Month: July 2015

We all had fun Tuesday when Mary McCroan presented about the benefits snakes provide in our garden, and she was kind enough to bring a small worm snake as a demonstration. What neither she nor we knew at the time was that the worm snake she held up for us to see was great with baby worm snakes!

Here’s what Mary said about it on Facebook:

Last Tuesday I gave a presentation on snakes to my Master Gardener Group. A visual aid was a worm snake I’d found while planting a tree on my property. They live under the mulch and even underground when it gets too hot. I let her go after the presentation. I know that she is a she, because when I checked the terrarium where I’d been keeping her, I found 8 baby worm snakes. Very cool says I.

Don’t miss our own Mallory Kelley’s presentation August 11 at Lunch & Learn on organic solutions for your garden. Here are the details:

Admission charge: None; it’s free!

When: August 11 from 12:00  until 1:00 pm

Where: Elmore County Extension Auditorium, 340 Queen Ann Rd, Wetumpka, AL

What to bring: Lunch. We provide drinks.

There’s a Lunch & Learn program offered on the second Tuesday of each month. Here are the programs scheduled for the rest of this year:

• September 8 – Energize with Cover Crops – Lee and Amanda Borden
• October 13 – Color for Every Season
• November 10 – What Went Wrong? – Linda Griebel talks gardening mistakes
• December 8 – Last Minute Decorating – Phil Easter

 

Interested in becoming a Master Gardener? The deadline for applications to reach the Elmore County Extension Office is Thursday, August 20th. Anyone interested in obtaining an application, can go to the Extension Office in Wetumpka at 340 Queen Ann Road.

The classes will be held at the Elmore County Extension Office, on Thursdays, from September 10 until November 19th, 9AM until 2PM, with a light lunch provided. The fee for the class is $125.00 to be paid AFTER acceptance into the class by letter from the County Agent and BEFORE the first class. Graduation ceremony in August 2016.

Master Gardener Class subjects may include Basic Landscape Design, Plant Selection, Pruning, Plant Physiology, Soils and Plant Nutrition and Vegetable Gardening. Class instructors will include Alabama Cooperative Extension County Agents, experts from Auburn University and experienced Master Gardeners.

Hosting the classes will be the Central Alabama Master Gardeners Association [CAMGA] – a very active group of gardeners who have contributed more than 8,000 hours of volunteer service to Wetumpka and surrounding communities.

For further information, please call the Elmore County office at 334-567-6301.

As most everybody in Camga knows by now, we have a great little digital audio recorder, the Zoom H2n, that we can use for great audio on our videos. The main obstacle to using it is that the sound from the recorder needs to be manually synchronized with the video from the camcorder. This is trivial using a professional editor with visual waveforms; you just line up the signals visually and you’re in business.

If you’re using a free editor like Windows Live Movie Maker (free and already installed on most Windows PCs) or iMovie (free and already installed on most Macs), it takes a little more thought, but it’s doable. In this new video, we lay out a simple technique for lining up the Zoom H2n sound with the Canon camcorder picture. Love to hear whether it works well for you!