Rutgers Master Gardener of Atlantic County Program Newsletter

Accomplished MG’s

Sue Scarlett – Class of 2009

Congratulations to Sue Scarlett, who was certified as our first Vegetable Garden Educator. Sue presents a talk to the community at the ACUA every month during the growing season on various topics, has worked with the Hope VI Garden in Atlantic City and the Hammonton Community Garden in the past, and attended a training program geared at certifying Master Gardeners as Community Garden Educators at the end of 2016. She has been an invaluable member of our Speaker’s Bureau and is currently looking to train more Master Gardeners to follow in her footsteps.
2016 Pennsylvania Horticulture Society Garden Award winners:

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s (PHS) celebrates the accomplishments of gardeners in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware with the PHS Gardening and Greening Contest. The 2016 winners in the contest attended an awards reception where photographs of the gardens were showcased.

Congratulations again to the Atlantic County Rutgers Master Gardener winners: Nancy Fiedler, winner Gardens of Distinction - Medium Flower/Individual Garden category, Seashore Garden’s Living Center’s Sensory Trail, winner Gardens of Distinction - Public Spaces/Plantings category and Blue Ribbon winner (for a second year!) Gardners Basin/Atlantic City Aquarium, in the Public Spaces/Plantings category.


Pictured left are RMG’s Nancy Fiedler (Garden of Distinction) and John Collette (RMG representing Gardners Basin).



Mystery Squash Identified by Belinda Chester

As we all know, gardening can be full of happy little surprises and our Demonstration Garden has just been full of those this year. Our vegetable garden got a bit of late start this season. In a rush to fill it and several other projects with a wide variety of vegetables, I went on a hunt to several local garden centers and along the way, I picked up what I thought to be a flat of spaghetti squash to mix up the patch a little. What started out to be small seedlings quickly ventured through the beds and up the fence, producing amazing, greenish-white, egg-shaped squash that were the mystery of the garden. They clearly were not spaghetti squash so I set out to research and find out exactly what they were. Much to my surprise, there are two varieties of vegetable marrow squash that are strikingly similar. So which variety have we happened upon?

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any of our Master Gardeners took a squash or two home and gave them a try both grilled and baked. I’ve heard that the best way to cook them was to “pick them young, give them a little salt, pepper, a bit of oil, and throw them on the grill.” I tried them and they were a perfect grilling squash and just a little sweeter than a traditional zucchini. I was convinced I had found the answer. This must be the Grey Griller F1 Hybrid Squash that has become popular in recent years due to its firm texture that holds up well on the grill. But, in one of my strolls through the garden I found a squash that had grown to the size of a small toddler and my curiosity was peaked. I took it home, split it and cooked it as I would a spaghetti squash in the fall or winter. Just as I suspected, it was almost identical

The Under-Appreciated Radish by RMG Vanessa Schnauffer [15]
Step aside kale! Food trendologists are predicting 2017 will be the year of the radish. It certainly has been a long time coming with the first written record of the radish from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Thought to have been originally cultivated in Asia, there are dozens of varieties today in a tantalizing assortment of shapes, colors and flavors.
Baum + Whiteman International Food and Restaurant Consultant’s release a list each year of the hottest food and beverage trends in restaurant and hotel dining. Mr. Whiteman told Food and Business News, “We’re seeing a rash of radishes because they are colorful, are shapely, make a lovely crunching sound in your brain, enliven the palate, enliven the plate, and do their magic without requiring a talented chef's handiwork.”
Americans consume an estimated 400 million pounds of radishes a year, mostly in salads. But that is likely to change as chefs have popularized the radish by creating specialized dishes; this is how a food trend begins and is then picked up by foodies. Recently a variety of radish dishes were featured on Bravo’s “Top Chef Charleston” and restaurants participating in Santa Monica Restaurant Week are featuring dishes such as creamy radish soup, roasted radish with pancetta and horseradish/chamomile crème fraiche and red curry and lime leaf braised black radish.
Radishes are an easy cool weather crop to grow whether indoors or out. Indoors within a week you will be harvesting sprouts and within a couple of weeks microgreens (select a variety intended for this purpose). These have the peppery taste of the mature bulb and have excellent nutrient content. Radishes are high in vitamin C and to a lesser extent fiber, folate, riboflavin, potassium and copper. In a mere 30 days a variety such as Perfecto reaches maturity making it ideal in a children’s garden. If you are growing radishes indoors a globe variety is recommended which allows planting in shallow plastic seedling trays. This beautiful and tasty veg, chock full of good nutrients is easily grown and can be eaten from the root to the stem!







