Garden season opens with March meeting

Our first garden club meeting for 2019 was held at 7 p.m. on March 12 at Camden Grange (21 Camden Road, Elk).  Seven inches of new, heavy snow had fallen that morning, but 27 HARDY local gardeners were in attendance, to include 12 (!) new members.  We commiserated over the long, snowy winter, and then talked about what we were going to grow, and not grow, this season.  

Master Gardener Jim Conrad, from the Washington State University Extension Office in Pend Oreille County, presented information on spring garden soil preparation, and showed homemade models of his favorite garden raised beds.

We also talked about the benefits of Hugelkulture (or Hugelculture) used in the bottom half of raised beds: improved soil moisture retention, time-released nutrients, and a cheap foundation for a taller (less back-breaking) raised bed. Good information on Hugelculture may be found at the Washington State University Extension website http:/www.ext100.WSU/Clallam/hugelkuture.

We had a lot of fun that evening: we socialized, whined about the snow levels on our former garden sites, and dined on cookies, chips and dip, and much more.

Be sure to note the date of our next meeting on the 9th of April - see you there!

Jim

Garden club meeting warning notice!

Warning, warning, Will Robinson!!  (I know some of you will GET that television series reference from the 1970's?)

We will meet in Camden grange at 7 p.m. on the 12th of march, for our first club meeting of 2019. We will have two guest speakers from the master gardener group in Newport, speaking on the subjects of container gardening, and raised bed gardening.  I'll also be querying members on what they will be planting or doing differently in the garden, this year – so bring some snappy answers, please.

If you have unwanted seed and/or gardening catalogs, please bring them along to distribute to other unsuspecting gardeners, and if you have unwanted seeds or plants, you could bring those along as well – we'll have a freebie table set up for the purpose.

The club will provide drinks for the occasion, and club members are encouraged to bring along their favorite snacks/treats to share (legal snacks/treats, only, please 😃).

Also, club member and Camden Grange member MaryLee asked me to remind club members of the grange fundraiser auction on the 16th.  if you have something you want to donate to the auction, you can bring it/them along to our meeting, and leave it/them in the grange.  Donations of bratty children, misbehaving pets, and uncooperative spouses will NOT be accepted, though they could form their own club, since there are SO many of them!

see you there!

jim

292-0326