GOOD NEWS! We are meeting in Stone Chapel at Trinity Episcopal Church right in the center of Shepherdstown. We will have the opportunity to move from our meeting to the Back Alley Tour. Go to Back Alley Garden Tour And Tea to get tickets or volunteer to be a Docent. I have volunteered in the past and it is a wonderful experience. (It also has directions to the church as the tea will be at the same place.) This is the best time of year to walk thru your garden and dig up all the things that you have too much of and make room for new because we are anticipating more people attending. So on Saturday morning, we will stand outside of the church and gladly collect your garden exchanges before you park. (You don’t have to feed the meters on Saturday, but do not park in residential areas, as identified by the signs.)
So-o, bring your garden exchanges, your coffee cup, a happy face and information on all the bugs that you have in your yard or had in your yard and got rid of—not just Stink Bugs! Let’s share our wealth of knowledge and experience along with Wendy Maddox’s expertise so that we can make this a bug free summer — DREAM, DREAM, DREAM —
We will meet May 19, 9:30 am, at TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Church and German Street
Shepherdstown, West Virginia 25443

If you have any questions about this, just call me,
Carole Brooks / 240–405-7013 / br00ksn00k@aol.com
Gardeners Exchange Group

The start of a new season and a wonderful meeting at Joan and Jerry’s. They were excited to show off their wonderful home, garden and new greenhouse. It really looked great!
The meeting started with breakfast items that the members brought and all of it was really
tasty. Joan really set a nice table for everything. Thank you so much Joan and Jerry for
hosting this meeting.

Members brought plants, some cuttings and some bare root. Plenty to go around. Chairperson Carole Brooks began the meeting with a history lesson of GEG and the original members and how they were setting up the group and how she intends on continuing with some changes to simplify the tasks. Terry Thorson was introduced as the
Web person who is continuing to set up the new site including email issues and hopefully
resolutions.

Discussed were:

• GEG Signs: were greatly needed; made by Steve Brooks
• Email format: We intend to clean up our email list. Terry will send an email requesting your response in order to remain on the mailing list. You will then be directed to a form designed to collect your address, etc. (and your birthday month, for the fun of it). We would like to create a booklet with member information so you will be able to contact other members.
• Email etiquette: Please remember to check to see if you are replying to the email sender or to the entire group when you click that “Reply” button on your email. Some emails may contain a “Reply to” which is different from the “Reply.”
• Website Calendar: We have a volunteer to maintain the calendar, so you can send your information to her for posting. More on this later.
• Old site information: The old plant list is now on the new site in pdf format.
• Name Tags: will be provided at each meeting. If you still have yours please bring it but for those that don’t adhesive tags will be provided.
• New volunteers: Co chair for remainder of 2012 will be shared by Betty and Priscilla; Treasurer will be Larry Kruhm [correction: Priscilla is the Secretary, Betty will take minutes when she is not out of town and whenever Priscilla is not available.]

Carole has decided there needs to be a subject for each meeting and has chosen the following subjects and people to address them:

• May — Research on Bugs: Wendy Maddox
• June — Canning/Preservation: Suzy Yates (Members are to bring a canning recipe)
• July – Herbs: Peter Yates
• Aug – Tomatoes: General (Bring tomatoes for tasting)
• Sept – Planting successes and failures: Dianna Eldridge
• Oct – Cleaning and sharpening garden tools: General (Bring your special tools)
• Jan – Soil Testing (Jefferson County)

New visitors: Sharon and Greg are organic gardeners who live off of the land and have a
wealth of information to share. Discussed were:

• 4/12 fertilizer – helps with health issues
• Fruits they grow: rasberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, apricots, apples, sweet cherries, peaches and pears. Others: Organic asparagus and rhubarb
• Starting their garden (February): Start plants, Paper pots, Water
• Photos of their Hoop house which has taken them through the winter with vegetables.
• Fertilizers used: Fertrelle fertilizer, Green sand, Rock phosphorous, Wood ashes, Kelp (Common Market, Frederick, MD has food grade kelp)
• Catalogs suggested are: Peaceful Valley – Organic, Gardens Alive, HighMowingseeds.com – (Seeds), Territorial Seeds, Johnny’s, Meyer Seed Co.
• Suggests floating row cover to help with the bugs as well as lowering the temperature. But be sure to open for pollination.
• Suggests using compost tea: Compost in cheesecloth; Provide air bubbles to move the compost around in the water; Let stand; For watering or spraying.
• Kelp spray periodically
• Good hoses suggested are: Gilmore – (Home Depot)

Announcements:

• Backyard Alley 2012 requesting helpers – email Don Davis for info.
• Larry K, as promised has provided the information where he buys his plants at the  Jefferson Co. High School, 4141 Flowing Springs Road, Shenandoah Junction. Please call to be sure what time they will be open for purchases. 304 7258491

Have a great season!