Recipe courtesy of:

https://blogs.ext.vt.edu/eatsmart-movemore/2017/04/13/2017-spring-recipes/radish-and-avocado-sandwich/

RMG Project Updates (continued from page 2)
● Galloway Library Butterfly Garden: Pollinators can be observed on native plants from the large windows in the children’s section of the Library. This garden also serves as a place for all to meet and discuss native plants. The garden has increased in size over the years, and now includes several short trails and a view of Patriot Lake. Master Gardeners have also replaced a fallen arbor this season with the help from the Atlantic County Public Works Department.
● Pomona School Garden: Master Gardeners are currently working with school administrators, teachers and students to create a butterfly garden, vegetable gardens, and a pumpkin arch that children can walk through. The pumpkin arch is completed and plants are beginning to flourish and climb the arch. Vertical gardens are being built throughout the summer and students will be planting lettuces upon their return in September.
● Master Gardener Mobile Helpline: A mobile helpline will be available at the Galloway Green Market from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Sundays at the Galloway Twp. municipal building. Residents will be able to bring their gardening questions along with samples (plant and/or insect) to the Rutgers Master Gardener table and our volunteers will help by researching and providing an answer.
● Hammonton Community Garden: The Master Gardeners of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension has plot #5 in the Hammonton Community Garden. The plot features flowers, fruits and vegetables. Flowers include sunflowers and marigolds. A variety of vegetables have been planted including zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and corn. Fruits such as watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew are also thriving among the flowers and vegetables. The flowers are blooming and vegetables and fruit are doing well and ready for harvesting. Items from the garden will be shared with fellow Master Gardeners.

Mystery Squash (continued)

to a traditional spaghetti squash, mild in flavor and stringy, just like angel hair pasta. So I further researched this mystery squash and found the Lebanese White Bush Marrow, a summer kin to the Spaghetti Squash.
West Coast Seeds describes the Lebanese White Bush Marrow as “Large bushes that produce pale oval squash, and can be used as a zucchini just after pollination, or left to mature.” When mature at about 10”, it has a hard white skin and creamy interior that is popular for stuffing and baking. In my own experience, the mature squash has a much milder flavor and when left to get slightly larger than 10” almost loses flavor and becomes bland. While still usable, its seeds are about the size of those you would see in a pumpkin and it becomes something that you would stuff and bake or pair with a sauce. It can be picked young when pale green and used like a summer squash, similar to a zucchini, but with a slightly sweet flavor. These plants are much more compact and may appeal to urban growers, or gardeners with limited space, though, they are certainly a squash that requires a trellis as they have made one out of our garden fence. These plants are prolific and will produce over a long summer season if kept picked.

While earlier in the growth process I was convinced this must be the Grey Griller, as the season has gone on, it has clearly come to much more closely resemble the Lebanese White Bush Marrow. This squash is a rare heirloom seed that I suspect will continue to be a favorite in our garden for a little while. It has been a refreshing change from the typical zucchini and crooked neck yellow squash we all stick to in the summer. It has peaked our interest, forced us to research, try something new and given us a new vegetable to share and recommend to the public. I think after its rave reviews around here, we might just see it pop up in a lot of gardens throughout Atlantic County next year.

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