Farming in Cobb County?

"The U.S. Agricultural Census of 1850 reports that in Cobb County the county's largest crops were cotton, wheat, corn, oats, rice, and sweet potatoes." (from Mable Property Rural Preservation Plan)

The Mable House planning document linked above also tells that, after the Civil War, chickens became a larger part of agricultural activity in the county, and, after WWI, cotton ranked higher in productivity. By 1935, Cobb County's farms were producing "cotton, corn, hay, truck garden crops, and sweet potatoes." After WWII, agriculture in Cobb County was still an important economic activity, but the amount of land in agricultural production has been in decline, generally, since then.

Today, as area residents consider beginning new agricultural businesses, UGA's consumer horticulturalist Bob Westerfield has some words of advice, offered through an interview published on Georgia FACES: 

“Think small to begin with, unless you have a lot of help and equipment,” he said. “I recommend a quarter- or half-an-acre plot.”

Cobb Master Gardeners "Best of Atlanta"

The Through the Garden Gate 2014 garden tour of Cobb Extension's Master Gardeners has been chosen as a "Best of Atlanta" winner for 2014 by Atlanta Magazine. The recognition of the spectacular work of this service-oriented group of gardeners is well-deserved!

The annual garden tour and associated plant sale is the primary fundraising activity for the Master Gardener Volunteers of Cobb County (MGVOCC). The funds are used to support Master Gardener projects throughout the county, including school gardens, gardens that produce food for donation to local pantries, community gardens, historic gardens, and demonstration gardens.

The tour is of yards and gardens of our Master Gardeners, and they demonstrate what is possible in many kinds of yards. Docents (Master Gardeners!) are on site at the tour gardens to answer yard and garden questions.

The tour is held each year on the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend. For 2015, that date will be May 9. For additional information about the tour, please see the Garden Tour page of the MGVOCC.

New e-Newsletter for Cobb Extension Horticulture

Looking for timely tips and a longer view of the schedule of classes for Cobb Extension? This information can be delivered to your email inbox through a new e-Newsletter.

Each issue of the e-newsletter, the "Cobb Extension Horticulture News," will list Cobb Extension's public events and classes for the upcoming two months, tips for the care of lawns, gardens, and landscapes, and one or two timely, short articles.

A signup form for the emailed "Cobb Extension Horticulture News" is in the right-hand sidebar of this blog. The inaugural (i.e.: "guinea pig") issue will be released in early December, and subsequent issues will be delivered to subscriber in-boxes every two months through the year, beginning with a January/February issue.

We are looking forward to sharing up-to-date, research-based information about care of lawns, gardens, and landscapes and our natural resources through the newsletter!

Looking for Reliable Lawn and Garden Information?

Plenty of homeowners like to solve their own lawn and garden problems by looking for information online, but most of us have learned that not all internet sources are equally reliable.

Luckily for those who prefer to do a little of their own research before calling in additional help, Extension specialists at UGA and other land-grant universities have written publications about many lawn, garden, and landscape problems and other topics, and these research-based publications are available to the public.

The UGA Extension Publications webpage has two "Search" boxes that can be used to find relevant publications for many problems. One search box is in the upper right portion of the page, and the other is on the left, farther down the page. Both boxes work equally well.

To use them, just type in a search word or two, click on the "go" button, then wait to see the results. The first few publications in the results list tend to be most relevant, but sometimes a potentially useful publication shows up later in the list, so it's a good idea to look beyond the first several publication titles.

For example, a search using the word "ponds" brings up publications about managing ponds during drought, oxygen depletion in ponds, and using chemicals in pond management. The next few titles in the list are about cattle, irrigation, and wastewater treatment, but then a publication about fertilizing ponds for sport fish production shows up on "page 2" of the results. In other words, the results list for this particular search is a cornucopia of publications on many aspects of ponds and their uses!

For UGA, the Extension Publications page also can be used to find information about household pests, soil and water testing, vegetables, orchards, turfgrass, forage crops, wildlife food plots, canning, food safety, radon testing, and many more topics.

It occasionally happens that a topic of interest doesn't appear in the results list. Sometimes, this is because UGA specialists just haven't written about that topic yet. In those cases, reliable publications sometimes are available though regionally appropriate sources at Clemson University Extension, North Carolina State University Extension, and Alabama Extension System.

Of course, reliable information can also be obtained through your local Extension office!

100 Years of Cooperative Extension

The Cooperative Extension system in the United States was founded in 1914, and University of Georgia is celebrating the 100-year milestone. Below is a video about the role of Extension in Georgia through the years: