Sept. 2015

Happy harvest time! I hope your gardens have been producing lots of yummy fruit and vegetables. I spent an entire weekend up to my ears in zucchini. I made zucchini bread, zucchini pie, and had zucchini stir fry. What I couldn’t use I grated up and put it in the freezer for more of the same during the winter. I love this time of year. It’s so nice to be able to put our hard work on the dinner table to enjoy.

Last month’s general meeting was fabulous! We awarded our 2014 Trillium Awards and many of the recipients who weren’t members attended. The food was delicious and Marilyn Stavinga made our beautiful Trillium cake. You are so talented, Marilyn.

Our guest speaker was Leanne Dykun. She demonstrated how to arrange flowers and vegetables for fall centre pieces and decorations. She did such a beautiful job and made it look so easy. She brought along some that she made previously and along with the one she made while demonstrating she donated them as door prizes. Congratulations to the winners: Deb & Don Zynormiski, Bruce Nevils, Lorraine Stevens, Ken Sherwood and Marie Bak.

At the next general meeting on September 18^th we will have our Flower & Vegetable show. Class lists were handed out at the last meeting and we’re hoping that we’ll have lots of entries. Don’t be shy…it’s free to enter and there will be money prizes for each class. Please come to the Optimist Hall by 6:30 p.m. for entry and set-up. This show is informal, so there will be no “official” judges, just some of our more experience members and master gardeners. This should be fun and will be an annual event at our September meetings.

Our guest speaker for the evening will be Ron Duxbury. His topics will be unique bird-houses and bird-feeders, and dahlias. His bird houses are always on display at the annual Home & Garden show at the arena and they are so unique. It will be a fun evening for sure!

Our flowerbeds around town look gorgeous. The potato vines have been a big hit this year and we’ll probably look into using more of them next year. Unfortunately, we have been getting some bad publicity regarding the flowerbeds that are at the base of the trees on Queen Street. Most people don’t know this, but we are not at all responsible for those beds. The Dunnville BIA is in charge of them, and it appears that they are having problems with keeping them maintained. Hopefully a solution can be found for 2015. Thank you to everyone who is helping us out this season with weeding and maintaining our flowerbeds—your hard work and dedication is paying off. I’d like to send out a special thank you to Steve Elgersma who has spent many, many hours weeding this summer. I don’t know that I’d recognize him standing up straight anymore!

Just to put a bug in your ear, we are looking for new directors for 2015. If you think you’d like to help out please speak up and since we swear in our officers in November we would like to know by October’s general meeting.   We meet once a month for an executive meeting, and once a month for our general meetings. It’s great to have new people and new ideas are always welcome.

October is flowerbed clean-up time! Our clean-up day is October 18^th. We’ll be meeting at the condo parking lot like usual at 9:00 a.m.

Our speaker for the October general meeting will be Lene Rasmussen of Lakeshore Willows who will be talking about growing cultured willows for basketry and living fences. We’ll also have our annual seed exchange, too. Bring your seeds and please make sure that they are labelled with basic growing directions (sun, shade, etc.).

Garden tip of the month:   Enjoy the bounty of your hard work in your garden.  We’re fortunate to live in southern Ontario with its wonderful climate for growing fruits and vegetables.   “♫♪Good things gro-o-o-w in Ontario!♪♫”

See you at the next meeting!

Sue Mazi, DHS Corresponding Secretary.

Essential advice for the gardener: grow peas of mind, lettuce be thankful, squash selfishness, turnip to help thy neighbor, and always make thyme for loved ones. ~Author Unknown