Blueberry picking season is about over in Susquehanna County PA, and the 44'th Annual Blueberry Festival was held on Friday and Saturday, 2-3 August. This podcast covers our PRE-BBF event held at the Montrose Library Community Room, and two days of interviews at the festival. The weather was the best we have had in many years, and we are waiting for the final fund raising dollar amounts to be determined, but it might very well be the BEST YEAR EVER! We even had a special, limited to 100 bottles, of Blueberry Mead with a festival label on it. (Thank you Dan!)

The media coverage was excellent, bringing in people from hundreds of miles away for the event. As you will hear, Chris in the podcast came all the way from Arizona! We had so many people tell me that it was the first time they had attended.

Congratulations to the Noonan family, who won the Blueberry Snack raffle basket. The Amazon Show device will be awarded to a random person after we record at the Susquehanna County fair this week, including additional people into our drawing.

Thank you to everyone that supported the event! Be sure to take time to contact the library to let them know how happy you were with the event and with any suggestions for next year!

We publish this episode as both part of the library "Off the Shelf" podcast, and here on the "Digging for Answers". The library and the Master Gardeners partner on several events each year. Right now, at the library, we have a table with veggies that are brought in by the Master Gardeners in the county!

I'll be at the County Fair on Friday this week, in the Master Gardener building, interviewing for our next podcast! Stop in and see me! I'll have information about the MG program, the library and the county bee keep association!

Enjoy a blueberry muffin and give us a listen!

Howard

Hey there, I'm Howard and I'm glad to invite you back to our first episode of 2025. It's been a while since we have released an episode, but we are back for what should be a monthly episode talking about:

* What is going on in the Susquehanna Area that may impact your garden, lawn, fruit trees.

* Highlighting upcoming events that may interest you.

* A discussion on an upcoming article or training (live or on-line) ! We might even report out on one of our "HOT LINE GARDENING" inputs!

Please subscribe, so you get our next release.

******************

This episode highlights AG Day 2025 in our county, with interviews of individuals that were at the event. We are sharing this recording with our partner podcast, OFF THE SHELF, as we kick off the 2025 season.

Hey there, The Master Gardeners of Susquehanna County just finished up their annual support at the Harford Fair! We hope that if you visited the fair that you stopped in to ask questions, got answers and picked up some free seeds. I was there on Tuesday to record for this podcast and talked to over a dozen individuals/groups about why they come to the fair, and why they stopped in to see us! We will have a few prizes for some of the individuals that took the time to speak to me at our table.

Master Gardener Anson has done a great job the last two years on the history of county fairs.....wait till you hear what he "dug" up for you this year!

This episode of the podcast is going out to both "DIGGING FOR ANSWERS", and the Susquehanna County Library "OFF THE SHELF" podcasts.

There is a lot going on in the area as the summer ends, so here is a way to find out what's going on in the next few months!

The Montrose Adult School catalog is now out. Check out the classes that the Master Gardeners are doing.

Thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe and don't be nervous about sending us comment!

Howard

Hey there, The Master Gardeners of Susquehanna just wrapped up their biggest SPRING CLINIC every! It was a sell out event with some GREAT speakers. This episode of the podcast is going out to both "DIGGING FOR ANSWERS", and the Susquehanna County Library "OFF THE SHELF" podcasts. We have interviews of people that attended the Spring Clinic and a list of upcoming community events in the Montrose area. Starting in our next episode, we will go back to an individual format for the two podcasts.

There is a lot going on in the area this spring, so here is a way to listen to those that attended Spring Clinic, and find out what's going on in the next few months!

Thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe and don't be nervous about sending us comment!

Howard

Welcome back to "DIGGING FOR ANSWERS"! This is our first PSUE Susquehanna County Master Gardener podcast in 2024!

This podcast is focused on the recent Susquehanna AG Day. We had a table at the event and interviewed people on why they came to the event and a few other questions. At the end, I left in a short "hot mic" recording from when we were talking to a group of youth, and I forgot the mic was still recording!

So............ It's a shorter episode, but you can hear some great comments about AG Day. We will be doing this at some other community events and will have a drawing for some nice prizes if you record with us at the event!

This Saturday, we will be recording at the annual Spring Clinic, held in Montrose. We have a full house signed up and we will be talking to people that attend the event and hope to have audio for our next podcast on the speakers!

We will be back at least once a month sharing answers to our hot line questions, discussions on things that "grow" (or are not growing!) We have some bus trips coming up that you might want to join us on, like Longwood Gardens on 20 June 2024.

SUBSCRIBE so you get future downloads automatically!

Be talking to you soon!

Howard

The 165'th Annual Harford Fair is over! I had a wonderful time at the fairground last week, manning a table on Thursday in the Penn State Susquehanna County Master Gardener's building. I was representing both the Master Gardeners and the Susquehanna County Library. I have not heard the final head count yet on how many people visited us, but I'm going to guess it had to be close to 1,000 people.

I was at the table with a microphone in hand to talk to people about a couple of areas. I'm going to replay their conversations in this episode. Everyone that spoke to me has been entered into a special drawing for an Amazon echo dot device and some $25.00 gift cards.

This episode is going out on both the "Digging for Answers" podcast and the "Off the Shelf" podcast, since it is a great community event!

Be sure to subscribe so that you will get notice of all of our future releases!

Have a GREAT week, a safe/fun Labor Day weekend, we will talk to you again in September!

Howard

It's FAIR WEEK! This special episode is focused on the 2023, 165'th Annual HARFORD FAIR, in Harford PA. Here from Penn State, Susquehanna County Master Gardener Anson on what the Master Gardeners are sharing at the fair this year. The event runs 14-19 August, the booth is open 10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. each day of the fair. Come talk to us, bring your questions and get some information that will help your garden/trees/flowers/yard.

If you didn't listen to last year's fair podcast from Anson, you should find it, download it, and listen about the history of county fairs!

Howard will be there on Thursday 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. with the podcast microphone to capture your comments for a future podcast. If you talk to him, you can get the drawing for an Amazon Echo Dot device or a gift card!

Hope to see you at the fair on Thursday!

Howard

I don't know what you were doing on Friday and Saturday, 4-5 August, but myself and over 1,000 others were at the 44'th annual Montrose Blueberry Festival! Listen in to hear about the event and WHY people were attending the event! The Susquehanna Master Gardeners had their Education Garden open and Master Gardeners ready at their information table to answer your questions!

Thank you to all that were involved with the event!

Be sure to see us the week of 14-19 August at the Harford Fair at the Master Gardener Shack! Come on Thursday to talk to Howard and be in our special Fair Podcast!

Welcome to "DIGGING FOR ANSWERS", a podcast partnership with the Susquehanna County Historical Society and Free Library Association, and the Master Gardeners in Susquehanna County Pennsylvania.

Normally we address your garden, fruit tree, or yard questions.  We update you on things like the Spotted Lantern Fly or have topics that are garden related.

This 2023 kickoff episode is a little different.  We are going to hear about Farm and Home Day 2023. Eight organizations that were at the event are going to give us a brief "Who are we, what do we do, and what can we do for you!"

We will be back in a few weeks with more of our traditional format, including, questions that we get on the county hot line. The next two episodes will be an audio version of a presentation that was done last month at the Montrose Library on "Preparing for your 2023 Garden". It will cover the planning, setting up, maintaining, harvesting and finally cleaning up in the fall. Be sure to join us for a review or if you are new to gardening, a plan for you to have a GREAT 2023 Garden!

We hope to hear some feedback from you!   You can email us at: [email protected].  

I promise that our next episode will have one of our gardening jokes from ALEXA!

Happy Holidays!  We want to thank you for listening to our podcast series, OFF THE SHELF and DIGGING FOR ANSWERS.  We have a special treat for you as we end 2022.  We have the SECOND return of our five part reading of one of the most famous holiday stories,  The Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.  The book was first released on 19 December 1843, We are excited to share five chapters starting today with Chapter #1 and the remaining releasing before Christmas. about every 3-4 days. Each episode is resented by five different readers. Our readers are all members of our local community that have an important connection to the library.  You may know who they are by listening to them, but we are not going to tell you who they are till the end of their chapter.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you will get a download when each segment is released.  Thank you for all your support in 2022 and we look forward to supporting  you in 2023.  Be SAFE and have a MERRY CHRISTMAS! Talk to you in 2023! Howard

Heads Up!  We will modify our OFF THE SHELF podcast format starting in January 2023.  The focus will be more on what's NEW at the library with programs and events, a brief reminder of the on-going programs and then a quick report out on the top FIVE checked out authors from the prior month.