Aiken Master Gardener Home

Meet A Master Gardener 6/1/13

The Aiken Master Gardeners will be holding a Meet A Master Gardener at the Aiken Farmers Market Williamsburg Street between Park and Richland Avenue , Aiken , South Carolina , 29801 on April 6th, 2013.

Meet A Master Gardener at the Aiken Farmers Market. The Master Gardeners are at the Aiken Farmers Market from 8:00 A.M. until noon on the first Saturday of each month from March through November. We are there to answer lawn and garden questions and identify plants, weeds, and any other mystery items that the public brings. This is a free service.

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Spring Education Day update

At Spring Ed day, a number of visitors requested the recipe for one type of cookie on our refreshment table. Here it is.

The “contains nuts” cookies from Spring Education Day are from The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken (1960) pp. 99-100:

 

“Selma’s Best Oatmeal Cookies (These bear the same relationship to the ordinary oatmeal cooky that the Rolls-Royce does to the bicycle.)

Cream together

  • 1 cup shortening
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar

and add one beaten egg. Now sift together

  • 1-1/2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

and add it to the first mixture. Then add

  • 1-1/2 cups quick rolled oats (or 1-1/2 cup old fashioned oats that have been powdered in a food processor)
  • 3/4 cut finely crushed walnuts or pecans
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Chill it for an hour. Then put walnut-sized pieces on a greased cooky sheet. Butter the bottom of a small glass, dip it in granulated sugar, and flatten out the little pieces. Just keep doing this–you don’t need to rebutter the glass bottom, just resugar it each time. Then bake at 350 degrees for ten minutes.

Note: This system of chilling the cooky dough and then flattening bits of it with a buttered, sugared glass bottom will work for nearly any sort of cooky that originally called for rolling out and cutting with a cooky-cutter; and it’s a lot easier.”

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Lunch Box Series: Clemson Extension Service agent Vicky Bertagnolli presents “Fire Ants”

Location: Trinity United Methodist Church , 2724 Whiskey Road, Aiken, SC Additional parking is next door at Church of God

Date: Monday, May 20 at 12:30 pm

How can a potato chip help you get rid of fire ants? Find out at the Aiken Master Gardener Association’s Lunch Box lecture on Monday, May 20, 2013 at 12:30 pm at Trinity United Methodist Church (2724 Whiskey Road, Aiken, SC), when local Clemson Extension Service agent Vicky Bertagnolli presents “Fire Ants”. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The lecture will cover the fire ant life cycle and effective, research-based methods to control fire ant infestations. Once you know the biology of fire ants, you will understand why pesticides work and why DIY methods waste your time and money.

You are welcome to bring a brown bag lunch to enjoy during the lecture. For more information about the Lunch Box Series or to ask gardening questions, call the Master Gardener Office at 649-6297, ext. 122.

 

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Master Gardener Graduation

The Clemson Extension Service certified seventeen new Master Gardeners in the Aiken area on Tuesday 1/8/2013. Those students who completed both the 45-hour Master Gardener training course in 2011 and a mandatory 40 hours of educational service in 2012 were treated to a graduation ceremony and dinner at St. John’s United Methodist Church.

Graduates received certificates, name badges identifying them as Aiken Master Gardeners and a chance to win a creative centerpiece that included packets of seeds from Linda Christine and Gloria Wade.

Please welcome and congratulate these newest Certified Master Gardeners (“Class Year 2012″): Betty Alexander, Jack Ardington, George Batten, Carolyn Beard, Bruni Beaty, Denis Bonnet, Duane Carpen, Carolyn Coffey, Tom Hallman, Corrie Hemm, Lee Hiers, Sr.; Holly Holman, Priscilla Jordan, Marge Mitchell, Beth Riesenberger, Priscilla Smith, and Cheryl Trottier.

The intern graduation dinner was made possible through the efforts of many Master Gardeners led by Gloria Wade, Hospitality Chairman: Theresa Heffernan, Jacque Rees, Nancy Chambers, Elsie Smith, Linda and Sam Christine, Marilyn Winn, Mary King, Margaret Marion, Steve Baker, and Al Snell. Thank you all.

Click on a picture and it will show a larger view and you can scroll through using the >> or << button. Click on a picture to return.

 

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The 2013 Aiken Master Gardener Almanac is now available

The seventh edition of Master Gardener Almanac for Aiken and Vicinity is now available  and will sell for $15 to the public. It will be sold at the Aiken County Agriculture Building at 1550 Richland Avenue, East in suite 500.  It will also be sold at the Farmers Market at Richland and Williamsburg Streets on the first Saturday of each month when the Master Gardeners are present. The new almanac has been completely revised and increased in size to 104 pages.