Author: Timothy McDermott

Seed Starting with the Master Gardeners – Hands on Lab

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A Master Gardener Continuing Education meeting was held in the Soil and Water(ha!) room last week.   Extension provides a way for the Hocking County chapter to earn CE hours in-house with ideas sourced from the members on things they would like to learn about.  Mid March is the ideal time to start a whole bunch of different herbs, vegetables and fruits including but not limited to tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, eggplant and the cabbage family.   We also did thinning of recently planted lettuce, leeks,  cabbage and spinach plants that were at or just past first true leaf stage.

mgv3The Volunteers brought their own seed, soiless mix, variety of pots and after a short presentation on needed materials and methods we all got to work.

mgv4It was a fun way to both learn and put actual knowledge into practice.  These seeds will germinate, get thinned, then transplanted into small pots then eventually into their forever homes.  Thanks to the Hocking County chapter of the Master Gardener Volunteers for letting me present to them.

mgv2Save the date!  I will be teaching a free Seed Starting class to Hocking County residents on April 12th at 7pm at the Youth Center.

 

Tick season is almost here

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This is a summary of the information presented to the Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalists, Hocking County chapter at the 3/8/16 spring meeting.

I have been fighting tick borne diseases for most of my twenty year Veterinary career.  They cause some of the most difficult to diagnose, poorly understood syndromes of diseases in both humans and companion animals.  I have noticed professionally that the incidence of disease has been slowly increasing in Ohio and that what was once rare 5-10 years ago is now becoming more common.  I personally have diagnosed canine patients in the last few months with both Lyme disease(Borreliosis) and Erlichia canis.

Click for the OHIOLINE TICK FACTSHEET This is an Ohio State University Extension publication

Here is the typical tick life cycle using the Deer Tick as an example, note they feed as they move through the stages of development. (Source:CDC)

As we head into spring it is crucial that proper prevention and repellant strategies are followed.

  • Wear long pants and long sleeves, tape collars and cuffs or tuck pants into socks.  Tuck in shirts.
  • Wear boots with regular length socks.
  • Do a proper tick check after leaving woods(or parks, or pasture, not every tick lives in a forest,  my biggest reported area in practice is a mix of public parks and metropark hiking trails.)
  • Remove ticks immediately if found, OHIOLINE HAS REMOVAL PROCEDURE
  • Want to Identify the tick species?  IDENTIFICATION GUIDE
  • Use a repellant on skin that actually has the strength to deter ticks.   TOPICAL INSECT REPELLANT LIST
  • Treat clothing properly with Permethrin, do not use on skin, follow directions carefully.  HOW TO TREAT CLOTHING

tick sprays

Left to Right:

1.) Permethrin spray for use on clothing only

2.) Cutter backwoods DEET level = 25% (minimally effective vs. ticks)

3.) Cutter skinsations DEET level =  7% (ineffective vs. ticks)

 

One new allergy that has been only recently discovered is called Alpha-gal Allergy.  Hocking County is Beef country.  This allergy would not go over well here.  Alpha-gal allergy is when a persons immune system becomes sensitized to red meat after a bite from a Lone Star Tick.  Another name for this disease is called Mammalian Muscle Disease or Allergy as after eating beef or pork(or any mammal) a person has an allergic reaction, in some cases a severe one.  Any disease that causes me to be allergic to cheeseburgers has my full attention.

So please as we get ready to head out into the woods with spring ahead of us, please take the time to protect yourself and take the potential of tick borne diseases and allergies seriously.

 

Early spring vegetable experiment

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In my weekly heads-up email to county residents(email me if you want in) I mentioned that we have a ten day forecast of 3 days of nice warm weather followed by 7 days of nice, wet weather.   While the first week of March is not usually the best planting time, I am all about experimentation in the garden.  Seeds are cheap,  veggies cost money.   Why not take a chance with a few seeds in a small corner of the garden to see if we get an early April payoff?

First things first.  The compost pile.  I am a cold compost pile person as a rule preferring the effects of time, wind, weather and critters to break my pile down for me.   As you can see here:s18

 

A few minutes with a garden fork messing it up a bit, mixing into the layers and adding some oxygen make it look a little better:

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Mother nature will water that for me this week.  I will probably give it another stir in a week or two as that much water may be too much.  The next thing I did was take the transplants that I used as demonstration plants when I did a Seed Starting class for the Four Seasons Garden Club:

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They went into my kitchen garden and were watered with a dilute fertilizer solution to give them a head start.  In a couple weeks I will start to harvest them and that should extend into May.  I interplanted them with some overwintered spinach plants for a nice salad mix.

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Finally I covered them back up with floating row cover.  I don’t need it for cold protection any time soon, it will provide protection from rabbits, deer and squirrels who would love to find some fresh produce right about now.

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Don’t be afraid to experiment with early plantings or late plantings.  The worst thing that happens is you are out a little bit of seed.  I still recommend succession plantings of spring greens every two weeks for at least the next month.