Submitted by Ellen Cotton

Nursery Open House!

WINSTON GARDENS Specializing in Native Plants
Virginia Winston Landscape Design & Gardens
Located at 1121 Hollida Lane, 1 mile off Swan Pond Road.

”Get your Spring garden off to a great start.”

Sat. & Sun.  April 28 & 29, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Benefit for Potomac Valley Audubon Society — 15% of all proceeds go to help support trail development at Stauffer’s Marsh.

Light refreshments and door prize offered.

30+ varieties of native trees & shrubs, potted up and available for immediate planting in your garden.

Call 304–267-6924, or go to Winston Gardens for more information.
Directions: From 45 East out of Martinsburg, go about 5 mi., turn left on Files Crossroads and go 1 mi. to ‘T’ at Swan Pond Rd.   Turn left, go 1/2 mi. and turn right onto Hollida Rd.   Follow Hollida as it turns sharply right at the mailboxes, becomes gravel, passes up hill and between a large white farmhouse and barn, turns sharply left a little way beyond the barn, and goes down a long straightaway.   Just as the road turns sharply right again, follow our driveway up to the left (1121, light green ranch house) and park along the drive.

Spring is here and it is time to start thinking about gardening. Let’s talk about it at our first Garden Exchange Group meeting of the season. I don’t know how I got to be your coordinator but, in retirement, I only do things for fun and it’s not fun having a hobby if you don’t have friends to share it with.

Jerry and Joan Whitmer, a wonderful couple, are excited about having us visit them. They have their first greenhouse this year and are having a delightful time growing things from seed. Unfortunately, Jerry has to be out of town the third week of April so he asked if we could come the fourth week, April 28, instead. How could I say NO! So for this ONE time the meeting will be held the fourth week of April instead of the third. Good News About that is the Leesburg Garden Festival is April 21 and 22.

Jerry’s enthusiam has rubbed off on me. Don’t buy any tomato, broccoli, brussel sprouts, or cabbage plants. I have enough, I think, for everyone. Bring your extra plants to the meeting so that we can share them.

So bring a comfortable chair, your coffee cup if you don’t like Styrofoam, and your favorite breakfast dish (Gardener’s are such good cooks) and we’ll dream together about this year’s garden. We’ll meet on April 28, 2012, at 9:30 am in the backyard of Joan and Jerry Whitmer. Location information has been emailed to the GEG mailing list.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone on April 28 at 9:30a.m. Let the good times roll. This is one of them!

If you have any questions about this, just call me,

Carole Brooks  /  240–405-7013  /  br00ksn00k@aol.com
Gardeners Exchange Group

Note from Terry: We will soon attempt to clean up our email list. Please be alert for an email asking you if you wish to remain on the GEG email list — please respond if you want to stay on the list! Thanks.

January 21, 2012

Priscilla and Gary’s home again looked great and we had plenty of room to meet in their Great Room. The food was delicious as was the company consisting of the GEG members who could attend. As we took our plates to the tables set up we enjoyed Pricilla’s introduction and welcome to her home.

Carol Brooks, our new Chair welcomed everyone and thanked Pricilla for hosting the January Pot Luck. The meeting began with questions like:

• Are we going to have topics for the meetings?  It seemed to be decided that if the host wants a particular topic that was up to the host which made sense.
• Priscilla brought up a good point that the purpose began for the fellowship and sharing plants and information.

Discussions started for any new items being tried in the gardens of the home owners and a couple had come up with:

• Tomato cages consisting of 2x4’s, ¾ conduit and 2x3 metal wire mesh.

We will try to get some pictures in the spring and directions on doing this.

• For Soil samples in Jefferson Co. Contact the Jefferson Co. Ag Dept.
• Planting strawberries and blue berries in this area was discussed and it was stated that after the third year start cutting out branches that have produced to keep your plants healthy and producing well.

List of late blueberries for this area are: Derella and Aurora. Early are: Duke – (done by July 4^th), North County, Patriot. (If these names are not right we can get confirmation on these at the April meeting.)

We have hosts for our meetings which will begin in April through October of 2012. These will be held on the third Saturday of each of the months starting at 9:30 am. We will send out the schedule and see if we can post the schedule on-line by the 1^st of April.

Again, it was a very memorable meeting.  Thank You Pricilla.  You were a wonderful hostess and we really appreciate your membership with GEG.  It was GREAT!

Carol Brooks/Chair

Now that that’s done, it’s time to think about SPRING and our gardens.  What did we do last year that we won’t do this?  What are we going to grow this year?  What do we need to do before we even start the growing season?  Where is the best place to buy those plants?  Have you seen the price of seeds!  Let’s talk about all of this and discuss next year’s meetings at –