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Remembering Daun Martin-Poole

In September we said goodbye to Daun Martin-Poole. Daun’s life was well-lived, and included a stint as an innkeeper in San Diego and as a resident in remote Alaska where she had to haul in drinking water! When she finally settled in the North Country, Daun became a dedicated volunteer in her Dekalb community, at Extension, and beyond. 

Daun was an active Master Gardener Volunteer (MGV) until this year, but her involvement at Extension predated that role. She was a passionate 4-H Project Leader who greatly enjoyed sharing her baking and knitting talents with youth. She excelled as both a 4-H public speaking evaluator and St. Lawrence County Fair judge, where her expertise was put to work in the home arts division. Daun also served two terms on the Extension Association’s Board of Directors from 2007 to 2012, during which she functioned as a Board Representative to the 4-H Youth Development Program.

Daun trained as a Master Gardener Volunteer with the county’s first cohort in 2013. Among other projects, she was dedicated to improving and maintaining the Dekalb Historical Garden alongside gardeners Bryan Thompson and Bonnie Gardinier. Bryan said of her “Daun was one of the strongest, most resilient women I have ever known. She just never gave up. Facing incurable macular degeneration, she continued to work in my office wearing glasses and using a magnifying glass at the computer. When she got her diagnosis of breast cancer she continued to come to work and keep busy. There was almost no stopping her.”

To show black hollyhocks
The Watchman Hollyhock, credit: Chiot’s Run

Members of the Master Gardener program plan to create a new pollinator garden over the next year alongside the Local Foods office at the Extension Learning Farm in Canton. We will dedicate this life-giving space to Daun, and honor her by including plants that she enjoyed and that mirror her resilience. One such plant is a lilac, which are often found in clearings where houses once stood 100 years prior. We will also plant black hollyhocks, which were a popular cultivar in the 1800s,  which Daun sought to include in the Historical Garden. And last but not least, bee balm which was a favorite of Daun’s and of many pollinator species.   

Daun’s obituary can be found here.

Rest in peace.

Erica LaFountain is Community Horticulture Educator and Master Gardener Coordinator for St. Lawrence County. She has a background in organic vegetable farming, gardening, and orcharding and has a homestead in Potsdam, NY.

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Time to plant your garlic!

For most gardeners, things have quieted down in the garden. It’s a time to clean and to review our successes and failures from the past growing season… but don’t put up your spade forks, shovels, and trowels just yet! It’s time to plant one of the easiest, healthiest, and tastiest of all garden vegetables: Garlic.

Garlic is grown on a different schedule from other vegetables. Late summer is the time to source seed garlic, choose a site and start preparing a garden bed. Mid-late October provides the window to divide bulbs, plant cloves, and mulch heavily before the cold weather sets in for good. Spring will see garlic emerging early along with spring flower bulbs. Some watering and side dressing will ensure a good harvest in July.

What makes garlic so easy to grow? Heavy mulching at planting time greatly reduces weed growth the following spring and summer, so weeding is usually not a problem.  Not only are garlic pests and diseases uncommon, but they can actually deter garden pests. A well-balanced soil high in organic matter and some occasional watering provide all your garlic will need. Let’s dig into the details of growing garlic successfully. Read more Time to plant your garlic!

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Making Flavored Culinary Extracts

Learn to make culinary extracts and you can add amazing flavor to baked goods and beverages at a fraction of the cost of buying them .  Use extracts in cakes, cookies, muffins, or pancakes, in frostings and fillings, in ice cream, or as a flavoring for coffee, tea, sparkling water, or cocktails. You can make extracts from herbs, spices, fruits, nuts, or edible flowers. Create single flavor extracts or try a mix such as chocolate-peppermint or cherry-almond.  They are easy to make and great for gifting but you need to plan ahead because these take time!

To make an extract you need a solvent as the medium to “extract” the flavoring. The solvent you use is a personal choice.  Usually the solvent is alcohol and the most commonly used alcohol is vodka as it has the most neutral flavor. You can also use rum, brandy, or bourbon.  For a non-alcohol alternative you can use food grade liquid glycerin in a ratio of 3:1 with water (a little water is needed to thin the glycerin). This is called a glycerite. Using glycerin produces more of a syrupy extract and adds a touch of sweetness to the finished product. It is also slower to extract the flavors so you need to give it more time to develop flavor.

How to do it:
The basic procedure for making extracts is to put your prepared flavor agent in a jar, fill the jar to within 1” of the top with your solvent of choice (make sure your flavoring is fully covered), cap the jar tightly and shake, then set it aside to wait for the flavor to develop. Don’t forget to label the jar with contents and date! The enemies of the process are air, heat, and light. Tight fitting lids will keep the alcohol from evaporating. Placing jars in a cool, dark place will help keep the contents from degrading.

To aid in the extraction process, shake the jar during the process. Is it necessary? It is probably not essential but shaking allows the solvent to mix thoroughly with the flavor agent and prevents the flavor agent from settling on the bottom of the jar.  There are various recommendations on how often to shake ranging from every day to whenever you think about it.  A good middle ground would be to shake the jar every day for the first week or two and then gradually taper off to every other day, then a couple times a week, then once a month for the remainder of the time.  Don’t fret if you don’t remember to shake the jar. The flavor will still develop but shaking can help the process.

You can begin to check on the flavor after about 6 weeks. Keep tasting every week or so until the extract has reached the depth of flavor you prefer. Six weeks may be enough time to develop a good flavor but you will often need to wait longer, as long as 3-6 months, for deeper flavor to develop and to be comparable to what you can purchase.  Once you have the flavor you like, strain out the solids, pour the extract into a clean bottle or jar with a tight-fitting lid and label it. Extracts don’t go bad due to the alcohol content. Keep them sealed and in a location away from light and heat and they should keep indefinitely. If you’ve used glycerin as the solvent the flavoring doesn’t last indefinitely but it should last 2-3 years. Read more Making Flavored Culinary Extracts