Door County Master Gardeners

06/10/2026

Applications for a $300 scholarship for the online Master Gardener training course are due by **June 19**

Have you always wanted to become a Master Gardener volunteer but could use some financial assistance to help cover the cost of the online course?

We are excited to announce that we are offering two $300 scholarships for the online 2026 Wisconsin Extension Foundations in Gardening course!

Don't delay--all scholarship applications must be received by June 19, 2026!

IMPT DATES
* Registration for the Wisconsin Extension Master Gardener course opens on July 13
* The highly flexible online course runs from September 6 to December 12, 2026
* The short onboarding class runs from mid-Feb to March
* After completing the onboarding course, you are eligible to join the Door County Master Gardeners Association and share your knowledge and skills with our community!

To learn how to apply for the scholarship, please send us a PM or email to [email protected].

06/09/2026

This is something good to know.

Six plants that grow along trails, roadsides, and fence lines in most of the eastern US. You've probably walked past at least three of them this week without knowing.

Poison ivy is the one most people recognize — three glossy leaflets, vine or shrub, and the urushiol oil that causes the rash is on every surface of the plant year-round including winter stems.

🌿 The two most people miss: wild parsnip has yellow umbrella flowers and a sap that causes severe burns when skin is exposed to sunlight afterward. She looks like a harmless wildflower. And pokeweed — magenta stems, purple berries — is toxic in every part of the plant, but birds eat the ripe berries safely. Over thirty species feed on them.

Poison hemlock has smooth stems with purple blotches. Giant hogweed is the size of a person with white umbrella flowers — if you find one, report it to your county extension office. Bittersweet nightshade has red berries on a vine and purple flowers that look like tiny tomato blossoms — same family.

The chart has a three-second rule set at the bottom. Purple blotches on the stem, three leaflets, yellow umbrella flowers, or massive size — each one tells you what to do next 🐾

06/08/2026

Here is good information for fruit tree growers from the Wisconsin Horticulture website.

06/06/2026

Should you prune your tomato plants?? It depends!

First, let's define the two pruning methods: sucker pruning and bottom pruning.

You always should bottom prune your tomato plants, which entails removing all leafy branches from the lower 12 inches of the plant. Bottom pruning (combined with mulch) is important to prevent soil-borne fungal diseases from splashing onto the foliage.

Suckers are the small shoots that grow in the V-shaped angle between the main stem and the lateral branches. Whether or not you need to sucker prune depends on the type of tomato you are growing. There are four broad categories of tomatoes:

INDETERMINATE TOMATOES (Prune Suckers)
These vining varieties grow continuously, setting flowers all season.
Pinch off the suckers when they are under 6 inches long.

DETERMINATE TOMATOES (No Sucker Pruning)
These bush-type varieties grow to a fixed height, produce all of their fruit at once, and then stop. Do not remove suckers from determinate tomatoes. Doing so will cut your yield because these plants produce fruit on these side branches.

SEMI-DETERMINATE TOMATOES (Minimal Sucker Pruning)
These tomatoes combine traits from indeterminate and determinate tomatoes: they produce compact, bushy plants like determinate varieties, but continue to grow and ripen fruit over the growing season like indeterminate varieties. They produce vigorous lateral shoots that often terminate in a flowering truss (cluster). Semi-determinate plants are grown in much the same way as indeterminate, except you can retain more main stems.

DWARF TOMATOES (No Sucker Pruning)
Dwarf tomatoes are a new category of tomatoes that produce full-sized, heirloom-quality tomatoes on compact, tomato plants with a very thick, stout central stem, crinkly (rugose) dark green leaves, and a short distance between the branches. DO NOT sucker prune dwarf tomatoes. Pruning suckers will significantly decrease potential yield.

PC: Wisconsin Horticulture

06/04/2026

**NEW! $300 scholarships for Master Gardener course**

Have you always wanted to become a Master Gardener volunteer but could use some financial assistance to help cover the cost of the online course?

