Jean and Teresa interview fellow Master Gardener Volunteer Tim Kennelty about pollinators. Tim is also a Master Naturalist with Cornell Cooperative Extension, and has served as a board member for the Columbia Land Conservancy.The conversation starts with the definition of a pollinator. Tim explains that a creature that goes from flower to flower to feed will get pollen stuck to itself. The creature then carries the pollen to the next flower and “delivers” it in exchange for the nectar. This is an arrangement that has developed over millennia to benefit both the flower and the creature. While most pollinators are insects, there are birds and bats that serve as pollinators, too. The insects are most commonly of the bees/wasp groups, butterflies/moths groups, and beetles. The Xerxes Society is a valuable resource to learn more about native pollinators and plants.

The discussion then moves to why we should care. It all boils down to the food chain. Insects are at the bottom of the food chain, and many rely on plants for life. Their symbiotic relationship helps both to thrive and serve as food for others further up the chain. This is so basic as a foundation for our existence that any disturbance in the connection will ripple upward, affecting the entire food chain. Risks included are mostly man made. Habitat disturbance leaves gaps between the links, and climate change disrupts the balance of timing between plant and insect (or animal) synchrony. Flowers blooming at the”wrong” time or migrators arriving too late for the usual diet can result in disaster for whole populations. Indeed, the statistics are alarming. Forty per cent of all insects are in steep decline, resulting in decreased populations all along the interconnected chain of life forms, ultimately in extinction for many. Specifically, Tim mentions bees which are mostly “designed” for pollination.

Honey bees must be considered separately because they are actually treated and considered as livestock. Interestingly they are not native but are handled by beekeepers, and are essential for much commercial fruit production. Sadly, they, too, are at risk from climate and pollution caused threats.

Native bees are a fascinating study. There are about four hundred species in North America, with several hundred living in New York State. Ninety percent are solitary, which may be contrary to popular expectations due to our familiarity with honey bees. Most are dedicated pollinators that have co-evolved with particular flowers. Also unlike honeybees, most can't sting. Those that can, will only do under great threat of their own death.

The “cousins” to bees, the wasps, yellow jackets and hornets, are more often communal. They build nests attached to structures or shrubs, or in the ground. These guys are far more aggressive, and will not hesitate to sting, so beware if you spot any of their habitats, like paper nests or overly active holes in the ground. They're so fierce they even have a meat eating stage. But, to circle back to the topic at hand, they are also very active pollinators.

Hosts: Teresa Golden and Jean Thomas Guest: Tim Kennelty Photo: Teresa Golden Production Assistance: Linda Aydlett, Deven Connelly, Teresa Golden, Jean Thomas, Xandra Powers

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Tracey Testo-Smith returns to Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley to share her knowledge and experience about foraging. In this episode, Tim and Jean sit down with Tracey Testo-Smith, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Program Manager at Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Columbia and Greene Counties, to discuss the practice of foraging. This interview was originally recorded as part of the Digging In With Master Gardeners radio show on WGXC 90.7FM and now repurposed for a podcast format.

Tracey reviews some of the misconceptions about what foraging actually is. Foraging doesn't need a vast array of information about everything in the forest. The main thing to know is whether a plant is useful, either for food or medicinal purposes. Tracey leads foraging walks in the spring at the Hudson CCE campus and in the fall at the Acra campus. Her classes before the walks teach folks how to identify individual plants before they even step into the woods. She often brings in co-presenters to expand their access to expertise. The public can enroll online and sign up for quarterly newsletters at http://ccecolumbiagreene.org.

There are always common sense caveats:

know the history of the site you're collecting from... for example, a former farm may have residual pesticide contamination. don't forage along a roadside where contamination happens daily from passing cars. Another factor to be aware of is the name of the plant. Often a common name will be misleading. Hemlock, for instance, can be a benign evergreen tree or a poisonous weed. Knowing the botanical name avoids any such confusion and danger. To start as a forager on your own, Tracey suggests that you really get to know a plant, even for as long as a year. Familiarity with the plant's different stages lets you know the most useful times to “harvest”, She cites the dandelion as an example, whose different parts are useful in different seasons. Then leaves can be harvested first in early spring, then the flower buds, then petals, and finally the roots. Their values range from food to dying tints to medicinal, all varying according to part and season.Some plants, like pokeberry and elderberry, have certain parts that are edible while the rest of the plant is poisonous.

