CCE Otsego Master Gardeners

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CCE Otsego Master Gardeners Master Gardeners are community volunteers with extensive training from Cornell Cooperative Extension in many phases of the science and art of gardening.

Master Gardener Volunteers provide environmentally sound information and encourage individuals, communities, and horticulture professionals to implement horticultural practices that foster land and community stewardship. They educate the surrounding community about:
•Landscapes
•Vegetables
•Fruits
•Herbs
•Houseplants
•Beneficial and harmful insects
•Plant diseases
•Integrated pest management (IPM)
•Wildlife management
•Soils
•Birds
•Composting
•Water conservation
•And much, much more

Call the Master Gardener Helpline at 607-547-2536 ext. 228 for assistance.

You Put the Garden to Bed BUT...You may have put your garden to bed, but ticks have gone to bed, and checking for ticks ...
10/27/2026

You Put the Garden to Bed BUT...
You may have put your garden to bed, but ticks have gone to bed, and checking for ticks after being outdoors, especially in the places they like to hide, is essential. Children are lower to the ground and easier for ticks to reach. In the fall, adult blacklegged ticks (deer ticks) are actively questing on low vegetation and leaf litter to find a host for a blood meal or to mate. Unlike your garden beds, they have not gone to sleep.

Recent research from the Cary Institute indicates that Tick-borne diseases are on the rise in the northeastern US, with many ticks carrying more than one pathogen, as published in Ecosphere by researchers at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and the SUNY Center for Vector-Borne Diseases at Upstate Medical University.

Ticks were collected over nine years from forested plots at the Cary Institute’s campus in Dutchess County, NY. The site is home to a long-term research project on the ecology of tick-borne disease.

Look Up - It's the Hunter's MoonLook up just after sunset today to see the amazing Hunter's Moon. The absolute best tim...
10/26/2026

Look Up - It's the Hunter's Moon
Look up just after sunset today to see the amazing Hunter's Moon. The absolute best time for viewing was 12:15 A.M. today, but if you were sleeping, it will still be a sight tonight. Called the Hunter Moon because it marked the change from harvesting crops to preparing meat for winter. Its brightness lasts for hours, as you can see in this photo taken at 8:34 A.M. today.
Photo: Vincent Stayter

Container Gardening CompetitionIf you're someone who's watched TV cooking competitions, here's some eye candy for people...
10/24/2026

Container Gardening Competition
If you're someone who's watched TV cooking competitions, here's some eye candy for people who plant in containers. Greenhouse Growers with Proven Winners and Walters Gardens sponsored a collaborative contest with eight gardening creators to put their skills to the test to see who could create the best fall-themed container designs. This timed design challenge allowed each participant to explain their unique design philosophy and creative choices while leaving you to decide which finished container was superior.
egrower.com/crops/video-spotlight-8-gardeners-compete-to-create-the-best-fall-container/

Green Tomatoes?If you want to speed up the ripening process, pick tomatoes that are showing the first color changes. St...
10/23/2026

Green Tomatoes?
If you want to speed up the ripening process, pick tomatoes that are showing the first color changes. Store the fruit at room temperature in a dark enclosed environment like a paper bag or cardboard box. Ethylene gas released from the fruit will stimulate the fruit to ripen. To ripen more quickly, add an apple or banana to the bag.

More suggestions from emeritus professor Steve Reiners at Cornell:

Pick ones that are fully grown and just in the earliest stage of ripening. No cracks are good too. Avoid diseased tomatoes. Wrap larger fruit in paper, stem side down, and store in a single layer in bags or boxes in the dark. A basement is a good place, with temps above 55F. Keep watching to see which are ripening, and you can have them through Thanksgiving. You can allow nearly ripe tomatoes to ripen in your kitchen, stem side down and away from direct sunlight.
You might want to organize these by degree of ripeness from the color chart and write it on the bag or the box. If you want to speed up the process, add one or two ripe tomatoes to the group.

Another method: Pull up the whole plant and hang it upside down.
Harvest the entire plant, including the roots. Shake off as much soil as possible and hang it upside down in a cool area that gets indirect light and wait for the tomatoes to ripen.
Now, these won't have the same magical flavor as the summer tomatoes you've picked, but they will be better than the ones you find in the store. And what a wonderful way to give thanks than to share a tomato from your garden on a November day.
Our Emeritus MG, Kathy Koch, who grows more than 20 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, has managed to coax them along until nearly Christmas.

https://blogs.cornell.edu/fruition/2021/09/08/ripening-green-tomatoes-indoors/

https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-handle-those-green...
https://cvp.cce.cornell.edu/submission.php?id=91 See less

10/22/2026

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...
Carol Kennedy, Maria Haraldsson, Linda Evans-Shuford, and Maribeth Ashcroft, all part of the OtsegoMG graduating class of 2026, put the Demonstration Garden to bed for the season. We dream of glorious gardens in 2027.

Scarecrow VillageThere's still time to enjoy The Scarecrow Village at the Fenimore Farm and Country Village in Coopersto...
10/21/2026

Scarecrow Village
There's still time to enjoy The Scarecrow Village at the Fenimore Farm and Country Village in Cooperstown. You'll see 34 hand-crafted fairy-tale, fantasy, and history-inspired scarecrow displays created by local groups and families from the region, including one created by CCE Otsego Master Gardeners and 4-H.

https://www.fenimorefarm.org/scarecrow-village/

Monarch's Dangerous, Invasive RelativeThis deceiver in our region negatively impacts monarch populations. Pale/European...
10/17/2026

Monarch's Dangerous, Invasive Relative
This deceiver in our region negatively impacts monarch populations. Pale/European and Black Swallowworts (Vincetoxicum spp.) are in the milkweed family (Aposcynaceae), so monarch butterflies will sometimes lay their eggs on swallowwort. The problem? Monarch caterpillars cannot eat or digest the leaves and they die.
Swallowwort is a Tier 2 invasive species, which means it has a high ecological or economic impact in our region but is present in low abundance, making eradication still an achievable goal. Swallowwort has been sighted in Springfield, near Arnold Lake, along the east side of Otsego Lake, near Charlotte Creek in Davenport, parts of the Butternut Valley, and in Robert V. Riddell State Park. Join OCCA's Fall Invasive Species Challenge. The more you know how to identify it and remove it, the better!

https://www.occainfo.org/invasivesteam

Address

123 Lake Street
Cooperstown, NY
13326

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 4:30pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 4:30pm
Wednesday 8:30am - 4:30pm
Thursday 8:30am - 4:30pm
Friday 8:30am - 4:30pm

Telephone

+16075472536

Website

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