Joint gathering - KY/WV Master Gardeners

CCMGA members have been invited to join with Master Gardeners from Eastern Kentucky on the evening of Tuesday, June 19.  The Kentucky Master Gardeners will furnish the main courses (turkey, dressing, ham) and others are asked to bring a side dish or dessert to share.   The event will begin at 6 pm and will be held at Kentucky Roots which is Route 3 between Ashland and Louisa.  The link below shows a map of the location.
There will be three speakers discussing the potential for hemp farming in the area.
CCMGA members will know many of the Kentucky Master Gardeners from sharing a booth at the WSAZ Home and Garden Show.  If you are able to attend please RSVP to Rhonella Chaffin at rhonella@att.net or 606 483 6077.

2018 WSAZ Home & Garden Show Speakers Announced

The featured speakers for the 2018 WSAZ Home and GardenShow at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena have been announced.

FRIDAY MARCH 9th

5PM	Dr. Mira Danilovich	Brambles (Small Fruits)
6PM	Dr. Monica Valentovic & Dr. Gary Rankin	Rose Care

SATURDAY MARCH 10^th

12PM	Lyndall Harned	Composting
1PM	Grant Bishop	Pesticides
2PM	Brenda Porter	Home Canning
3PM	Dr. Chuck Talbott	Controling Pests with Intergrated Pest Mgt.
4PM	Dr. Sheldon Owen	Bats
5PM	Lori Bowling	New Plants for 2018
6PM	Lacy Davidson & Park Ferguson	Grow Yourself Healthy:  Why You Can’t Afford NOT to Grow, Shop, and Eat WV Raised Food

2017 WSAZ Home & Garden Show

As in the past, the 2017 2017 WSAZ Home & Garden Show was a success.  There was an interesting slate of speakers on Friday & Saturday and the Master Gardener booths swarmed with friends from West Virginia & Kentucky.
Our CCMGA photographer, Victor Simpson, was on hand to capture the action on Friday and Saturday in and around our booth.  Check out his photos in the WEB-ALBUM.
Click the picture below to view Victor's photos from the weekend.

2017 WSAZ Home & Garden Show Speakers Announced

The featured speakers for the 2017 WSAZ Home and Garden Show at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena have been announced.

  

FRIDAY MARCH 10th

5 PM	Dr. Chuck Talbott	Soils and Soil Fertility
6 PM	Lyndall Harned	Organic Gardening

                                                                                                        

SATURDAY MARCH 11^th

12 PM	Jessica Strickland	Reading Pesticide Labels & Personal Protective Equipment
1 PM	Tim Sayre	Home Canning
2 PM	Tom Bell	Butterfly/Pollinator Garden
3 PM	Lori Bowling	New Plants for 2017
4 PM	Dr. Paul Vincelli	GMOs
5 PM	Steve Beckelhimer	WV Native Bees
6 PM	Lacy Davidson & Park Ferguson	Grow Yourself Healthy:  Why You Can’t Afford NOT to Grow, Shop, and Eat WV Raised Food

CCMGA Honored at State MG Conference

Cabell County Master Gardener Association has been honored at the West Virginia Master Gardener Conference in Lewisburg, WV.  The award for Team Project Excellence in the Community Service Category has been awarded to CCMGA for the WSAZ Home & Garden Show.
Thumbs up to all who worked so hard to get our service recognized at the state level.

2016 WSAZ Home & Garden Show Wrap-up

As usual, the WSAZ Home & Garden Show was a success.  Many interested gardeners and prospective gardeners came by the booth that we shared with Putnam County and the three Kentucky counties with Master Gardener groups.  It is especially fulfilling when families come to the booth looking to involve their children in gardening.  In total. We had at least 31 CCMGA members staffing the booth, answering questions, making “beanie babies” or seed tape with the young gardeners.  The list that I have includes the following members, please let me know if I have left anyone off the list:

Ed Barnett, Linda Beaty, Steve Beckelhimer, Lisa Bell, Connie Berk, Maralie Boyd, Butch Carrico, Meredith Cornell, Lacy Davidson, Debbie DeBruin, Park Ferguson, Pat Gebhart, Cheryl Hodge, David Howells, Marilyn Howells, Beth Lichty, Donna Love, Linda Mallory, R. L. Mallory, Molly McClennon, Nancy Prino, Ted Salem, Carla Seamonds, Don Silver, Judy Silver, Victor Simpson, Kevin Smith, Sam Stubblefield, Brenda Weidensall, Jane Wilson and Wendy Wilson. 