Tracey finds salad greens in chickweed and blue violets, and bittercress. While these can be eaten raw, always stay aware of the possibility of pollutants when using plants near water. Ramps are famously a popular dish in restaurants, in season. These are wild leeks, and very specific as to their growing conditions. They are very slow growers, taking up to a decade to reach maturity. Tracey advises that you be exceptionally thoughtful if collecting in the wild. The leaves and bulbs are both edible. Don't try to take them home to grow because they will not survive the removal. There are now growers who can sell you bulbs to start at home without disrupting fragile populations.

Teas are another way to use foraged plants. Most mints are amenable to teas, as are clovers and yarrow. These are all amenable to drying as well, so can be stockpiled for winter use. Plants are not the only target of foragers. Tracey covers the practice of mushroom hunting. Different seasons produce wild crops of different varieties of mushrooms. Early spring is for Morels, midsummer for Chanterelles, and autumn for Chicken (or hen) of the woods. Tracey reviews what the warning signs are of poison mushrooms, and reviews the possibility of growing your own, with CCE classes available. Every mushroom, by the way, is safe to handle, even if toxic.Going deeper into the subject of what's poisonous, the environment can alter the nature of a plant. Stinging nettle can absorb heavy metals from a polluted site. Know your location's history if possible. There are plants that are a contact risk, like poison ivy or water hemlock. It's wise to know the plants that grow around your foraging target plants.

Tracey advises to harvest moderately, so as to insure the future of the plant. The exception to this practice is invasives. If a plant is invasive... eat it all. The example she uses is Japanese knotweed. Sprouts taste like asparagus blended with rhubarb, it's full of antioxidants. The leaves can even be utilized in a paper making process.

Hosts: Tim Kennelty and Jean Thomas Guest: Tracey Testo-Smith Photo by: Jean Thomas Production Support: Linda Aydlett, Deven Connelly, Teresa Golden, Tim Kennelty, Xandra Powers, Annie Scibienski, Jean Thomas

Welcome to another Retrospective episode, this time about wildflowers. This was originally recorded in 2019 as part of the radio show, Digging in with Master Gardeners on 90.7 WGXC FM. The content is still very relevant today, so we've repurposed it for our podcast format.

In this episode, Tim and Jean sit down with Tracey Testo-Smith, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Program Manager at Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Columbia and Greene Counties. Tracey considers the Agroforestry Resource Center in the Siuslaw Teaching and Model Forest as her “specialty.” She leads frequent forest walks, and Part I of this interview is a chat about the wildflowers she observes. She explains the Siuslaw Forest's evolution from a logging resource to one of four model forests in the New York City/Catskill Watershed area. The forest is an education source and is frequently open to the public.

So, when you want to learn about wildflowers and attend one of Tracey's walks, what should you expect? Tracey says to keep in mind three main features of most : wildflowers are;

• petal number and symmetry (odd or even number);
• leaf arrangement, whether opposite, alternate or whorled;
• the edges of the leaf, whether the margins are entire, toothed or lobed.

With these three basic observations, you can begin to “key out” an iID for the plant you're looking at. Newcombe's Wildflower Guide is Tracey's favorite reference book. On her walks, Tracey likes to point out the more subtle flowers, while still admiring the showier “stars”, of course. There is also a grey area about non-native introduced flowers that have coexisted peacefully with the natives for, in some cases, centuries. These are acknowledged for their beauty and usefulness, too.

In the Spring wildflower walks, the Ephemerals show off. These are plants with a specific lifestyle habit of appearing early in the year, growing to full maturity and producing seeds before disappearing, plant and all, until the next year. Tracey points out that sometimes plants are misnamed as ephemeral but arent because the foliage perseveres into the summer. One example of this is the Hepatica.

A field trip, whether into the Siuslaw Forest or, often, the Hudson CCE campus, consists of the group gathering and reviewing how to use field guides before venturing outside to explore. Phone apps are discussed as well. Tracey admits a partiality to the Springtime. She points out that at that time of year, we're hungry for color and fresh plant life as the forest reawakens. When Tim asked about the rarest plant she'd observed, she described the green fringed orchid, a very subtle beauty that seems to “move around” from year to year. It's listed by the state as not “rare”, but “vulnerable.”Some plants are hunted, specifically ginseng. Once almost eradicated because of its value to herbalists and over-harvesting by landowners and poachers alike, wild stands of the plant are often kept secret by those who find them. Ginseng planbts typcally don't thrive when transplanted, so Tracey warns against thinking you can bring them home to grow them in “safety”. In fact, she advises against digging up any wild plant... it's usually a death sentence because its growing requirements are very specific. Other threats beside loving them to death (moving them) include climate change and invasive plants. Climate change interferes with the interrelations between plants, birds and animals that had evolved over millennia, when outside temperatures are no longer predictable by seasons. With extremes occurring more often, it stresses plant life. Invasive plants outcompete native plants for resources by sprouting earlier and lasting later into the seasons.