We are excited to announce that we are offering two $300 scholarships for the online 2026 Wisconsin Extension Foundations in Gardening course!

Don't delay--all scholarship applications must be received by June 19, 2026!

IMPT DATES
* Registration for the Wisconsin Extension Master Gardener course opens on July 13
* The highly flexible online course runs from September 6 to December 12, 2026
* The short onboarding class runs from mid-Feb to March
* After completing the onboarding course, you are eligible to join the Door County Master Gardeners Association and share your knowledge and skills with our community!

To learn how to apply for the scholarship, please send us a message or email to [email protected].

THANK YOU!
These Master Gardener scholarships are made possible by a generous donation from 100+ Women Who Care Door County.

06/04/2026

We are pleased to support the United Way garden kits through donations for potting mix and additional grow kits, seeds, growing instructions, and Master Gardener volunteers to help distribute the kits..

Let's grow together, Door County!

Door County Seed Library

06/03/2026

06/03/2026

After the Prairie Burn
It has been a very busy Spring!

After the Prairie Burn, the focus was on removing woody invasives. This year was focused on bush Honeysuckle (Lonicera) and Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata). This will be the first in a three part series on invasives. The first up… will be on the bush Honeysuckle!

After a prescribed burn, the blackened ground reveals more than fresh opportunity! It exposes the quiet invaders that were hiding in the understory. One of the most persistent is invasive bush honeysuckle. A burn weakens these shrubs, but it rarely eliminates them. That’s why the weeks immediately following a fire are the ideal time for honeysuckle removal.

Why Post‑Burn Removal Works!
A prairie burn strips away leaf litter, big blue stem thatch, and competing vegetation, making honeysuckle seedlings and resprouts easy to spot. Fire also stresses mature shrubs, drawing energy from their roots and making follow‑up control more effective. In Door County’s thin soils, this timing gives an advantage.

Three steps to a Successful Removal
• Cut‑stump removal: Cut stems at the base and immediately treat the stump to prevent re-sprouting at the base.
• Pulling seedlings: Young plants come out easily in softened, ash‑rich soil.
• Targeted follow‑up: Check the site again in midsummer and fall.. no doubt honeysuckle often tries to return!

Note: Using marker flags (I have them all over) remind where they are located. In a Tall Grass Prairie stumps are easily lost (ouch!).

What Happens Next
Once honeysuckle is removed, native prairie plants respond quickly. Sunlight reaches the soil, warm‑season grasses surge, and wildflowers reclaim space that had been shaded out for years. Species like prairie clover, golden alexanders, and little bluestem rebound especially well after a burn and remove cycle.

Across the Door County peninsula landowners and conservation groups are pairing prescribed fire with honeysuckle removal to restore healthier prairies and savannas. It’s slow, steady work, but each cleared shrub opens space for native biodiversity to return.

If you love Honeysuckle…there is good news! Plant native Honeysuckle, there are references through the University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension to help you!

06/01/2026

We are honored that The Garden Door has once again been selected as a painting location for the prestigious Plein Art Festival!

Stop by The Garden Door from 11am to 2pm on Thursday, July 23 to watch the artists capture the beauty of The Garden Door on canvas.

How are artists selected for the Door County Plein Air Festival?

As an invitational event, the festival roster is carefully curated each year by a committee of professional artists and collectors. When extending invitations, the committee considers artists with strong regional and national recognition in plein air painting, active gallery representation, and participation in other major plein air festivals across the country.

The committee also works to create a balanced and dynamic festival by including a variety of artistic styles and media, maintaining strong Midwest representation, and introducing new artists each year alongside returning favorites.

The result is a week-long celebration of painting that feels fresh, inspiring, and uniquely connected to Door County.

The Door County Plein Air Festival returns July 19–25
Check out → linktr.ee/penartdc

05/30/2026

Starting a Vegetable Garden on a Budget
starts at 9:30 at Crossroads !