Lowndes County Extension Office

06/02/2026

Did you know our county Extension offices test pressure canner gauges for free? We do!

People who are using pressure canners to preserve food need to know their dial gauges are accurate, and this is a quick and easy way to make sure the equipment is working properly.
Once checked, the pressure canner should maintain its accuracy for a year if handled properly. The gauge should be checked every year.

Reach out to your county's Extension office to set up an appointment to get your pressure canner gauge tested! We're located in all 82 counties: https://extension.msstate.edu/county-offices

05/31/2026

Our Lowndes County 4H Western Heritage club had a great meeting yesterday and we learned about what it was like to prepare and cook your meals during the 1800’s. Thanks to Mrs. Victoria and Mr. Chad Richardson for teaching us about campfire cooking.

05/31/2026

05/31/2026

Julie Holman, left, co-chair with the Lowndes County Master Gardener's Herb Garden Committee, inspects one of three raised beds with Mississippi University for Women President Nora Miller on Thursday at the new herb garden outside The W's culinary arts building in Columbus. Holman said the Lowndes County Master Gardeners have spent the last three years, since the new culinary arts building was constructed, developing the new herb garden, which features raised beds full of herbs and vegetables like yellow onions, parsley and oregano for culinary students to use during the school year. "It's a labor of love for all of us on the Herb Garden Committee," Holman said. "And we appreciate the help from all the Lowndes County Master Gardeners helping on this."

05/22/2026

New Soil Testing Information! Soil testing is the first step to healthy soil and productive crops, pastures, turf and gardens.

Follow the steps below to submit your soil sample:

Order online. Visit soiltesting.extension.msstate.edu and follow the instructions to complete your order. Enter your contact info, sample names and crop or intended use.

Choose payment. Cost is $12 per sample. You may pay by cash or check sent with your soil sample or choose to receive an invoice to pay by credit card. Your payment options are cash, check or invoice.

Prepare and label your sample. Collect the soil to be tested. Fill the sample collection container to the fill line and close the container. Write the “sample name” (and your name, if desired) on the outside of the container. Clearly write your order number and sample name on each container. This information must match what was entered online.

Ship or drop off your sample. The new shipping address and drop off location is:
Southern Soil & Plant Lab, LLC.
117 Haley Barbour Parkway
Yazoo City, MS 39194

Receive results. Results will be sent to you and your county Extension office. You can contact your Extension agent for assistance with the sample report and recommendations.

Important Reminders

Cost is $12 per sample.

You may pick up your soil sample containers from your county Extension office.

You are responsible for shipping samples to the soil testing laboratory.

Contact your local Extension office for help with collecting soil samples, understanding crop codes, interpreting soil test reports and general soil fertility questions.

05/22/2026

The Lowndes County Office will be closed Monday. We hope you all have a great long weekend!!!

05/20/2026

Leaffooted bugs can ruin a late-season vegetable garden!! Like stink bugs, which feed in a similar manner, leaffooted bugs attack a wide range of garden vegetables including, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, peas, and beans.

They are especially damaging to tomatoes and they love tomatillios. Damage is caused primarily by the highly mobile adults, which feed on fruit with their piercing-sucking mouthparts, injecting their toxic saliva in the process and causing soft, sunken spots in the fruit. In addition, even mildly damaged fruit will often have an off taste. Also like stink bugs, leaffooted bugs have a distinctive, unpleasant odor, and they tend to congregate in groups.

Adults make a loud buzzing sound as they fly, and gardeners who are busy picking vegetables are often startled by the sound and sometimes mistake these for bees or wasps. The nymphs are reddish orange with black legs.

Infestations are highest in late summer and fall because they have already completed one or more generations and especially because adults are attracted to lush, productive vegetable gardens as they are flying from nearby, and not so nearby, weeds and row crops that have matured and are no longer suitable hosts.

Control: Spraying with an effective insecticide to directly contact as many insects as possible is the key to successfully controlling leaffooted bugs. Plan on spraying every 7 to 10 days once you begin to see, or hear, or smell, significant numbers of adults in the garden.

Because adults often fly out of the garden when disturbed (when they hear you coming with the sprayer) only to return later, spraying early in the morning, when temperatures are cooler and cold-blooded insects move more slowly, can help improve control.

Because treatment is most often needed during the harvest period, it is important to choose insecticides with short pre-harvest intervals (PHIs) and to coordinate your spraying and picking schedule. Zeta-cypermethrin (GardenTech Sevin Insect Killer Concentrate) and permethrin (several brand names) are two effective insecticides that have short PHIs on most garden vegetables. See product labels for details.

Some gardeners use a trap crop of large-flowered sunflowers to attract leaffooted bugs away from vegetable crops they are trying to protect. It only takes a dozen or so sunflower plants to do this in an average garden. Adults are attracted to the sunflowers and will lay their eggs and produce nymphs there. But be sure to spray the bugs on the sunflowers before the nymphs can mature and move to your vegetables. Otherwise you will have a nursery crop, rather than a trap crop!

05/20/2026

“Is it possible for vegetables, especially squash, watermelons, pumpkins, etc., to cross in the garden to create a strange fruit?”

This question comes up every year! Here’s the bottom line on vegetable crossing:

Most vegetables do not cross since they would have to be in the same species to cross. But even if they DO cross (those that are in the same species) it will have no effect on the current year’s fruit.

Only the seeds will be affected and this will not show up unless you save your own seeds and plant them the next year. In that case, there may be all kinds off types produced.

FYI, watermelons and squash are in different species so it is impossible for them to cross at all.

The crosses that can occur are some squashes with some pumpkins (if they are in the same species, namely Cucurbita pepo) - there are several other species of squash and pumpkins.

Also, various types of melons (NOT watermelons) can cross. These include cantaloupes, honeydews, canaries, crenshaw, santa claus melons, and persian melons since they are in the same species, Cucumis melo.