HORThappenings

Friends of Brookside Gardens Plant Sale

By Melinda Thompson

The Friends of Brookside Gardens sale at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD, was practically over before it even began. Their annual plant sale, held on September 11, sold out almost immediately. “I would call this a blockbuster event, something I’ve never seen in all the eight years I’ve been volunteering,” said Nithya Raghavan, a Friends of Brookside Garden board member and plant sale volunteer. “We sold out within the first hour and a half, almost. This being a pandemic, we were unsure how much inventory we should get, so we got a reasonable amount. The greenhouse was full—we had over 1,083 plants—and by 9:45 this morning, 90% of the stock was sold.” Around 11:00am, there were just 10 plants left for sale. Stephanie Oberle, director of Brookside Gardens, said, “Friends of Brookside Gardens is a nonprofit volunteer organization. Their dedication and commitment create great events. This morning, the crowd descended like a horde of locusts to buy these plants. I think that speaks to people’s interest in gardens and the need to be in green spaces and connected to nature.” o

Melinda Thompson is a senior journalism major with a vocal performance minor and a concentration in women’s studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. She is an intern this fall with Washington Gardener.

Pepperfest 2021

By Charlotte Benedetto

Pepperfest, a production of Arlington, VA, Extension Master Gardeners at Potomac Overlook Park, was a vibrant, colorful celebration of horticultural flavors. Packed with lively young families partaking in prismatic tastes, smells, shapes, and colors, the pepper-pushers plied us with a rainbow of perky pepper snacks and recipes. Laser-red sweet pepper jelly seemed to glow in its jar; satisfying bruschetta, roasted shishitos, pickled jalapeños, and more were provided. “There’s a pepper for everything!” an attendee said from within a crowd. “Of course, we have to thank the Peruvians for this wide variety of peppers,” said Judy Swensen, a Master Gardener and Pepperfest volunteer. “But they’ve gone into each country and made so many variations.” A crimson, round fruit, apple-heavy, magicallooking had an eccentric turban-like tip. “This variety is from the Ukraine,” Swensen said. “It’s the shapes, the sizes, the colors—so different,” said another volunteer. “They provide a lot of variation in cooking. Tomatoes get long, but they don’t get weird and curly. Peppers just have more character.” o

Charlotte Benedetto is a writer, artist, and gardener living in Great Falls, VA. She is enrolled in the Northern Virginia Community College horticulture program and is an intern this fall with Washington Gardener.

Crops Twilight Tour & Ice Cream Social

By Jackie DiBartolomeo

The Crops Twilight Tour and Ice Cream Social at the Central Maryland Research & Education Center farm in Upper Marlboro, MD, on August 4 was put on by the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, and the University of Maryland Extension. For more than two hours, wagons loaded with excited spectators drove around the expansive farm to view experiments and projects being worked on throughout the farm. The tour brought together University of Maryland students and notable educators, as well as farm staff, to discuss their work. One highlight was Veronica Yurchak and associate professor Cerruti R.R. Hooks’ experiment to use living and dead cover crops to suppress weeds in sweet corn. Yurchak presented the study at the first tour stop. The study’s findings determined that living mulch systems suppressed weeds just as well as conventional herbicides. Another project, presented by undergraduate student Matthew Dimock, was created to determine the impact of intercropping edamame with broccoli on populations of insect pests and beneficial insects. The targeted pest was the Harlequin stink bug, and samples of the bug were passed around in glass for spectators to get a closer look. Several other interesting projects on the twilight tour covered everything from developing a system for pest control in cantaloupe to incorporating crabgrass into grazing and hay systems. To learn more about the innovative projects constantly going on at the research farm, visit https://agnr.umd. edu/research/research-and-educationcenters-locations/cmrec/ upper-marlboro. o

Jackie DiBartolomeo is a journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park, and was an intern this summer with Washington Gardener. She is also a staff reporter with The Campus Trainer.