Composting

In conjunction with the Pike County Master Gardeners and the Pennsylvania DEP, Pike County Cooperative Extension held 14 composting workshops in the 2000-01 year. The draw for these workshops was the free composting bin that each household received. Seven hundred and seventy Pike County residents attended one of these 14 trainings and 610 free composting bins were distributed and are currently being used by Pike County property owners. Our Pike County Master Gardener, Jack de Geus, presented each program.

Comments from the workshops included: “Thank you so much for allowing me to attend your workshop. I came to this session to learn and never expected to receive such a high quality bin, which I never would have purchased on my own. Thanks again,” and “Always wanted to, but never had a bin…now I do.”

• A Northeast Region Landscape Workshop was held in February and was attended by 97 persons working in the horticulture field.
  
  
• A Pruning for Professionals Seminar was held in March with 38 attending. The participants learned about Pruning Basics, Pruning Conifers, Understanding National Pruning Standards and participated in a Hands-on Pruning Practice.
  
  
• In August, 88 commercial landscapers and grounds managers attended the Northeast Region Grounds, Landscape & Athletic Field Maintenance Workshop.

Master Gardening Programs

Activity by the 11 Pike County Master Gardeners provided 374.5 hours of volunteer service and made 812 contacts. Carol Padalino provided over 100 hours of volunteer service, with Alberta Rosiak providing over 50 hours.

Additionally a September training saw 4 Pike County residents selected as new Master Garderners.

Gardening is often reported as the most popular leisure activity in America. The popularity of home gardening activities is expected to increase 20% over the next 10 years thanks to the increase in gardeners age 45-64.

In an effort to assist gardeners who might be unsure of how to prepare plants for winter, two Pike County Master Gardeners, Alberta Rosiak and Karen Batalin, presented a program Putting Your Garden to Bed. Information was given to 30+ participants on getting their perennials and bulbs ready for the winter.

Thirty five participants attended a workshop on Creating Butterfly Gardens that helped them find out how to add beauty and movement to their home garden by planting a landscape to attract butterflies. The program guided them in selecting an appropriate mix of annuals and perennials that provide nectar for the adults and/or food for the butterfly larvae.