Class session # 8

Long day today, but a pretty good one.

As you know from an earlier blog, part of our volunteer hours must be spent doing hands on work in a special garden sanctioned by the Master Gardener program - could be a demo garden, youth garden or an outreach garden. So, the first half of the morning was spent listening to various representatives from some of these gardens promoting their cause, and trying to convince us to come and put our hours in with them.  This morning's presenters came from:

• The Cesar Chavez Demo Garden on Beacon Hill
• The Reclaimed Water and Biosolids Garden in Renton
• The Fragrance Garden in Seattle
• The Tribal Life Trail in Maple Valley
• The Wedgewood Demo Garden in North Seattle
• The Master Gardener's Foundation Annual Plant Sale

For me, two of these were an immediate stand out.......

RECLAIMED WATER AND BIOSOLIDS GARDEN
I'm big into sustainability, reducing, reusing, recycling and being a kinder, gentler member of the planet, so when I heard about the Reclaimed Water and Biosolids Garden my ears perked up. 

Not the most appetizing of names, for sure, but this garden is demonstrating good things - namely, how to take an unpleasant waste product and turn it into something safe and beneficial for growing our food.  The garden shows people how the process works.   Did you know this is already happening in many states across the country?    That salad, or the veggies on that pizza you recently had could well have been grown on farms using biosolids and reclaimed water.   Check out this LINK for more information.

TRIBAL LIFE TRAIL

Located at the Lake Wilderness Arboretum in Maple Valley this garden focuses on ethno-botony - the study of the relationships between plants and humans - in this case the native plants and peoples of the Pacific Northwest.  The garden provides an educational platform for understanding our cultural horticultural heritage - creating/reinforcing an appreciation of sustainability.  The garden is still in the development stages and will have its grand opening on June 5th, so I'm unable to share a photo of it with you.  If you're interested in learning more, I suggest you bookmark this LINK to the Arboretum and stay tuned for more details.

So, what garden assignments am I going to choose?  Well, it's too early to tell.  We still have more gardens to learn about, so I'll hold off committing to anything until I see what else is out there.  Stay tuned!

I popped over to the library during the morning break and perused the Nature Writings section..... oh my, I'm drooling at all the possibilities!  Which one do I read first?   Ended up signing out a Rachel Carson book I haven't seen before... "Lost Woods" - a collection of unpublished writings.

During the second half of the morning we started to dig into the formalities of plant diagnosis and reviewed the forms and procedures that make up the information gathering phase - from getting a good sample for analysis, to capturing relevant supporting data that will help with the diagnosing.   I'll follow up with a Key Learnings on this one..... got some good information to share with you.  Stay tuned!

Went for a stroll during lunch hour.  The gardens are starting to look so lovely.....just look at these hellebores......

..... and they've got daffies busting out all over!

After lunch we reconvened for a 3 hour presentation by Holly Kennell on vegetable gardening...... there was a good gathering of certified Master Gardeners in the back of the room who joined us to earn some CE credits and refresh themselves for the upcoming planting season.  Holly gave us a good primer on layout and preparation of a veggie patch, followed by mounds of information on common vegetable problems, both  abiotic and biotic.  Interesting, but tiring..... we were very ready to head home when all was said and done.

8 down, 4 more to go.