We are so fortunate to have Kirsten Corda, Ph.D. as our County Extension Agent with Texas A & M AgriLife available to assist us.  Kristen and Becky presented a nutritional program for the gardeners here at Mathis Park. Becky; (a 9 year old Girl Scout) is training to do presentations on her own as part of her scouting projects! Both the ladies did a wonderful job and we thank them for spending their Saturday with us.  Please find the recipe they presented under our recipe tab above.
    Remember Rockport is under water restrictions, so that include the garden.  However please have faith in our watering system! If you have not mulched your beds, they will look dry for the first few inches down.  Mulching helps save water, is a weed deterrent AND will decay & feed your plants. A Win Win Win, so remember to mulch and maintain your mulch layer.  The only time you do not mulch is when you plant seeds; wait till the plants are up and then mulch.
    Congratulations to everyone with squash; they are being harvested on a nearly daily basis.  Remember if you cannot harvest for any reason short term or long term we will do it for you and take them to Good Samaritans as a donation.  Just let us know!

Jill of Garden #1 has 8 extra tomato plants she is giving away.  They are in her bed and free for the taking.  Contact Judy with any questions.  See you all this Saturday at our monthly meeting!

Classes begin in late August and run into early December, meeting once a week for 3 1/2 hours on Tuesday.  Noted lecturers from all over Texas are brought in and cover gardening from Aphids to Zinnias.  Contact the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Office (361) 790-0103 for more information.

     Several people have asked about the dirt in our garden beds; it comes from Lake Mathis and is termed "sandy loam" in the trade.  Greg Haas Trucking out of Corpus Christi brings it to us in 14 cubic yard loads and each ACCG raised bed takes a little over 1 cubic yard.

We found two objects in the sandy loam from our last round of filled beds! The first was a double strand of barbed wire with a four pointed barb and the second we are not sure what it is; can you identify it? A shingle hammer, railroad spike or what? Any suggestions on what we should do with our new found items?

    The gardeners, vegetable plants and seeds were plentiful at the garden today. Sharing was the theme of the day and it was so much fun! We had over 21 gardeners attend today's meeting.  Our Directors had Elbon Rye grass seeds available for any gardener that has a nematode issue and we were reminded to not put to much mulch on our beds.  One to two inches, enough to cover the water grid is sufficient.

It is necessary to hand water your transplants for the first week and your seeds for as long as two weeks.  After this initial hand watering period our drip watering system will kick in and do its job.  It has been proven to work very well.

Our construction volunteers did a wonderful job building the ten newest beds and they are now all full of dirt as well!  A special thank you to JC Sanders Jr., Josh Beckham and Steven Matthews; who is home on leave from serving on the USS George Washington in Japan.  Gardeners that assisted were Bill Williams, Joseph Lenertz, Teri Goldsby, Pam Huffman and Family, Bernice Jackson and her brother Joe, Shawn and Catlin Carruth and Mark Henthorn.  Kudos to you all!

A HUGE thanks is also in order for two of our local businesses, Wal-Mart and Craigs Tires who donated to the garden this month as well as our own gardeners Jean Franks and Jeannine Solis.
   Can't wait to see everyone's gardens grow this Spring!

    We had a good turnout and really had a lot of information presented today at our monthly meeting. We would like to thank Todd Cutting for sharing his knowledge and time with ACCG today and AgriLIFE EXTENSION Services for the use of their facility.
    Aransas/San Patricio Master Gardeners are offering information on Square foot gardening and composting August 11 at 10:00am – 12:30 at the extension office. This should offer even more information we could use. I hope to see you there, it is free to attend.

See you in the garden,
Judy

    This morning's talk by Todd Cutting really hit home how challenging it is to grow vegetables here in the coastal bend area.  If the aphids, whiteflys, mealy bugs, leaf-footed beetles, or caterpillars don't get your tomatoes, root knot nematodes will.  Between the heat of summer and the lack of a hard freeze to kill insects, it's a wonder we do as well as we do.
    Basically, he said the secret to vegetable gardening here is to know when to fold 'em and go fishing.  Which is about now.  Maintaining large tomato bushes now with no hope of fruit until early winter gives insects and disease an opportunity to flourish with not much to gain.
    Fall gardens should start in late August or September. Another helpful suggestion is to plant resistant varieties.  For tomatoes, Celebrity and Big Boy are root knot nematode resistant and enjoy good success.  There are powdery mildew resistant varieties of cucumber and squash.  For zucchini, try the Spineless Beauty varieties.
   
Thanks and happy gardening,
Richard

    We are out of mulch at the garden. My husband and I will be at the garden today at 6:30 with a pickup load of mulch. We will have to off load it, volunteers to help off load the mulch would be appreciated. I will be at the garden this Saturday at 6 pm to 7 pm to assist or answer any questions. Judy

    Good morning gardeners and welcome to the new kids (gardeners) on the block! Here are a couple of short articles on what can be planted now and in the fall.

• from J.R. (aka Serapio Garza, Jr.), the Texas Gardener's Magazine article on fall planting.  Note the zones - we're usually in zone 4 but notice how close to zone 3 we are.  Plus the cooling (hah!) effect of being near the water puts us even closer.  So you might want to consider zone 3 dates as well.
• from Gill Landscape Nursery in Corpus Christi.  Gill is noted for being in the area a long time and a respected name in gardening.  They've broken their list into seeds and transplants.  If you are starting tomatoes, look at the seed start time - JULY 10!  Just around the corner.

For help with either of these lists and how-to, e-mail any of the Directors and we'd be glad to arrange some group lessons.
Richard

Good afternoon gardeners - hope you're out of the sun and enjoying the weekend.
    The Aransas County Community Garden is experiencing increased demand for garden plots and as a result we're building 10 more raised beds!
    These beds are made possible by a very generous donation from Wells Fargo (thanks Gayle).  The garden soil (donated by Garrett Construction - thanks Judy) has already been delivered and we will have the lumber and materials ready to assemble this Saturday, June 9th.

Here's the plan for the day:
1. Meet at the garden at 8am and start assembly.  All of the lumber will be pre-drilled and cut to size so all we need to do is screw it together.
2. Bring your portable electric drill (and extra batteries if available), hat and sunscreen.
3. We'll break for a short garden meeting and look at how the plants are doing with our heat and wind.
4. Water will be provided.  We'll try to get finished as soon as possible, hopefully by noon or sooner.

Attached is a photo from the last build of 15 beds that took place in late February this year.  As you can see, we'll have a slightly warmer day.

Look forward to seeing you there,
Richard