cooperative extension

SILVER CITY — The next STEM + Arts event in Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey counties summer program for kids and their parents is Tuesday, August 9 at 10 a.m.

In recent weeks, the ground was pliable. The temperature, comfortable and the outside beckoned. The urge to plant was getting hard to resist. Yet resist we must, for this is winter after all. I know the 15-day forecast is unreliable, but I can’t help but check it out, if, for no other reason than to instill a smidgin of common sense into my “I want to plant” brain. Snow is ahead this week.

Happy New Year! Many of us are glad to see the end of 2020 and hope 2021 will be much healthier and more peaceful. The calendar says winter is here, but the temperatures don’t seem to agree. I’m not complaining — sunny winter days in the upper 40s make me happy. Something that does concern me though is the lack of snow.


On our walk today I was commenting to my husband “I can’t believe two pine trees could lose that many needles!” This was after I spent a number of hours raking the needles up from the driveway. My next question was “Can I compost pine needles?”

Snow and cold, oh boy! The leaves still remaining on the ground are heavy and soggy, so no raking for a bit. That’s good news. The ground is moist again, so more good news. I got the tools, hoses, sprinklers and patio furniture put away before the storms. We turned off and drained the main sprinklers in time. So far so good.

Next time I write about loving all my wonderful cottonwood trees, would someone please remind me why they call it fall?! For weeks, my husband and I have been raking, blowing, mowing, sweeping and moving leaves every day for hours and we are still not done.

My friend Kristen and I were discussing that fall is the best time for planting almost everything. Not only are plants on sale at nurseries, the soil is warm and the weather is cool, which is less stressful on newly installed plants.

It’s the annual conundrum. Is it too soon to turn off the irrigation system? With recent nights down to the teens here in Washoe Valley, we turned off the irrigation system and drained it prior to the forthcoming hard freezes. Then we turned off the outside water and drained the hose bibs too. Yet with temperatures last week back in the 60s with low to mid-30s at night, I’m sure I will have to irrigate again soon.

I'm just itching to start pruning our evergreens, but my arborist self knows it’s a bit soon. I will wait until we have a hard freeze, to ensure my pruning cuts won’t attract any bark beetles. When a tree is pruned, we actually are wounding it.

From the Famous first line of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, modified to appeal to the generosity of the Carson City community, "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a (generous city) in possession of a good fortune must be in want of (helping to support a CHS teacher)."

The teachers of CHS are asking if this is still true? Of course it is. Men, women, and children of Carson City are encouraged to purchase a T-shirt to support both breast cancer awareness and CHS teacher Kelly Gustafson, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

Being a student at Carson High School is rewarding enough, academically speaking, but learning is happening everywhere; however, forcing a teacher to dress in pink, from head to toe, wearing a pink tutu, is a different story and an exciting fundraising opportunity.

This spring I told myself I would remember to fertilize the lawn in the fall, because I forgot in 2019. I noticed the grass didn’t seem as strong this year and I had a lot more weeds such as clover and black medic infesting the lawn. Now fall is here and I’m ready to fertilize!

The Carson High School Retro-Homecoming and Respect Week went without a hitch, and the beauty of it was administrators, teachers, and staff had nothing whatsoever to do with making the decisions as the students chose both the candidates and the winners.

Babysitting classes have often been offered in the Carson City area by a variety of agencies, but none have been offered during a pandemic until now.

I have often written about my friend Laura’s fantastic gardens. She has always had horses and chickens. Then, also having a tractor, she was able to turn and aerate large piles — all the ingredients and tools for outstanding compost.

Over the years I have seen or heard some big herbicide bloopers. A man came with samples of damaged leaves and I told him it was herbicide damage. He insisted it couldn’t be because where he used herbicide wasn’t anywhere near these plants.


I found photos last week of our landscape when we bought the house in 1988. There were trees lined up like soldiers along the borders of the property and lawn everywhere else. No flowers, no shrubs. Everything was flat. Although this was boring, it certainly was easy to maintain. Thirty-two years later, I look back at that landscape and think, why did I plant so much?

As I drive the freeway through Carson City, I am reminded of one of the best Master Gardener Volunteers’ gifts to the community. From the spectacular eagle sculptures at either end of the freeway to each of the metal sculptures along the rest of the freeway and on/off-ramps to the landscaping, multi-use path and the patterning on the walls, I remember a group of Master Gardeners from the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension who created what we see today.

It’s only August and the leaves of the "Autumn Blaze" maple at The Greenhouse Project site are completely yellow. What’s going on?

CARSON CITY —The Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development is partnering with StartUpNV, Entrepreneur’s Assembly, Northeastern Nevada Regional Development Authority, business leaders, and other government entities, in a new statewide initiative to foster entrepreneurship in Nevada’s smaller cities and towns.

Recently, I received a photo of a stink bug that I suspected was the invasive brown marmorated stink bug. However, the insect seemed to be more charcoal gray than the typical brown color. Insects can look very different not only at different stages of development but also when found in different areas.

You may be noticing issues with your precious tomatoes such as blackened leathery spots on the bottom, cracks on top or catfacing. Gardeners work hard to grow delicious tomatoes and when the fruits aren’t thriving, they worry.

I can’t believe what I’ve been doing this past week. All gardeners realize there are a lot of repetitive, often tedious, tasks involved in gardening successfully. But seriously! I have been snipping off hundreds, no thousands, of crabapples. Most people let the crabapples stay on the tree for fall color. Believe me, I would like to do that, but ...

Watching the news on the Numbers Fire south of Gardnerville reminds us how important it is to create and maintain defensible space around your home. The fire burned 18,380 acres in the week it took to get it contained. Have you taken responsibility to make your home/landscape defensible and survivable?

I’ve fallen in love with some impressive summer-blooming plants given to me by my friend Peggy. They are Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, sometimes called coppertips.

The Bee Informed Partnership is a national collaboration of leading agricultural science universities and research labs that examines and tries to better understand honey bee declines in the United States.

I’m not a fan of toiling in the heat. I do very little yard work when it’s hot. Sure, I could get up at dawn and garden for a couple of hours or stay up late and work in the yard at sunset, but I rarely do. After our COVID19 spring where I put in long hours doing yard maintenance, I have succumbed to the heat and taken my gardening, such as it is, indoors.

The Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team is promoting Lake Tahoe Wildfire Awareness Month during July. This year’s theme is “Fight fire with a plan” to encourage residents and visitors to prepare their family, property and possessions now before a wildfire starts by creating a plan.

Look under your fruit trees. You might see dozens of tiny fruit on the ground. Don’t worry; it’s the June drop. Since trees often set more fruit than they can support, each June they shed an abundance of underdeveloped fruit.


Our landscape is fairly wild, partly because we like it that way for the birds, but also because it simply gets away from me. We love the space of our two and half acres, but sometimes I get discouraged that our yard will never be pristinely groomed. I have to stop and remind myself how much we do accomplish.