During our June business meeting, followed by a fantastic social gathering at Our Garden, we celebrated the end of a stellar year with remarkable achievements by so many of our hard-working UC Master Gardener volunteers of Contra Costa County.

While some schools have well-established systems in place to manage their gardens during school breaks, others struggle to keep their plants alive and weeds at bay.

We're changing the name of the Membership project to Volunteer Support. This recognizes the many functions of this CoCoMG project. Volunteer Support directly affects every CoCoMG.

Clients question: We have an infestation of cockroaches in our garden. It started 3 or 4 years ago. We would see them on our neighbors sidewalk. Starting this year, they are making our garden their home. This is the worst we have seen in our garden.

The Contra Costa Community Garden team serves 14 very different community gardens and urban farms throughout the county.

My mom says: "Optimism is hard work." In April I planted little plants that I thought would do well in her scorched-earth Inland Empire summer garden bed, which is only about 25 square feet. I'm happy to say that I've provided her with an ongoing source of interest and even joy.

I have so much to learn and contribute. Benjamin Franklin said: Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn. I decided to follow this sage advice and jump right in.

What Are People Asking Us? Apparently, this is the year of the earwig! We are inundated with inquiries about what to do about this rather daunting looking creature. Then, of course, there are numerous questions about rats, gophers, moles, mice and men.

At this time of the year, those of us living in Wildfire Country wake up at night and listen to booming fireworks and mentally check our evacuation preparations (Go-bag ready? Should I update our property inventory with new video?

Even though Bob is relatively new to the program, he is an experienced gardener and successful gopher trapper. He worked with UCCE scientists to approve a new and effective device to remove destructive gophers from gardens.