Lessons: Seeds to garden success

A TREE HUGGER ON THE INSIDE — Bridgton resident Nancy Donovan is seen here inside a tree trunk at Glacier National Park in Montana. Donovan said hiking at more national parks is on her bucket list. (Photo courtesy of Nancy Donovan)

By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

From a mistake grows the opportunity to learn.

For Nancy Donovan, life is all about learning. She doesn’t let a little mistake get her blue.

In fact, something went wrong after she selected blueberries as a landscaping choice on her Bridgton property; and she has gotten a lot of mileage out of that berry blunder.

“What I thought I would do in the backyard was put down low-bush blueberries. I figured the birds might like them. And, maybe, I would have enough berries to put on my bowl of cereal,” Donovan said. “I bought six blueberry bushes and I planted them. They died. When I went back to the nursery and asked what happened. They asked about the PH of my soil. I said, ‘The what of my soil?’ That my first lesson in the PH of soil.”

Her property had once been used as a dairy farm. Therefore, the soil was well fertilized. The PH of her soil is 7.0, which means it has more alkaline; and blueberries need an acidic soil to grow well.

“My first lesson in gardening was to get the soil checked,” she said.

She admitted that it won’t be the last lesson.

“Gardening is a lifelong learning experience,” she said.

Gardening is something for which Donovan has a passion.

“I love to put something in the earth, to see it grow, to see the color. I have frozen 300 cherry tomatoes this year, and I’ve eaten a hundred BLT’s. It’s nice to grow your own food with no pesticides or preservatives,” she said. 

Oddly enough, making mistakes is one of the reasons that she is in the process of becoming a master gardener through the University of Maine Cooperative Extension in Oxford County.

Why did Donovan decide to take the master gardener course?

“Because I’ve made a lot of mistakes in gardening” she said, adding, “And, I finally had the time to join the class.”

FLOURISHING WITH FLOWERS— These flowers, which are native to Maine, were planted with the intention of bringing in birds, bees and butterflies. (Photo courtesy of Nancy Donovan)

She was referring to her retirement.

“The class itself is 40 hours of instruction. After you complete the 40 hours of instruction, then you complete 40 hours of gardening community service,” she said. 

Donovan has a go-getter attitude.

No sooner than she had retired from her decades’ long occupation as a physical therapist did she sign up for the master gardener class.

In fact, she retired in December 2019. The following month, she was sitting in her first master gardener class at the cooperative extension building in Oxford County.

“I ended up going through Oxford County because when I finally retired, the Cumberland County class was full. So, I went to the once over in South Paris,” she said.

The classes started in January. She had attended three classes when the COVID-19 quarantine caused the remaining classes to be cancelled.

A GARDEN FIT for royalty— This summer, Nancy Donovan raised 25 Monarch butterflies from eggs on milkweed. (Photo courtesy of Nancy Donovan)
GARDENING TIPS
While it might seem like spring is when the majority of gardening takes place, the typical gardener has full plate after harvest when it comes to tasks that should be completed in the autumn, well before the first flurries of snow are forecasted. These tips were compiled by Bridgton resident Nancy Donovan, who is in the process of becoming a master gardener through the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Oxford County branch.
• The fall is the best time to have soil tested as any deficit in soil nutrients will be identified. Since some soil amendments can take a few months to work, if completed in the fall the garden will be ready for spring planting.
• Fall is a great time to rearrange plants and divide existing plants.
• While there are some that recommend cutting back perennials, others are now strongly recommending leaving them relatively untouched as they provide required native wildlife habitat. Seed heads provide food for wildlife, as well as habitat for beneficial insects and amphibians. It is well-known that bees are required for pollinating flowers and vegetables and fruits and they can over-winter in the hollow-stems of many plants or in the ground. Eggs and larvae of several beneficial insects (example: ladybugs that eat aphids) over-winter in the cracks or rocks or trees. Some moths and butterflies over-winter in cracks of rocks, under tree bark, or in leaf litter. I was very privileged this year to have five Luna moths visit me and they over-winter in their cocoons in leaf litter. Also, I find it very pleasing to see the tops of my perennials poking up through the snow as a reminder of the next spring. While anything that is diseased should be removed from the garden, the rest can remain in place until spring.
• Regarding all the raking of leaves that occurs on non-windy autumn days, the current advice is to “Leave the leaves” in gardens. However, they should not be left in their full-size as they can prevent water from getting into the soil. The leaves can be mulched with lawn mowers and left in place as they are a great source of nitrogen for soil and will break-down within one season. Several passes with a mower will break the leaves into small pieces, or one can purchase a leaf shredder. The shredded leaves can be placed in the gardens to suppress weeds, conserve water, and serve as insulation for the roots. It is also possible to use the leaves in a recipe for compost.
• Pull up the vegetables and annuals that were grown during the summer. If any had diseases, these should be burned or placed in the trash. During this summer there were reports of Septoria leaf spot and Early blight of tomatoes and the spores of these diseases can survive in any plant material left behind and can affect plants next year.
• Fall is a great time to place two inches of mulch over the roots of trees and shrubs (not right against the trunks). It is also a great time to place compost in the gardens.
• Do not prune trees and shrubs in the fall as the wounds will be susceptible to damage from the severe cold temperatures. The best time for pruning is late winter or early spring.
• Clean gardening tools with course grade steel or medium grade sandpaper to remove debris and rust. Next you can clean with 70% rubbing alcohol and apply motor oil or WD 40 to the metal and apply linseed oil to the wood
• Clean bird feeders and birdbaths according to directions that came with the purchase. If no directions one can search the internet for directions for specific feeder type. • In the fall, I plan the area of my land that I will work on next year and I cover it with cardboard and a tarp in order to kill the weeds in a natural way so that it ready for working the next spring.

