Garden Meeting/Progress Update

Thank you to everyone who participated in today’s meeting and workday! It was a very productive day!

The Sedgwick County Master Gardeners will have a 20x20 plot in the SW corner where solarizing plastic was (over by the compost pile) to plan tomatoes and peppers as part of a vegetable trial. They will do the majority of the work and have signage regarding the project; produce will be donated to the Plant A Row project or similar.

The Garden has a budget this year but we have to carefully plan how to use it and still obtain as many donations of items such as lumber as possible. Sean has reached out to Star Lumber but hasn’t heard back yet.

We discussed where we could locate new raised beds and decided the poison garden will be located where the blue pool plastic is currently. We also sorted through the seeds we currently have. Jesse is working on enlarging the seed starting area with the grow lights I brought in. We will begin soon starting additional seeds. Some of the tomato seeds we have are heat and disease resistant varieties recommended by Extension including fresh seeds for the Juliet variety which did so well late last summer. The tomatoes will be started on a staggered schedule.

The solarizing plastic was removed, cleaned up as much as possible and is stored in the boiler room in one of the tunnels. The 4x4s are outside by the metalshop wall, since they will be used in the construction of the raised beds and potentially other projects.

Jesse has ordered a part for the outdoor spigot so that should be fixed soon.

We also discussed greenhouses/tunnels/hoop house/low tunnels. In the short term, the smaller piece of solarizing plastic could be cut into pieces to cover communal beds for growing greens this winter before the last frost.

The meetings will be on an every other week schedule on Sunday mornings for now.

7 Likes

@Sherry this sounds very groovy and I’m excited to learn more about this poison garden
I have lots of questions but am unable to attend the garden meetings.
I saw somewhere the poison garden is going to be where the blue plastic is/was. I believe that was underneath a large bench of some sort over by “Maker Mike”. Am I correct?

What poisons will be grown? What is the member access to this poison patch and How poisonous will these gems be? How/will the pollen from these plants impact the neighboring gardens? Specifically if the neighboring gardens harvest is edible.

@Sherry, I am going to ask for some grace here with your response as I just had my very first garden last year and I am still eager, full of hope and have a s*** ton to learn.

Thanks in advance

2 Likes

Yes! You are very correct! This location was approved by the committee. The bench has been relocated. Mike needs to be removed and refreshed, he’s looking a bit peaked.

I am SO glad you asked, I LOVE to talk about this!

The fun part of the poison garden is how many of them are normal ornamental plants! In fact, the toxic potential of plants we consider benign is a huge aspect of the educational nature of the poison garden - the Goth/Wiccan connections are just an extra benefit.

Delphinium, foxglove (foxglove is the source of digitalis, an important heart medication with an extremely low safety margin), and lupine for example, as well as daylilies (extraordinarily toxic to cats, this particular plant has the only really toxic pollen in the garden, and it only affects cats who ingest the pollen…I usually post about lilies and cats on my Facebook page each spring as it’s insanely easy to cause complete kidney failure in cats with a single lily in a vase in your home). I may cage the daylily.

None of the pollen will affect any of the other garden plants (with the possible exception of cross pollination between the same species, and seed saving for next year - but that’s primarily tomato and pepper specific and applies to all garden plots in the space so not specific to the poison garden at all) and I checked with board certified toxicologists re: oleander, because there are rumors oleander nectar makes toxic honey and I didn’t want to poison any local apiarists or their customers! However, that isn’t true, because oleander does not even produce nectar. It’s funny how common this rumor is among beekeepers in the face of scientific data to the contrary. I even found a forum where it continued to be discussed as if it were real after someone posted a scientific paper describing the biology of the plant and the absence of nectar. One of the toxicologists is also a Master Gardener and she indicated the pollen is safe also for bees. Oleander is a common yard ornamental in California so they would have massive problems there if it were, especially considering that most commercial beekeepers travel to California every year to pollinate the almond trees. (there is a grayanotoxin that can accumulate in honey in Turkey - “mad honey” - but it is not a problem in the USA, which was also information provided by the toxicologists)

Rhubarb is also one of the poisons! The leaves are quite toxic, it’s only the stems we can eat, yet many folks grow this at home. In WWI, the British Home Office recommended citizens eat the leaves because ration supplies were running low - and they didn’t realize their mistake until people died!

