2017 Gardens Summit February 18, 2017 Tools for tackling the Top 10 Pests, Diseases and Weeds in a Community Garden 2017 Gardens Summit February 18, 2017

Introductions Jill Schneider, Troy Community Gardens Annette Nekola, Atwood Community Gardens

Which leads to what? Background Community gardens offer a unique growing environment Concentration of plots Lack of gardening experience by some Everyone growing the same crops Which leads to what?

Background Long-term community gardeners frustrated at Troy Gardens Coalition Top 10 Work Group form in July 2016 Goal: Create brief, one-page information sheets Surveyed Dane County community garden leaders Master Garden Volunteers (MGVs) help enlisted to research each pest, weed and disease THANK YOU MGVs !! Work Group met with Lisa Johnson to brainstorm on pests Received 21 responses representing 18 community gardens 16 MGVs helped

Diseases (10) Early Blight & Septoria Leaf Spot Late Blight Bacterial Speck & Spot Downy Mildew Powdery Mildew Blossom End Rot Bacterial Wilt on Cucurbits Allium Rust Verticillium Wilt Aster Yellows Have gardeners refer to the Handout called “Information Sheets for Top “10” Diseases, insects, Animals and Weeds.

Insects (11) Flea Beetles Squash Bugs Colorado Potato Beetles Squash Vine Borers Cucumber Beetles Bean Leaf Beetles Japanese Beetles Cutworms Root Maggots Earwigs Cabbageworms

Animals (9) Rabbit Woodchuck/Groundhog Vole or Meadow Mouse Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel Rats, Brown and Black White-tailed Deer Chipmunk Squirrel, Eastern Grey Raccoon

Weeds (11) Field Bindweed Canada Thistle Wild Parsnip Garlic Mustard Reed Canary Grass Quack Grass Creeping Charlie Purslane Lambsquarters Pigweed Crabgrasses

Handout 40 sheets (two copies of each sheet) for attendees to get an idea of what they look like Each sheet has pictures to identify the problem, damage, active time/when it occurs, susceptible plants, prevention/treatment methods, additional info/resources

Weeds sheets are a little different format but convey similar information

We created two additional “info sheets” or “articles” outlining Best Practices for managing pests, weeds and diseases, as well as a more general community gardening guide called Planning, Planting and Maintaining a community garden plot These are in your handouts

English-only version at this point Good to Know Additional resources at bottom of sheets may include information about non-organic prevention and treatment methods Sheets will be posted on the Gardens Network website (www.danegardens.net) English-only version at this point A second phase of project could include combining sheets into one file with an index Refer to slide

Do these problems sound familiar. What are your experiences Do these problems sound familiar? What are your experiences? What have you tried? Ask them these questions to start them talking about things.

How can we use these information sheets? Email sheets to your gardeners Post sheets at the garden Provide sheets in a binder at the garden Present them at spring registration meeting Provide them at opening day, especially to new gardeners Hold an early-season work shop for your gardeners to talk about these challenges and share information sheets Be proactive! Ask them for ideas on how they envision using the sheets. If no one is mentioning anything, click to show and discuss each of these bullet points.

What else? Create a list of crops that grow well at your garden and ones that don’t Educate gardeners to plant same crops at different times Email your gardeners regularly to ask what they are seeing out there Have a volunteer scout for problems on a regular basis and send out appropriate information sheets or offer information on best practices Alert other gardens via Google Group on what your garden is seeing What else can we do to help our gardeners battle these pests, diseases and weeds? Click to show these one at a time.

Keep track of problems for next year What else? Keep track of problems for next year Partner with other gardens to do Bt spraying Other ways to partner More “what else” ideas. Click to show each one

Good Resources Gardens Network Resources www.danegardens.net/grow-a-garden UW-Extension Learning Store (e.g., Common Crops for Community Gardens A3905-05) https://learningstore.uwex.edu/Assets/pdfs/A3905-05.pdf Dane County UW-Extension Horticulture Hotline 608-224-3271 or horticulture@countyofdane.com (M-F, 9-12 noon, April 15 – October 31 Forsyth Community Garden (NC State/A&T State University Cooperative Extension) materials http://www.forsythcommunitygardening.com/PrintedMaterials.aspx Mention Extension Bulletin A3905-05 is in their handouts. After summit, the following will be posted to Gardens Network website: - PDF of PPT - PDF of Top 10 list (same as handout at meeting) - PDFs of all info sheets - PDF of Best Practices Sheet - PDF of Planning, Planting and Maintaining sheet - Notes taken at meeting