3 ways to keep learning about gardening

Check out CFAES’ Agriculture and Natural Resources Madness series on Tuesday, April 28, for three sessions related to gardening and landscaping:

  • “Gardening for Pollinators” at 9 a.m.;
  • “Landscape Insects: Bagworms vs. The Tent Builders” at noon; and
  • “BGYLive! Ornamental Horticulture Updates” at 3 p.m.

All of the webinars are free and open to the public.

Find details and the links for watching.

Camp Canopy cancelled, virtual events planned

Marne Titchenell, wildlife program specialist with CFAES’ School of Environment and Natural Resources, shares the following:

“It is with great sadness that the Ohio Forestry Association Foundation and the Camp Canopy Co-Directors have made the difficult decision to cancel Camp Canopy this coming June, due to concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Camp Canopy is held every year at FFA Camp Muskingum and was scheduled this year June 7-12.

“Rest assured that we are already planning for a great Camp Canopy week for 2021. In the meantime, keep watching our website and Facebook page for some exciting virtual events to take place the week of Camp (June 7–12)! These events will be free and catered to high school students.”

We hold this world in our caring hands

We’re celebrating the 50th Earth Day today, and as we look ahead toward future Earth Days, we can quote the late pop star Prince—himself the subject of another celebration last night on CBS—from his song called “Planet Earth”: “Fifty years from now, what will they say about us here? Did we care for the water and the fragile atmosphere?”

Here at CFAES, we’re working to find and develop ways to give the Earth that caring, and to train our students—our future scientists and leaders, our fellow citizens and neighbors—to understand and give that caring and advance it even further.

Fifty years from now, what will the answers be to the song’s questions? Hopefully, through effort, they’ll be good ones.

Above, Neil Young and friends play us out.

CFAES adds ‘boots on the ground’ for farmers in western Lake Erie basin

There’s new help for farmers in northwest Ohio for managing nutrients and water quality. Through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the CFAES Water Quality Initiative has hired six Extension associates to work in the western Lake Erie basin.

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If it walks like a …

Ohio’s coronavirus stay-at-home order continues through at least May 1. So you just might be noticing some busy new co-workers when you look out your dining room window from your “desk.” Let’s meet a few of them.

You might see me if you have a pond, stream, wetland, or retention basin near your home. I’m a fast flyer, good waddler, strong paddler, loud quacker. During my mating season, which is going on right now in Ohio, the males of my species (pictured on the right)—sometimes called “greenheads”—look a lot different than the females (pictured on the left), a low-key brown. I’m the duck you’re most likely to meet in North America. I’m …

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How farmers can sell their food to schools

CFAES’ Agriculture and Natural Resources Madness series continues today, Monday, April 20, with “How Producers Can Start Selling Food to Schools” at noon and “How Producers and Food Related Businesses Can Start Farm to School Efforts” at 3 p.m. Find the links to watch.

Today’s first session, “Starting a Farm to School Program,” has ended, but you can find the link to the replay here.

Viewing the sessions in the series is free. (Photo: Getty Images.)

If I were a carpenter …

Ohio’s coronavirus stay-at-home order continues through at least May 1. So you just might be noticing some busy new co-workers when you look out your dining room window from your “desk.” Let’s meet a few of them.

You might think I’m a bumble bee. I’m big like one. But my back end is smooth and shiny black, while a bumble bee’s is hairy and black and yellow. Our females make nests by boring into wood. It’s how we get our name. Our males are territorial and protective. They’ll hover and buzz around up in your grill if you get too close to their nests. But it’s a case of all buzz and no bite. The males don’t have a stinger; they’re harmless. I’m a valuable native pollinator of plants who some call a “gentle giant.” I’m …

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Ohio AgrAbility for tha-REE!

On tap for today, Friday, April 10, in Agriculture and Natural Resources Madness: A Tournament of Education are “Making Your Events, Festivals, and Agritourism Accessible to the Public” at 9 a.m., “Assistive Technology to Keep You Farming” at noon, and “Farming and Gardening with Arthritis and Other Physical Limitations” at 3 p.m.

Find details about the series here and here. Scroll down to April 10 at the second link and you’ll find links for watching today’s sessions by Zoom.

Sing, sing a song, sing it loud, sing it strong

Ohio’s coronavirus stay-at-home order continues through at least May 1. So you just might be noticing some busy new co-workers when you look out your dining room window from your “desk.” Let’s meet a few of them.

You might see me skulking on the ground, under shrubs, under your bird feeder, scratching and kicking for things to eat. Sometimes I kick using both feet at once. That said, you might also see me out in the open, at the end of a branch or the top of tree, with my head thrown back, singing loudly. There’s a special connection between me—and more specifically, a groundbreaking life-history study of me—and a woman scientist who lived in Columbus 100 years ago. I’m …

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Hemp team takes the floor

Next in Agriculture and Natural Resources Madness: A Tournament of Education, CFAES’ free, virtual, shutdown-overcoming educational series, are “Insect Control for Hemp” and “Growing Hemp for Fiber and Seed,” set for today, Thursday, April 9, at noon and 3 p.m., respectively.

Tune in here (noon) and here (3 p.m.). (Photo: Getty Images.)