My name is Kerri Burks and I teach 4th – 6th grade at Foothills Montessori School in Henderson. I am reaching out to local orchards, farms and horticulturists to let them know that our school will be selling student made bee houses for $20 at Green Our Planet’s Student Farmer’s Market next Friday in Downtown Summerlin. Photos of the bee houses are attached for your preview. Student Farmers Market

Growing almonds in the desert makes a lot of sense. Pistachios are another good choice but there’s not as many to pick from. Selecting the best almond can be a little daunting but stick with the genetic dwarfs that are available. Join me in desert horticulture and find out which varieties are best and why.

Read along while you listen to my podcast on Desert Horticulture. Almonds – Most almonds do extremely well in southern Nevada and make excellent landscape trees. Recommended rootstock: Nemaguard but others have performed adequately over the long term. Top Choice ·       All in One – Genetic Dwarf, Self pollinating ·       Garden Prince – Genetic Dwarf, Self pollinating, flowers white with purple Notable Mention ·       Price ·       Nonpariel Under Review ·       Carmel ·       Neplus Ultra The stage in almond growth when green almonds are harvested Peach twig borer infesting the outer husk on almond   The stage of growth when I like to harvest almonds because the kernel has nearly dried and they are easy to split. This is also the stage when ground squirrels like them.

Vegetables in the Nightshade family, the tomato family if you want, have been suspected to contribute to crippling arthritic pain. This article published by Dr. Norman Childers in 1993 goes into this in detail. The nightshade family of vegetables include tomato, peppers, potatoes, eggplant and others. Relationship of Eating Nightshades and Arthritis

Apples and pears are best grown a bit out of the hot arid climate zone of the Southwest. But there are some varieties that have performed well. Join me in Desert Horticulture and find out which ones I found to be the best producers, both in levels of production and quality, in our hot desert climate. This episode includes Asian pears as well as desert pears.

Read this as you are listening to my podcast, “Selecting the Best Apples and Pears”. I will mention updates on this list that was created in 2009. Apples – Not all apples do well in southern Nevada and range from “best apple ever tasted” to “tasteless” depending on variety Recommended dwarfing rootstock: M111; avoid extreme dwarfing rootstocks due to fruit sunburn because of too much fruit exposure. Top Choice ·       Dorsett Golden – Early Season, yellow fruit ·       Pink Lady (Cripps Pink)  – Late Season, red over green fruit Notable Mention ·       Anna – Early season ·       Einshemer – Early season ·       Fuji – Mid season ·       Gordon – Mid season ·       Mutsu (Crispin) – Mid season ·       White Winter Pearmain – Mid to late season Under Review ·       Akane ·       Arkansas Black ·       Asmead Kernel ·       Babe (Genetic Dwarf) ·       Gala ·       Granny Smith ·       Red Fuji ·       Scarlet Sentinel Columnar ·       Yellow Newton Pippen Asian Pear – Performs surprisingly well in our climate and we are currently working on increasing the size of the fruit Recommended Rootstock: OHxF333 but others have performed well Under Review ·       Chojuro ·       Hosui ·       Kikusui ·       Shinko ·       Shinseiki ·       Tsu Li ·       Twentieth Century ·       Ya Li Pear, European – European pears do quite well in taste but may not have the same visual appeal as commercially grown pears. Most are “dessert” pears and grown for fresh eating. Recommended Rootstock: Many Top Choice ·    Kieffer – Salad pear, nicknamed “Jicama pear” with flavor resembling an Asian pear, good for canning and baking and virtually pest free Honorable Mention ·       Bartlett ·       Monterrey ·       Red Bartlett Under Review ·       Bosc ·       California ·       Comice ·       D’Anjou ·       Hood