The other major threat to wildflowers is deer browse. Tracey describes experimental “exclosures” build within the forest and observed over a number of years for effect on the plant population. There is an opportunity for citizen scientist volunteers to participate in the AVID program (see website link in the resources). Another way to participate is via the iMap invasive app, reporting on discovery and reporting of invasive plants.

Hosts: Tim Kennelty and Jean Thomas Guest: Tracey Tesot-Smith Photo by: Teresa Golden Production assistance: Linda Aydlett, Deven Connelly, Teresa Golden, Tim Kennelty, Amy Meadow, Xandra Powers. Annie Scibienski, Jean Thomas

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This episode, originally aired as a Digging In With Master Gardeners radio show interview on WGXC 90.7FM, is a discussion about the many virtues of growing your own vegetables. Tim Kennelty interviews Teresa Golden and Jean Thomas about the multiple facets of home vegetable gardening. The first and most obvious benefits to gardening for your own pantry are that you have arguably the freshest possible vegetables, a wider assortment of varieties to choose from, and definitely the most

economical access to good food. Teresa advocates “listening to the plant,” explaining that being aware of the plant's silent signals can lead to optimal quality. She says that the color or strawberries 'say' when to pick them, but that tomatoes are more forgiving when picking them early to ripen off the vine.

Jean reminds the listener that there are three main groups of veggie families, the cucurbits, the cole crops, and the tomato/eggplant/pepper clan. The most valuable preparation, once the bed is ready to plant, is this: read the seed package because it conveys a wealth of information. The squash family (cucurbits) includes cucumbers as well as zucchini, yellow squash and the winter squashes. Once the summer squash begin to produce, they are persistent and must be harvested consistently. Winter squash have a much longer season and can be harvested when just about everything else is cleared away. Their hard shells make it possible to store in a cool, dry place well into the winter season. Brassicas are the cabbage family, including cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts. Cabbage must be picked at just the right time, and requires good soil and plenty of water, Cauliflowers are ready when the heads are heavy with the florets not yet separating. Broccoli is prolific and easy, and Teresa offers tips on harvesting both broccoli and brussels sprouts. All the cabbages go well into the Fall, extending harvest season.

Jean, Teresa and Tim discuss the battle with cabbage worms. Tim wonders what about beans, and reminds Jean and Teresa about another large family full of great nutritious food. They divide into two general types. The ones harvested in the “green” stage can be selected for “all at once” harvest of a plant or continuous daily harvest over several weeks. Planting new crops every two weeks insures a constant harvest season. Others, like limas, kidney and fava beans, are harvested when the seeds become mature on the vine. These are famously good for storage, whether dry or canned.Cucumbers get a separate discussion, They are a native of India, and love warm weather, You can grow bush or vine types. Frequent picking is best. If a cuke gets too big or starts to turn yellow, it's too late. Everybody has a favorite. Teresa likes Kirby, Jean likes Straight Eight, and Tim is a fan of Japanese long cucumbers.

Melons are the next logical crop that comes to mind. They can be tricky, with a need for adequate water at the right times, and soil temperature is critical. Smaller melons might be best as the region has a fairly short growing season. There are clues to ripeness, like skin color and texture and stem slippage. Storing them at 70 degrees F and chilling them prior to serving is best. Watermelons require 20 square foot per plant, and there are many tricks and challenges to growing them. Teresa says “heft” is important and Jean and Tim discuss checking the “bellybutton” for ripeness.

Root crops are discussed, as are the onion family, which includes garlic. The conversation circles back to tomatoes and their relatives, with tips galore about growing, harvesting and storing. This episode is a cornucopia of information!

