2021 Outstanding Master Gardener Award

Submitted by John Twomey, URIMGP Class of 2015 & 2020 Outstanding MG

It is my pleasure to present the 2021 Outstanding Master Gardener award this year to a Master Gardener who has taken it to a higher level.

The recipient has shown exceptional leadership before and during the pandemic. This Master Gardener is always the first at the project site and the last to leave. This Master Gardener always has an answer to a question and if a problem comes up, a solution is not far away. This Master Gardener even during covid was able to bring his project to a higher level and helped more people than the year before.

This Master Gardener is from the class of 2016, has over 4000 volunteer hours, and is the project leader at the Produce Donation Garden at the Roger Williams Park Community Garden.

Please join us in presenting the 2021 Outstanding Master Gardener award to Kevin Rabbitt.

Kevin is pictured with his daughter Lisa, who has volunteered at the Roger Williams Park Produce Donation Garden and Flavor Lab. Kevin looks forward to her upcoming wedding! 

#ChooseMagic: Nature Can Restore Itself — Like Magic

A local project is featured in #ChooseMagic, a new short video! Two programs, Billion Oyster Project in New York City and Harvest Cycle Compost in Providence, Rhode Island, are profiled for their critical work on oyster shell recycling and composting to restore our ocean to its natural vibrancy.

Harvest Cycle Compost is also a partner with our sister program, Food Recover for Rhode Island. If this inspired you, consider applying to our winter session.  

Boneset is medicinal; snakeroot is its poisonous look alike, and a pest to ranchers, as cows will sometimes eat it, poisoning their milk.

Despite this, some Ageratina varieties are common decorative plants, and it was once believed to have some medicinal uses (for one, as a snakebite curative); it’s possible Abraham Lincoln’s mother died from this mistake.

As a general rule, do not eat any foraged plant until you are certain you do not have an allergy, and then eat only a small amount the first time to make sure. Do extensive plant research before identifying the plant; I recommend Leda Meredith's Northeast Foraging.

Image Credits: "Eupatorium serotinum - Late Boneset" by Fritzflohrreynolds is licensed under CC BY 3.0  "Ageratina_altissima_002" by H. Zell is licensed under CC BY 3.0

URI Campus Sustainability: Ask the Expert

Excerpted from the URI Sustainability, original article by Erin Harrington

An average day of research for Dr. John Taylor (Assistant Professor, Agroecology) is anything but average. It consists of walking through and cataloging community “food forests.” Food forests are essentially just what the name suggests — forests of food. And according to Taylor, depending on the age of the forest, walking through a food forest can be almost like taking a stroll out in the woods.

Picture walking through the Northwoods on campus, except most of the trees and bushes that you pass by on the path would be nut and fruit-bearing plants that you could actually harvest and eat. As you look up, a canopy of Chinese chestnut trees comes into focus, and below that, you see smaller trees like juneberry, with maybe some blueberry bushes and strawberries sprinkled around the ground floor as you walk. You may also spy a few other plants that wouldn’t necessarily produce food, but would be beneficial for pollinators like butterflies and bees.

If you happen to be walking through a food forest in a city, you would likely also come across a smaller community garden, areas for socializing, beautiful, culturally-relevant murals, and maybe even a community center with an area for activities like dancing and barbecuing! Taylor isn’t simply interested in the food that these systems produce, he’s also interested in the people who create these agroecosystems.

“How can food systems be designed in ways that are ecologically sustainable and socially sustainable and contribute to equity and inclusion?” “I’m interested in developing urban food systems that are sustainable in the fullest sense of the word,” Taylor explains.

Taylor studies what are referred to as urban “agroecosystems.” Put simply, agroecology is any form of agriculture developed with principles of ecology in mind. An agroecosystem can be anything from a farm to a community garden, or even your own garden at home. But fully understanding the concept of agroecology is a bit tricky.

“Agroecology has been defined as a science, a practice, and a movement,” Taylor informs me. “It’s a practice with roots in traditional and indigenous agriculture and agricultural systems. Agroecologists take a lot of their inspiration from those traditional systems which had to be very circular in their metabolism so that they’re not relying a lot on outside inputs, but they’re self-supporting like a natural ecosystem.”

One example of practicing agroecology when growing food is using polycultures rather than monocultures. Rather than growing just one large crop of one type of plant, you grow a variety of plants that complement, or sometimes even facilitate, the growth of one another. The classic case study of polyculture is the Three Sisters garden: beans, squash, and corn. These three plants grow on a different timeline, and so they don’t compete for resources. The corn grows tall first, and provides a place for the bean vines to grow up at just the right time. The squash grows last, and its leaves spread out across the garden floor, keeping moisture in the soil for all three plants. This style of farming was originally practiced by many different American Indian nations and confederacies such as the Haudenosaunee.

Read the full article here. 

Photo Credit: Dr. John Taylor is an Assistant Professor in Agroecology at URI. Photo Credit: Nora Lewis.

Volunteers Needed at the RI Veterans Home in Bristol

Submitted by Barbara Jones, URIMGP Class of 2004

Like most MG projects, work at the Veterans’ Home came to a halt in March of 2020, just after we had gotten approval to plant in the six patios gardens that grace the brand-new facility. We have spent this year trying to clean up and plant raised beds with vegetables and flowers. Short term, we are looking for volunteers for 3-4 hours on Saturday mornings (rain date, Sunday): 10/30 and 11/6.  Please join us on these workdays and consider joining our team. Contact Barbara Jones (bsjones@cox.net) with your interest and availability.

Image: RI Veterans Home residents Bill and Al, enjoying one of the six patios maintained by MGs.

Pruning Basics

Register for only 1 session:

Saturday, November 13 | 11:00a.m.-12:00 (Rain Date: Sunday, November 14)

Saturday, November 13 | 1:00-2:00 p.m. (Rain Date Sunday, November 14)

URI Kingston Campus, Mallon Center, 3 East Alumni Ave, Kingston, RI 02881

Please join Vivian Schaull, MG class of 2014 to learn proper pruning techniques - the why, how, and when of pruning.

This is a hands-on course in two parts.  Part one is to watch a short Powerpoint presentation on pruning basics at home before attending part two. A link to the recording is provided below.  Part two is a hands-on class where attendees actually do some pruning. 

New master gardeners from the class of 2020 and 2021 are encouraged to register for this in-person workshop.  Attendees should bring their own pruners, loppers, and hedge trimming tools. Register in Volgistics.

Please watch this Pruning Basics video before the hands-on class or enjoy it any time to learn more about the pruning techniques.

Please register in Volgistics.