Everybody excited about strawberries coming in this year?  I know I am!  This past winter was CRAZY, and I’m ready for some summer in a pint.  🙂  As always, please help spread the word about these yummy berries, so we can hopefully get enough orders to cover our expenses.  🙂 These farmers are the same as our previous years – for those who are ordering for the first time, both farmers fit our criteria for the small family farmer that does what they can, and truly believes in good, healthy, pesticide-free produce.  They are good, humble people, which is exactly who we love to support, right? Most of you know the drill – we have conventional and organic flats available.  Conventional flats are $23 an OPEN flat and organic flats are $30 an open flat – open flats are the kind you get at the farmer’s markets, NOT the grocery store.  They are roughly 12 pounds a flat, which equates to around 12 pints of jam on average.  The conventional berries come from a farm that supports integrative pest control, which means they utilize pesticides only after other methods have been unsuccessful and they risk losing a whole crop. If this is your first time ordering – PLEASE NOTE – open flats are picked fresh and are NOT sprayed with preservatives, making them more susceptible to mold quicker than berries from your typical grocery store.  Therefore, make sure you make the necessary arrangements to sort through your flats and either process or wash them in a vinegar bath to keep them fresher, longer. EVERYONE ORDERING – place your order by responding to my email with Name: Number of flats: Organic or conventional: Delivery location: Contact number on the day of delivery: You can pay by venmo, paypal, or by sending a check, cash, or money order to Elizabeth Kay,  173 East Fiddlers Canyon Road, Unit 1, Cedar City, Utah 84721, by April 8th.  For Venmo, my id is @Elizabeth-Kay-3.  Please make sure your information is in the notes so I can link it to your order info above.  If you live in Cedar and would like to pay in person, that’s fine too – just text me at 702.219.6700 to meetup.  PLEASE DO NOT WAIT UNTIL APRIL 10th TO SEND YOUR PAYMENT IN THE MAIL.  Group orders need to pay by April 8th unless otherwise arranged.  FOR PAYPAL:  You are welcome to pay me through paypal IF you use these instructions – login to your paypal account and click on “pay or send money.” Then, MAKE SURE to click on the “Send to friends and family in the US” – do NOT click on “pay for goods and services” unless you want me to track you down and make you pay more for your berries. 😉  Next, type in my phone number – 7022196700 and the amount of your total.  Leave in the notes the name you placed your order under so I can make sure your payment gets applied to the right order, your contact number for that day, and your delivery location.  Then, click on send payment.  🙂 PLEASE MAKE SURE IF THIS EMAIL IS FORWARDED TO YOU, THAT YOU SEND ME YOUR INFORMATION WITH YOUR PAYMENT, so I can confirm with you or the person you order through.  🙂  Deliveries are scheduled for: Las Vegas – April 12th, 7pm, Mountain Crest Park off of Lone Mountain and Durango St George – April 13th, place and time to be determined (please let me know if you are interested in being a delivery location) Cedar City – April 13th, 645 North 400 West, Cedar (across from the Sunroc lumber yard behind the 2 big red barns and storage containers), 8am Please mark your location when you order, and I will be sure to keep you updated on any changes.  If the time doesn’t work for you, and you cannot arrange for someone else to pickup your order for you, you may text me at 702 219 6700 to see if a different time works for the both of us.  On the scheduled day of delivery, please realize that I have many people checking for delivery updates – if you do not hear me respond right away, you can try calling me or my husband, Josh, at 702.533.4940.  🙂 Any questions, please first make sure it has not already been answered in this email.  Then, text is preferable to calling me – 702.219.6700. I also still have memberships to Frontsight Firearms Training Institute, just outside of Las Vegas.   Check out their offerings at www.frontsight.com.  The memberships I offer are diamond.  We got free memberships through a family member, and so we are offering them to you at the cost of the transfer fee only, which is $100.  Let us know if you or a family member may be interested. Whew!!  I think that’s it!  If I missed something, I’m sorry, just let me know!  Also, let me know if you’d like to be taken off of this list.  Can’t wait to see all of my friends once again! 🙂 Elizabeth Kay [email protected]