Host: Tim Kennelty Guests: Teresa Golden and Jean Thomas Photo by: Teresa Golden Production Support: Linda Aydlett, Deven Connelly, Teresa Golden, Tim Kennelty, Xandra Powers, Annie Scibienski, Jean Thomas

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This episode ofNature Calls, Conversations from the Hudson Valley is a retrospective look at one of the early radio interviews from our precursor show, “Digging in With Master Gardeners”, aired on WGXC, 90.7 FM. Teresa and Jean interviewed Master Beekeeper and Emeritus Master Gardener Volunteer Linda Aydlett. The original was aired as episode 14.

Linda Aydlett has been a beekeeper for over a decade, tending from two to thirty hives in various years. She got started at a workshop by the Catskill Mountain Beekeeping Club, studied via books, internet and Youtube videos, and then became a Master Beekeeper through Cornell University. Linda tells us there is a special relationship between bees and their keeper, quoting author Mark Winston : “The world slows down to focus on bees and their world.”

There are 20,000 bee species worldwide. Honeybees are the only insect providing food eaten by people. They are most commonly managed by people. There are twenty sub-species and they are now found in all habitable parts of the world, but are not native to North America. Some key details about honey bees include:

• they forage over an area of several miles
• they rarely sting because they will die if they do
• they use their knees to carry the pollen from flower to flower
• their role in the ecosystem is enormous.

One third of our food supply relies on the presence of pollinators. Honeybees can be directly connected to 75% of fruit crops and 53% of seed production. Direct production from honey bees includes honey. It is nectar brought back to the hive and stored at an 18% moisture content. It takes millions of miles of flight and visits to two million flowers to produce 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. Propolis is a glue produced from the sap of evergreens for maintenance of the hive. It is also valuable to humans for certain antimicrobial properties, and is also used as a wood varnish. Beeswax is excess nectar, and is the infrastructure of a hive. Humans have multiple uses for the wax, including the popular beeswax candles. Even the venom has a use. Although its removal kills the bee, the venom is used to inject “heat” into arthritic joints.

Bees are often considered livestock and overseen by departments of agriculture in many states. Nectar is the reward to the bee for transporting pollen from flower to flower. Linda goes on to describe the fascinating details of a forager bee's life. They find the flowers (and are flower “constant” while a particular flower is in season), and collect the nectar. They return to the hive and transfer it to another bee. They also perform a “waggle dance” to transmit information about direction of the nectar source. Linda describes both the dance and how researchers decoded it in 1927.

There are three castes of bees, and Linda describes the duties of each in detail, from the queen to the drone to the worker. There is considerable drama to the choice and emergence of new queens. Learn about a substance called royal jelly which is exuded from the foreheads of nurse bees to feed the queen larvae. The larva of worker bees emerge to assume one or more of the duties of a worker bee. There are, in addition to nurse bees, mortuary bees, ventilator bees, guard bees and others. Eventually each of these can be promoted to a forager bee, usually for the last half of their life (eight weeks on average). There are even some bees known as winter bees. They are born in September or October and can survive the winter. They are of necessity less active and their main duty is to keep the hive warm... around 90 degrees F. They can unhinge their wings and then shiver to produce heat, all the while rotating from the inside to the outside of the bee cluster. New egg laying starts in February and March when activities revert to traditional good weather behavior. Ideally, there was enough honey stored in the hive for the population to survive the winter.

Bees are fascinating species. Learn more about them in the upcoming Part 2 of this conversation.

Hosts: Teresa Golden and Jean Thomas Guest: Linda Aydlett Photo: Linda Aydlett Production Assistance: Linda Aydlett, Deven Connelly, Teresa Golden, Xandra Powers, Annie Scibienski and Jean Thomas

This episode continues our conversation with Kristopher Williams of PRISM and a frequent guest on Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley. Kris is our go-to expert about all things invasive. We have talked to him about invasive plants, insects and diseases. Today we asked Kris to tell us some of the success stories about his long career as an environmental advocate. We have spoken to Kris in previously aired episodes 23, 24, 31,and 189, in case you want to look a little deeper into his work. First a reminder of the definition: PRISM stands for Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management. It is one of eight regional districts in the state devised by NYS DEC and funded by the EPA to try to control the onslaught of invasive species of all kinds into the state.

