Sitting here in February searching for hope as the news drummed on with financial disaster stories I could only be thankful that I am a gardener - one, I had a great pile of seed catalogues to warm my vision and memory, two, I knew that I could grow my own food, and three, I have great clients who allow me to explore my creativity in their soil, and with their palates - I love dreaming up new Kitchen Gardens for these people.
Having trained innumerable young gardeners for 20 years now, I am also aware of how little most people know about growing - food or flowers, and I recall my great enthusiasm that first kitchen garden I planted - and what a miserable failure it was! I celebrate ignorance - it leads me to wonderful new things - so I decided to call on various friends and gardening associates on island to see if we couldn't put together a reverse "county fair" - nothing to show for our efforts like traditional county fairs held in the fall, but a fair, a fete to celebrate spring and our desire to bring forth a harvest.
We are all engaged in conversations of late about how to bring a sense of community back to our island - I believe community happens when people join together to share their skills for the common cause - in this case a healthy source of food and a means of stewarding our land.
Please look at the various blogs on this site for information on our first annual organic gardening festival, who will be leading workshops, how to register, the wonderful people who are giving their time, talent, skills and money to share with their community. And then ...
Mark your calendar for May 9 Register and join us.
Schedule for May 9 Workshops: and directions to 84 Egan
Please register for these workshops :
eatyourgarden@hotmail.com / 228-2093
We decided due to so many late registrations and time limits on my part that the blog will need to be your guide for hand out materials - refer back to this site for information on the workshops you participated in, and if you have questions please email me at eatyourgarden@hotmail.com
If the $15 fee is keeping you from joining us, don't let it - we can waive it, this is about Community joining to share skills, and to enjoy being a community.
You might want to consider bringing a picnic if you plan to spend some time, Annyes is providing some food and drinks - but you know best what you like.
10 am: Raised bed building - Dane. Materials to use, construction pointers.
11 am: "Lasagna Gardening" - Claudia Butler, Dylan Wallace - a method for building soil using layers; planting tips for lasagna gardens
12 noon: Filling the Raised beds - Chapin Kline & Cinda Gaynor - soil mixes, proportions of compost, peat, native soil, fertilizers.
1 pm: In Ground Gardens - A Slosek or 2! working with native soils, amendments, fertilizers; planting techniques.
2 pm: Square Foot Gardening - Natalie - a planting technique for maximum production in minimum space
3 pm: Container Gardening - Ellie Huyser - Grow carrots in a pot? Tomatoes in a tire? soil mix, fertilizers, planting techniques for containers
The Garden Gams will be ongoing throughout the day.
Directions: Old South Road toward the airport, left on Egan lane - go thru the large "S" curve - there will be a straight-away in front of you - The Gardens is the first on right on the straight-away - look for our poster.
Garden Gams: This is the unscheduled informal part of Saturday - these resources will be here at different points - Laura Simon and A-Z seed information; Jim Gross is bringing a hive and is certainly our Mr Bee on Nantucket - they are expecting to spend the day with us; Jason Sullivan will be here at noon with information on Organic Lawn Care; Caroline Ellis is bringing her "girls" the chickens and will be available to discuss the joy of fresh eggs ; Ashley Mott from Pumpkin Pond Farm will be here in morning and will present beneficial insects. We have generous donations for Organic Gardening magazines, seed catalogues from great organic seed companies, and a special treat for the young gardeners - Surprize! is the best way I can describe it. Those Mushroom guys will be joining us to show and tell about this new growing enterprise on Nantucket
Look for our poster. Kudos and gratitude to Anne Butler Sutherland for allowing us to use this wonderful painting of carrots, and thank you to Jack Weinhold for putting it all in a great graphic design.
Also huge thanks to Nantucket Land Council for assisting with the advertising that more people will know about us and be able to take advantage of "growing school"
Laura Simon of the most beautiful organic garden on island has also been very generous with both her time in obtaining seed catalogues from her special companies for us, as well as donating funds to help pay for poster printing and other materials we will be needing.
Until I can figure out how to link - go to: www.annesutherlandart.com to view more of Annes wonderful paintings. She is exhibiting at South Wharf Gallery on India this year.
Coast of Maine has most generously donated product that they sell at Bartlett Farm
- Lobster compost, potting soils, and untreated mulches.
Thanks to Greg Maskell and Chapin Kline of Maskell Landscape for a whole truck full of locally grown compost - unloaded even!
Lindsay of Atlantic Landscape is not only lending us Natalie for the day, but thoughtfully donated soil amendments to use in our Raised Bed garden
My friend Margaret has just won a coveted award from James Beard Society - I've attempted to link her blog here - look for the other Sunset blogs in their "one block diet" series - could we do a "One Island Diet"??
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