I will be teaching these techniques at classes at the Youth Center each month starting in April.  Watch this site for more information.

 

Midwest Veterinary Conference

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As the home of The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, it is only natural that Columbus would host a continuing education conference.  As a Veterinarian I am required to attend 30 hours of CE to keep my license current.   The Midwest Veterinary Conference is the third largest Vet CE conference in the USA and one of the best in the world.  Normally I would track medical and surgical updates in the puppies and kitties but this year I attended different classes to better serve Hocking County residents.

I learned about Sheep and Goats

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Spent a bunch of time learning abou the care of backyard poultry including diseases, nutrition and basic husbandry.  Look for some backyard poultry programming in the future.  I am helping on an Extension project called the POULTRY TEAM.  It will be a valuable resource for Educators, Vets and backyard poultry enthusiasts.

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I also volunteered to talk to Veterinary students.  I tracked Mixed Animal practice back in the day and was able to tell them how my Veterinary degree will better allow me to serve Hocking County residents as well as how Extension works.

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The knowledge I gained this past weekend will be a help in the county.  If you have any questions about Beef production, Small Ruminats, or backyard poultry feel free to contact me here at Extension and I will help.

My day with the Four Seasons Garden Club

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I was priviledged to be invited to speak to the Four Seasons Garden Club of Hocking County at the Hocking Hills Winery a couple weeks ago.  This extremely fun group asked if I could present on seed starting and as that is one of my favorite topics I was good to go.

First a couple things about the winery.  It is beautiful, has a great location and is a fully functional grow-grapes-press-grapes-make-wine winery.  I was able to finagle a tour of the facility before the meeting started.

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We ate pizza and cookies but alas, no wine for me, I was on duy.  I enjoyed my day presenting and let them know I will come speak to them any time they wish me to.  That is what we do at Extension after all. We started with the basics of seed starting and progressed through germination, thinning and transplanting.  If this sounds like something you want to learn about, I will be hosting a free class on “Seed Starting 101”  on April 12th at 7pm at the Youth Center at the fairgrounds.

gardenclub3Thanks again to the Four Seasons Garden Club and Happy Gardening!

OCVN Advanced Training – Winter Tree Identification

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Recently the Hocking County Chapter of the Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalists hosted Advanced Training in Winter Tree Identification at Boch Hollow Nature Preserve.  The day turned out beautiful, with temperatures in the low 50’s and sunshine.  The perfect weather for a walk in the woods.

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To start, Jim Osborn gave a lecture on twig morphology and then we dove into the textbooks to learn how to identify trees based on key descriptions.  We used hand lenses and a stereo microscope to evaluate the buds, which provide a ton of information on what type of tree you are looking at, if you catch them before they open.

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All in all it was an excellent day and I learned a ton about how to identify a tree in winter.  There will be two more upcoming OCVN Advanced Training opportunities, but space is limited to about 12 people so dont dawdle.  Contact Scott Cole to get your name on the list

  • Saturday March 12th, “Basic map reading and land navigation”  Boch Hollow 10am – 2pm
  • Saturday April 30th – “Wildflower identification” Boch Hollow 10am – 2pm

 

If you get lucky, you might get a look at some wildlife as well. (credit to Jim O. for the pic)

barred owl at boch

-very special thanks to Jim Osborn and Levi Miller for sharing their time and expertise

 

 

Farm Bureau Dessert Judging

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Yep, you read that title correctly.  I was asked to judge desserts at the Farm Bureau sign-up kickoff dinner.   I am fairly certain I have never had a more enjoyable work related activity.

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Time to get to work

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It was hard work, and I took it seriously.

And the winner was   —   ME!      I got to eat 12 desserts.

Thanks so much to the Hocking County Farm Bureau for the invite.  For all my readers I also judge Fried Chicken, Meatloaf, Candy, Cheeseburgers, Chili, French Fries…..

Walk in the woods at Hocking Hills Canopy Tours

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My friend Chris Nabergall, who works at Hocking Hills Canopy Tours asked me to come out and look at some trees for him on an extremely cold january day recently.  We hopped into his ATV(with no doors or roof) to start the consult and I asked him to please turn up the heat.  He stated “the heat is broken, but the A/C works fine”  On we went.

 

Here are some pics I took of the adventure.  I don’t like heights, so this is as close as I get to the canopy

 

 

Here is a picture of an ash tree that had been abraded from waist high all the way to the top.  It had perished of Emerald Ash Borer.

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The damage to this tree was done by woodpeckers of all things.  It seems the silver lining in the EAB destruction is that woodpeckers love the borers, and this has caused an increase in numbers of many of our Ohio Woodpecker species due to increased food availability.

The damage is called Flecking

All in all a good way to spend a morning in the woods.  If you have questions or concerns with your trees, contact me at Extension and I will come out and see if I can help.