Part 2 features another success story. The Hudson Crossing Park in Schuylerville, NY is on the Washington/Saratoga County line. It's an island in the Battenkill near Lock 5 of the Champlain Canal. Over a period of several years, a volunteer group sought advice from the PRISM organization. It began with a speaking engagement on the actual site, combined with a “park walk” to assess the trail network, pavilion and gardens already in place. This is what Kris calls the outreach component, educating interested people. A year later, the group asked for advice on how to manage the woodland in the park. The next year they asked for maps to divide the area into plots. Another year later, the woman leading the efforts attended a regional partnership meeting and reported a successful grant application and heavy equipment acquisition. The progress continued. They designed a “tree promenade” of native trees and underplanted it with native shrubs. The funding magic continued as more local businesses participated.They ended up with fifty trees and thirty shrubs, planted by an army of volunteers and local businesses along with members of the PRISM team. This can be replicated, usually with a “driver”, a motivated volunteer. There is a link here to the park's website.

Tim then changed the subject to an invasive he's particularly irked by... Japanese stilt grass. Possible solutions were discussed, including some failures. It all ended with a positive note, though. Kris had cleared stiltgrass from an area and replanted with natives. The following season checkup revealed NO stiltgrass. The natives had prevailed. As an added note, there is some study going on regarding the effects of tannins from Hemlocks being a deterrent to stilt grass. So hope remains in the control of invasive species. Stay tuned! Hosts: Tim Kennelty and Jean Thomas Guest: Kristopher Williams Photo: Teresa Golden Production Assistance: Linda Aydlett, Deven Connelly, Teresa Golden, Tim Kennelty, Amy Meadows, Xandra Powers, Annie Scibienski, Jean Thomas Recording:

This episode brings back our frequent guest, Kristopher Williams, of PRISM (Partnerships for Regional Invasive Species Management). Eight PRISMs exist across New York State and work to prevent or minimize the harm caused by invasive species on our environment, economy, and health and welfare of residents. PRISMs are intended to coordinate invasive species management functions including coordinating partner efforts, recruiting and training citizen volunteers, identifying and delivering education and outreach, establishing early detection monitoring networks and implementing direct eradication and control efforts. Regional partnerships with nonprofits, municipalities, conservation groups and volunteers are devised to cast the widest net for control over an enemy that recognizes no artificial borders. The Capital Region Prism ranges from the Catskills to the Adirondacks, encompassing eleven Counties and three million acres.

Kris is our go-to expert about all things invasive. We previously have talked to him about invasive plants, insects and diseases. Today we asked Kris to tell us some of the success stories about his long career as an environmental advocate. Our earlier conversations with Kris have aired in episodes 23, 24 and 31, in case you want to look a little deeper into his work.

The team has five core members and sixteen seasonal members on staff. Their mission is to coordinate all available resources, public and private, along with volunteers, to combat the multitude of invasive problems and organize alternatives. Their mission includes massive public lands and advisory status for privately owned properties. They act as the glue, Kris says, to hold all entities together. PRISM delivers science and educational programs for maximum impact, and always keeps in mind the different objectives of local and statewide groups. Tim asked Kris for some success stories, since we have discussed so many problems in the past. Kris listed some of the lasting beneficial effects:

• people achieve self-actuation by becoming aware of and seeking resolutions to invasive incursions;
• celebrating local impacts to inspire further efforts;
• there is now an exposition on invasives every two years;
• college-level programs are now available educating about invasives and remedies.

The conversation drifted to the emotional part of treatment of invasives. Most of them got here because they were introduced for a particular feature, and then “escaped” because they were prolific and had no natural enemies. There are also “sleeper” invasives, a new designation. These are known invasives that are still being sold to the public. Unfortunately sixty-one per cent of all invasives are still being sold. There is a patchwork of states regulating and actively banning sale of certain plants.

One success story Kris talks about is the Grassland Bird Trust. Washington County had a 20,000 acre trust facing the issue of dealing with invasives. A management plan was devised and a board established. Kris detailed the progress over several years as a management system was put into place and assessed for success year by year. Tim asked about what happens with much smaller efforts, and Kris described available training in IPM (integrated pest management) and land management as well as other volunteer-led controls, with consultation with PRISM staff. Basic measurements to assess success include removal, restoration, and adapting responses to predetermined thresholds.

There's a lot of issues associated with invasive species management. Stay tuned for more in the next episode (Part 2).

Hosts: Tim Kennelty and Jean Thomas Guest: Kristopher Williams Photo: Grassland Bird Trust Production Assistance: Linda Aydlett, Deven Connelly, Teresa Golden, Tim Kennelty, Amy Meadows, Xandra Powers, Annie Scibienski, Jean Thomas

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