There’s a really good reason I have failed miserably to keep you all up to date on my progress through the Master Gardener program. There is just too much information to compact it into a blog post! It is incredible what we have been learning. (I will admit some of it goes way over my head, and I hope that once I enter the year long internship program, a lot of this will start to make sense.)
So, what have we studied so far in the last 7 weeks? Botany, soil, fertilizers, irrigation, propagation, entomology, and Integrated Pest Management (no pesticides needed!). Now that we have the bare bones of how plants and insects live together, we are now diving into the different plants themselves. Next up – cactus, succulents and Xeriscape.
Cactus are a whole new world for me. After living in Colorado for 40+ years I never grew any. They were too pokey in my gardening handbook. Don’t get me wrong, Colorado is semi-arid so there were cactus there, just not like they are here in Arizona. Now, after living in Arizona for only two years, those prickly critters are growing on me. Respect is the word I’d use. After all, living in a desert environment is only for the tough at heart. Nearly everything here will either stab you, sting you, or bite you so if you want to survive you better be able to stand the heat (literally and figuratively).
With all that said, I want to rephrase my commitment to you. Instead of a weekly post about, “What I learned in school,” I will, instead, share gardening tips along the way. If something pops up during class that could be of interest, or is one of those “fun facts’ I’ll share it with you.
So, until next time remember this:
Every part of the prickly pear is either useful (the thorns can be used as a needle) or edible (the pads as well as the fruit – have you had prickly pear jelly? Delish!).
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