“We did the rest via Zoom, which worked out just fine because we turned into Zoom every week. It was the same instructors and the same Power Point you would have seen in class,” Donovan said. “The gardening class is taught by experts. You have the best person in Maine to talk about insects, plant diseases, growing flowers growing vegetables or growing fruit. It was an incredible amount of knowledge that I gained.”

The class portion went from January through June, and included six months of classroom instruction, homework and readings. There was a quiz at the beginning of each class and a total of three exams.

Helping new gardeners from the ground up

For her community service in gardening, “I am writing some articles for an online newsletter called, Maine Home Garden News. I’ve written one called, ‘Mistakes, We’ve Had a Few.’ It was filled with stories from people that I interviewed. I included my mistake with the low bush blueberries,” Donovan said. “If we can talk about our own mistakes, then hopefully someone else can learn from them.” 

It seems that life will come full circle. The very place that Donovan began her master gardening class is where she will join a team to design and plant a native garden.

“I am going to be assisting the office up in South Paris to establish a garden around the facility with native Maine plants. I’m on the team to establish and design that garden,” she said.

This year has been a banner year for the Cooperative Extension when it comes to the number of people calling with questions. A trend that is a direct result of the pandemic has been an increased interest in gardening as well as more time to garden.  Donovan has heard that seed catalogs have a such a big backlog for orders that some won’t be available until October. 

“The cooperative extension started a gardening mentor program. They will match someone who is new with a master gardener,” she said.

She is excited to do that, and to share her knowledge and passion for gardening with others.

People “are looking for more ways to ensure safety in their food, and to grow produce without preservatives, without pesticides.”

“There is nothing that tastes better than a home-grown tomato. I won’t eat tomatoes unless they are fresh. There is nothing like the flavor of homegrown food. There are no preservatives. There are no pesticides,” she said.

She added that a person doesn’t have to worry about E. coli when they are growing the produce in a small garden plot, where they can keep track of contaminants.  

“There is a recall on onions from a major supplier. We have all been through the lettuce recalls due to E. coli,” she said.

She has been growing Romain lettuce in a hydroponic garden and it has eliminated her worries and enhanced her taste bud experiences.

“I know how it was grown. I feel more confident about eating it,” she said. 

Loving life in Maine

It was a family member and a teacher who nurtured Donovan’s love of nature.

“I grew to love being outdoors as during my youth, my aunt and I would go camping every summer,” Donovan recalled. “My aunt was a high school teacher and every camping experience also involved a learning experience of some kind. We camped near Washington, D.C., so we could go to the museums and monuments. We camped so that we could visit forts and other historical areas. She would quiz me on the return trips to Maine

She instilled in me the love of learning and the love of experiencing new adventures.”

After high school, Donovan embarked on the journey of improving her education. First, she attended University of Maine at Presque Isle, where she earned a bachelor’s of science (B.S.) degree. Then, she earned a master’s degree in science from Indiana University. From the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, she received a doctorate’s degree in Exercise Science.

Exercise science is how the brain and the spinal cord control movement.

She worked her way toward Bridgton, being a physical therapist at a Level One trauma hospital and teaching at universities along the East Coast until she landed a job at Bridgton Hospital.

“Once I was working here, I just loved Bridgton. I loved the accessibility to the mountains to climb, the lakes to swim and to kayak,” Donovan said. “There is so much available here that attracted me so I bought some land and built a home.”

Instead of going for the green lawn, Donovan saved the soil and the space for native species and colorful flowers.

“Right now, I have raised 25 Monarch butterflies from little eggs that I found on the milkweed plants. I raised them from when born until they make the change to a butterfly,” she said. “I am really concentrating on (plant) species to support pollinators. I knew I wanted to do pollinators as I have learned more over the years about how important it is that we support native wildlife. I have a lot of plants for bees. I can hear them humming on a daily basis. In order to have a good garden, you need the bees.”

“Birds have always been an interest. My first awakening to birds in Bridgton, I could hear one bird outside my window. It was one that I hadn’t heard since childhood. When I saw it, it was a bobolink,” Donovan said. “They are a beautiful bird and the happiest sounding bird I’ve ever heard. They live in meadows and hayfields. And, their habitat is declining. The interesting thing about the bobolink is it migrates to South America. It is the longest migrating bird. It flies 20,000 miles to migrate.”

“There are chickadees, bluebirds, cardinals, bobolink, titmice and finches — to name a few. To me, there is nothing better than waking up to what I call my orchestra in the morning,” she said.