Interestingly, tomato, pepper and potato plants are all members of the nightshade family and toxic on their own so they might make an appearance in the poison garden depending upon how space works out! If no space, we can have signage directing folks to the Master Gardener plot :slight_smile:

I am trying to stratify mountain laurel now but Bill Youngers doesn’t think it will grow well for us because it prefers a cooler climate. There will be a lot of plant test subjects! I sometimes say I have a Darwinian approach to gardening…if it lives I grow it again, if it dies I don’t :laughing:

The single most toxic plant is likely to be castor bean. I first saw this beauty at Botanica amongst all of their other gardens without any sort of warning, just a label! It was quite an impressive specimen. Castor bean is the source of ricin, but you have to ingest it, and the seed pods have to be chewed if they’re ingested intact. For a human it would take a fair amount. I have treated the poisoning in a friend’s dog who ate mole bait (that mole bait was whole castor beans, other mole bait is strychnine) - it looks just like parvovirus (vomiting/bloody diarrhea). I will be removing the seed pods so they can’t be accidentally ingested when Abby or other pups visit the garden.

There may be a plant or two which can irritate the skin if you touch it, but everything will have warnings. If I include hemlock it would have to be in a pot because it’s invasive. And of course, if one is nervous, the entire area is easily avoided which is why we selected a corner location!

Interestingly, the milkweed for the pollinator garden and the monarchs is also “toxic” - the sap being a skin irritant.

Aloe vera that grows in the lounge and also the ceramics studio is toxic as well! Ingestion of the Aloe plant latex is most known for it, but even topical use has been implicated in folks who are allergic to the lily family! Aloe - Mayo Clinic
Aloe vera: A review of toxicity and adverse clinical effects - PMC

The vast majority of ornamental houseplants are toxic. While many contain only oxalate crystals which are irritating, there are others such as Kalanchoe which you’ll find in Dillons and other local stores, in which some species contain heart toxins. Those plants don’t come with a warning either!

The poinsettia plant which nearly everyone “knows” is poisonous is not terribly poisonous either, primarily gastrointestinal irritant at adequate doses. Diterpenoid euphorbia esters and saponin-like detergents are the compounds of concern in them.

I’ve considered having a sago palm but haven’t sourced one. I won’t feel comfortable having a sago palm without caging it because dogs are very attracted to the leaves and it causes pretty profound liver failure in them. Sago palms (not a true palm, they’re really a cycad) are common house/patio plants in the USA also.

There are far too many interesting options I could include but won’t have space for. Some of the plants produce small amounts of cyanide when the plant are stressed - similar to apple seeds. For the most part, those primarily affect grazing livestock during droughts.

Access to the poison garden - the garden committee did not feel a fence was necessary. Bee and I have discussed a fence for the aesthetic aspect but we’re still working that out. Funds for the poison garden are limited because I’m not planning on using the Garden budget for it. Garden committee has been working on an access policy and authorization class for a couple of years now - the poison garden would be included in both when they are finalized, which is one of my goals for this year!

I also plan to host a class on the poison garden in summer once it gets going!

5 Likes

I am going to take care of Mike. He will be looking fresh very soon

Also… thanks for that info I will read that magalog of info as soon as I am finished with work

3 Likes

Thank you for taking care of Mike!!!

2 Likes

This info is so amazing! Can’t wait to visit the poison garden.

It also gave me a nostalgia attack of my little British grandma harvesting her rhubarb.

4 Likes

So, if I understood correctly, the poison garden is more about informing the general public about common plants that are poisonous (but not obvious) and leaving out the usual suspects (like poinsettia). It does really make me want to write a short story about a British grandmother offing a German spy during the second world war using a Rhubarb pie…lol

5 Likes

Yes!

2 Likes

A native plant from the area prairies that is poisonous is snow on the mountain. It can cause a reaction like poison ivy. It is also grown as an ornamental.

2 Likes

The salad which precedes the rhubarb pie would be the innocuous appearing source of the poisoning - the rhubarb pie would be the clue! That sounds like a great story!

2 Likes