In addition to handling most of the logistics for the event, Connie Berk was working the booth nearly the entire time that we were there hardly even stopping to get a bite for meals.  Jane Wilson arranged an excellent slate of speakers whose sessions were well attended.  Victor Simpson took tons of photos showing our people working the booth and assisting area gardeners.  The event closed out with the beautiful garden quilt that was donated to us by Mary Morton of PieceMakers Quilters being raffled off.  We were shared Nancy Prino’s joy at being the winner of the drawing for the rain barrel that Boyd County raffled off.

Now that the event is over and everything is put away, we have many of our stalwart members who are already looking ahead to next year and increasing the impact of CCMGA and continuing our connecting with the community and other area Master Gardener groups.

The snapshots below are courtesy of our official photographer, Victor Simpson.

2016 WSAZ Home & Garden Show Speakers

Friday March 11th
5 PM	Dr. Chuck Talbott	Growing Farmers & Carrots In Putnam Co
6 PM	Dr. Monica Valentovic	Helpful Hints on Growing Roses

Saturday March 12th
12 PM	Grant Bishop	Home & Garden Pesticide Safety
1 PM	Archie & Linda Snedegar	Growing Roses Successfully
2 PM	Northeastern Beekeepers Assoc	Spring Bee Care
3 PM	John Porter	Avoiding Common Garden Myths
4 PM	Lyndall Harned	Composting
5 PM	Boyd Co Master Gardeners	Rain Barrel Construction
6 PM	Boyd Co Master Gardeners	How To Paint Your Rain Barrel

2015 WSAZ Home & Garden Show

Thanks to the hard work of many of our members, the 2015 WSAZ Home and Garden Show was a huge success. Jane & Debbie arranged for a slate of interesting and informative speakers and Connie's organizational skills made everything run smoothly. Along with the Boyd and Putnam County Master Gardeners, the booth was well staffed and many visitors were assisted. We also had many visitors to the booth make inquiries into becoming a Master Gardener and are interested in joining the 2016 class. Our resident "shutterbug in chief", Victor Simpson, took a lot of photographs of our booth, the speakers and other gardening related displays at the Home and Garden Show.   

March Update

WSAZ Home and Garden Show

First on everyone’s mind is the WSAZ Home and Garden Show on March 13-15.  A great lineup of speakers will be on hand throughout the weekend who will be sharing gardening information and useful tips.  This is a great opportunity to gain hours of education or service for renewal of your MG certification. If you would like to volunteer and have not already signed up, please contact Connie Berk (berkc@marshall.edu, (304) 696-7341 (W) or (304) 429-7318 (H)).  She is especially looking for volunteers to help with the speakers, handing out and collecting evaluations, calendars and other tasks.  She is also looking for volunteers to assist visitors at our booth, especially on Saturday the 14^th.  Of course, there will be a hospitality room for our group so feel free to bring a snack to share if you would like.  Victor Simpson has made arrangements for the purchase of a beautiful quilt that will be auctioned off at our booth.  This is always a great fundraiser for us.

WV Master Gardener Conference

The 2015 WV Master Gardener Conference is coming up on March 27-29 at Pipestem Resort.  If you cannot attend the conference but have items to donate to the fundraising auction, please bring them to the Home and Garden Show and we will see that they are entered into the items for auction.

Dues

Our treasurer, Greg Norris, asks me to remind you that 2015 CCMGA dues ($16) can be mailed to PO Box 7661, Huntington, WV 25578-7661. 

Perennial Exchange and Plant Sale

This year the Perennial Exchange and Plant Sale will be held in conjunction with the Tri-State Sustainability Fair on May 16 at Heritage Station.  The Perennial Exchange and Plant Sale will run from 10 am until noon.  This is a great opportunity for Master Gardeners or MGITs to earn volunteer hours.  All of your time spent planting, tending and preparing plants for the exchange and sale counts toward volunteer hours for renewal or certification.  You will also have an opportunity to swap perennials with others from the group so you can delight another gardener with your excess perennials while adding variety to your own garden. All proceeds from the plant sale go to CCMGA so the value of your plant donations can be fully tax deductable since we are a 501c3 organization.  Following the Perennial Exchange and Plant Sale, volunteers from our club can staff our booth until 5 pm to give out information on our group, when we meet and how to become a Master Gardener.  Please contact Connie Berk (berkc@marshall.edu, (304) 696-7341 (W) or (304) 429-7318 (H)) to sign up for a time to work the Perennial Exchange and Plant Sale (10 am – noon) or the informational booth (noon – 5 pm) on May 16 at Heritage Station.

Lapsed Membership Reactivation

When I met with our advisor, Rich Sherman, earlier this week he communicated that he is very interested in assisting members who have gone inactive in regaining active membership.  He is willing to be as flexible as he can possibly be in getting members back with us.  More information on his “amnesty plan” will be available at our Tuesday, April 14 meeting.

Refreshment Committee

Joan Firth, Anne Ray, Mary Beckelhimer and others in the group have expressed an interest in forming a refreshment committee to bring snacks for sharing at monthly meetings.  If you are interested in being involved in the refreshment committee, please contact Joan (jmfirth@live.com) who is chairing the committee.

CCMGA Website

In meetings with the CCMGA officers we are really attempting to cut down on the number of email messages that we send out.  No one wants to fill your inbox with a ton of mail.  To that end we are trying to be post notices and events to our group’s website (http://cabellcountymastergardeners.com or http://cabellcountymg.blogspot.com/) and to keep the calendar on the right side of the page current.  If you click on an event on the calendar you can learn more details and even a map to the event location is provided for many entries. Just recently we have updated the webpage with information on speakers for the WSAZ Home and Garden Show.  If you look on the “About CCMGA” tab of the website, you will find links to our updated bylaws, maps to meeting locations, the slate of upcoming speakers for our monthly education sessions as well as notes from previous sessions, meeting minutes, treasurer’s reports and other pertinent information.  In addition, all prior posts are archived on the website to you can look up previous events easily. If you scroll to the bottom of the page and click the link that says “Older Posts” you will see information from previous posts.  At this time, our website has had nearly 1200 visitors.  We hope to make that the primary method of communication for our group.  Even this email will be posted to the website!

I hope to see everyone at the WSAZ Home and Garden Show in a couple of weeks.  Please feel free to contact me at beckelhimer@gmail.com at any time.

Steve Beckelhimer, President

Cabell County Master Gardener Association

2015 WSAZ Home & Garden Show Speakers

Friday March 13

5 pm	Dr. Chuck Talbot	School Gardens & Food Safety
6 pm	Jeff Moore	Backyard Chickens

Saturday March 14

12 pm	Jeff Bishop	Home & Garden Pesticide Safety
1 pm	Gary Selby	Container Gardening & Raised Beds
2 pm	Brenda Porter	Food Preservation
3 pm	Lyndall Harned	Organic Gardening
4 pm	John Porter	Wild, Wonderful & Wacky Fruits & Vegetables
5 pm	Lori Bowling	Straw Bale Gardening
6 pm	Rich Sherman	Cover Crops

End of February Updates

The February meeting of the Cabell County Master Gardener Association was quite productive.  There were 25 of us in attendance braving the cold and the coming winter storm that would have us hunkered down in our homes for the next week.
Our long winded speaker (Steve) did a session that is near and dear to his heart and stomach on the use of botanicals in making many of the distilled spirits that many of us are familiar with.  After the 90 minute presentation, we approved the 2015 budget and the prior meeting's minutes.  We approved the purchase of a quilt for raffle at the WSAZ Home and Garden Show especially since Victor Simpson suggested that he could assist us in purchasing one from a local quilting group.
Volunteers were solicited for working at the Home and Garden Show as well as to assist Rich in the event that the Extension Office moves to a better location.  Tom Bell shared his plan for a continuation of the partnership between CCMGA and Huntington in Bloom to include having Master Gardeners assist with home gardeners using Urban Renewal properties in Huntington.  The group voted to update the CCMGA bylaws.  The Guyandotte Library has asked for assistance in establishing a small planting.  A refreshment committee will be forming to bring snacks to many of the monthly meetings.
Since the February 14 meeting, the slate of speakers for 2015 has been finalized and is available on the "About" link of our CCMGA website.  A copy of the meeting schedule with dates, times, locations and speaker topics is available to print and share with friends or sticking up on your refrigerator.
Please check the calendar on the right side of this page for upcoming events.  If you click on an event you will get more information including a link to a map of how to get to the event.
Our next event is the WSAZ Home and Garden Show on March 13-15.  Please contact Connie Berk (berkc@marshall.edu) if you would like to sign up to volunteer.  She especially needs volunteers on Saturday and to assist with speakers throughout the weekend.
The April meeting will feature two educational speakers.  Betty Given will discuss the Springhill Community Gardens and Eve Marcum-Atkinson will give us information on the Tri-State Sustainability Fair.