels, you should not consume them or prepare them for others. There are false morels that appear in the same time frame and habitat that are poisonous. Proceed to forage with Continue reading Gourmet Goodies for Rural Foodies →

– Christine Gelley, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County, OSU Extension

We’re talkin’ potatoes at the March Farm Talk Breakfast!

Let the taters roll! Grab your morning cup of go juice and your favorite breakfast potato and let’s talk potatoes on March 19. We will welcome Gigi Neal of Clermont County OSU Extension as our guest speaker for March’s Farm Talk Breakfast from 8:30-9:30 AM on Zoom.

Have you ever wondered:

• What is a seed potato versus food potato?
• When is the best time to set potatoes?
• Where do I find seed potatoes and how do I set them?
• Can I use a container instead of a garden?
• Is there really a rainbow of potatoes?

These questions and more will be answered with plenty of time for you to get your potato bed ready for the 2021 planting season. We will talk about Continue reading Potatoes for Breakfast →

– Christine Gelley, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County OSU Extension

Photo: Pinterest @ https://morningchores.com/clothesline-ideas/

Readers raise your hand if you use a laundry line to dry clothes outside. Raise your hand if you want to dry clothes on a line outside, but do not have one. Now, raise your hand if you have an herb garden or want to grow an herb garden this year! If you have a hand up right now, keep on reading. I have an idea for you.

The idea is not my own, but it is one I read recently and want to try myself!

The credit goes to Reginald Blomfield and F. Inigo Thomas who published the idea of planting a knot garden of herbs clipped to a uniform height and used as a drying table for laundry in a publication called The Formal Garden in England in 1892. I read the idea in a book called 1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips gathered by Roger Yepsen.

A knot garden is a precisely planted and clipped garden layout common in Continue reading Herbs & Laundry Lines; A match made in the back yard →

If you’ve been browsing seed catalogs lately, you may have noticed that many varieties have completely sold out, and some companies have stopped taking orders from gardeners entirely. There are reasons for seed shortages and ways to get access to the seeds you need.

Is there really a seed shortage?

The seed shortages we are seeing reflected on seed company websites are complex, and don’t necessarily mean that there is an actual shortage of seeds. There are many factors playing into the “sold out” messages on some of our favorite varieties.

Last year, we saw unprecedented seed sales at the onset of COVID-19, and companies struggled to keep up with demand. Griffin, a large horticultural supply company, conducted a survey of 1,000 first time gardeners in 2020, and 80% of them said that they would probably or definitely continue gardening in 2021. Based on early seed sales in 2021, it seems that the Continue reading Seed shortages may happen with some of your favorite crops this year… →

– Christine Gelley, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County OSU Extension

It’s not only cold temperatures that can destroy the best laid plans of the antsy gardener, but working wet soils can be equally destructive!

Hello March!

The end of winter is approaching. We are two weeks away from Spring Forward and three weeks from the first day of spring. The month of March is a very tempting time for green thumbs to start gardening. It can be a challenge to practice restraint when the sun begins to shine for more hours of the day, the air is warmer, the birds are singing, and our first early blooming flowers are starting to pop up. As tempting as it can be to go out to the garden and start digging, resist.

A condition known as “February Fever” was referenced by W.C McCollom in The Garden Magazine back in 1908 as the cause on many undue plant deaths in the month of March. McCollom’s advice was this:

“Don’t get the garden fever in February and uncover things on the Continue reading Green Thumbs Are Getting Antsy →