Here are some gardening activities for the dog days of summer. These are the kind that may keep us out of the garden (and out of our gardening shorts), yet still keep gardening on our minds.
EXTENSION PROGRAMS
Extension’s Food and Consumer Sciences program offers free, 30-minute webinars on Wednesdays at 2 p.m. titled Gardening & Grub: A Weekly Chat About All Things Food. Extension Agent Cheralyn Berry discusses a new fruit or vegetable each week and talks about its cultivation, nutrition and cultural uses. Each topic is a delightful surprise – one week it was the banana tree, another week the lychee nut. Cheralyn also shares recipes and answers viewer questions. Connect: https://go.ncsu.edu/allthingsfood . If you miss it live, you can tune in at your convenience by visiting the Durham Cooperative Extension Facebook page; and clicking on “Videos.”
Things are hot at the Briggs Avenue Community Garden! Hot as in growing chili peppers from around the world. “Everything from the original progenitor chili to the common sweet pepper to the spiciest pepper in the world is growing at Briggs right now,” says Cheralyn Berry. Stop by between 8 and 11 a.m. any Friday or Saturday for the next few weeks and receive a mini educational tour. The garden’s address is 1314 S. Briggs Avenue in Durham. For more information call 919-406-4606.
To help produce fun and food this summer, Extension’s 4H program offered Victory Garden Kits – priced at $20, but free to families in need of financial assistance, no questions asked. The summer kits were so popular that a fall kit is in the works. Learn more at: https://durham.ces.ncsu.edu/4-h-victory-gardens/
PHOTO CONTESTS
Do you take photos of your garden – LOL — Who doesn’t, right?! Well, two local organizations are interested in your photos:
1) WPTF Weekend Gardener magazine is looking for a photo to grace the cover of their Fall issue (circulation 10,000). Act soon, deadline for submission is August 31. To participate and/or learn more: https://wptf.com/contests/weekend-gardener-magazine-cover-photo/ . The photographer will receive credit in the magazine.
2) NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill is collecting submissions for a Community Photo Exhibit. You can submit up to five photos of native wildflowers. The photos could have been taken anywhere in the state of North Carolina. Deadline for submissions is October 1. They’ll share the photos in a digital gallery, and at the end of the year, they’ll display selected images in an exhibit in the DeBerry Gallery. To participate and/or learn more: https://ncbg.unc.edu/visit/exhibits/community-photo-exhibit/
DURHAM GARDEN FORUM – Monthly Lectures
Durham Garden Forum (DGF), a valuable resource for Durham residents and others in the Triangle area. Now entering its 11th year, the DGF holds lectures from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month. At present the lectures are presented online via Zoom. To receive a meeting invitation, send your request to durhamgardenforum@gmail.com.
Here’s a peek at topics of upcoming lectures:
– August 25, Beyond Daffodils and Tulips — a review of all geophytes, including bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes, and tuberous roots.
– September 15, TreesDurham – a review of historical policies that have created today’s inequitable tree distribution in Durham.
– October 20, Hosta! Gardening with hosta, with a look at some of the newest varieties.
— A. Laine