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Pea Patch Class Schedule

2011 Class Schedule

All classes held at the Spicewood Community Library, unless otherwise noted

1011 Spur 191, Spicewood, 78669

$10 Donation suggested.

For more info or to rsvp:

SpicewoodLibrary.org

LindaWall@gmail.com

830-220-0320

February 26th ~ Seed Starting
March 26th ~ Basic Organic Vegetable Gardening
April and May ~ Postponed (too many events such as Easter going on)

June ~Pests and Diseases

July ~ Seed Saving

August ~ Food: Why Eating Local is Better
September ~ Preserving the Harvest
October ~ Winter Gardening
November ~ Basic Landscape Design with focus on edible landscaping and herbs

December ~ Break

Spicewood Library's Fruit Tree Class a Success!

Under a bright blue sky on a mild winter day, the Spicewood Library's Pea Patch held an outdoor class on the selection planting and care of fruit trees, berries, grape vines and more. Class members filed into the Pea Patch and sat at folding tables and on wooden benches, eager to learn how to select, plant and care for fruiting trees and plants.

Ably presented by the very knowledgeable and engaging gardening expert Linda Wall, the class consisted of beginner and experienced alike. The eleven class attendees received instruction on planting and selection, an explanation of chill hours and why they are important, and handouts on the best varieties of fruits, nuts, grapes and brambles for the Spicewood area. Linda also demonstrated various pruning techniques, answered questions from the attendees, and as a bonus, class members could select from several types of fig tree cuttings to take home with them. "Even though I have had fruit trees for many years, I learned a lot from this class," said attendee Kelly Baty.

This successful class, with 11 people in attendance, was the first in a year-long series of Organic Gardening classes to be held each month at the Spicewood Library Pea Patch. Future class subjects will include basic organic gardening, seed saving, and preserving the harvest. The Pea Patch is an organic teaching garden where the public is invited to learn how to grow their own food organically and sustainably. Organizers expect it to grow from the current fenced patch of wide-row planting beds to a full-fledged demonstration garden with a greenhouse, cold frames, herb garden, grape arbor, raised beds and more. If you would like to donate materials, money or time to help them reach this goal, please contact Linda at the email address or phone number below.

The next class will be "Seed Starting: From Seed to Fork" on Saturday, February 26, at 2pm. Linda Wall, who grew up on a farm and is currently working at the Natural Gardener in Austin, will demonstrate how to start your own plants from seed, saving you money and allowing you to grow heirloom and hard-to-find varieties of veggies and flowers. "Seed starting doesn't just save you money," Linda says. "It lets you get started earlier, gives you access to varieties of plants you won't find in the nurseries, and is just plain fun!" A suggested donation of of $10.00 will go to support the Pea Patch, the Spicewood Library's community Organic Teaching Garden. Space is limited, so sign-up now! Contact Linda at: 830-220-0320 lindawall@gmail.com or visit: spicewoodlibrary.org.

January Class ~ Fruits, Nuts and Berries

Growing Your Own Fruits, Nuts and Berries: A Basic Class with Linda Wall

Have you ever wanted to start a home orchard, strawberry patch or just plant a fig tree in the back yard, but were daunted by all the talk of "chill hours", pruning and spray schedules?  Learn how with plant expert Linda Wall.  She'll help you understand what those chill hours are and why they are so important, teach you how and when to prune (it's really easy!), and fill you in on the types of fruits you don't have to spray (yes, there really are some).

This, the first in a series of fun and informative Organic gardening classes at the Spicewood Library, will be held on January 22, 2011 at 2pm. A suggested donation of $10.00 goes to support the "Pea Patch", the Spicewood Library's Organic teaching garden.

For  more information, please contact Linda Wall at (830) 220-0320 lindawall@gmail.com
Light refreshments provided. Space is limited, so sign-up today!

Plant Sale Success!

Just got home from the plant sale and we did very well! $189!

Thanks to everyone who came and bought plants. This was our first try at it and I would have been happy with a hundred dollars. We almost doubled that and I'm ecstatic! To give you an idea of how much that is, it's:
189 packages of seeds
or 14 cubic yards of composted cow manure
or half of the Pea Patch greenhouse
or the entire water system for the 38x17 wide row plot, including a timer
or almost half of the garden shed on our want list
or 18 fruit trees (where are we going to put them all?!)
or the entire asparagus patch, complete with soil ammendments and fertilizer for a year.

We had very few plants left ~ not even enough to completely fill the back of my little Toyota truck. Not bad when you think what we started with (picture above, and that's not all of them). Thanks to Alice, Kelly, Connie and Bettie for all the help and plants. And to all the new friends we met today ~ thank you, thank you, thank you for buying them! We enjoyed meeting every one of you and look forward to working with you in the Pea Patch next year.


The book fair inside did quite a good bit of business as well ~ almost $800! That's a lot of books sold and a lot more books we can buy. Incredible. Jane was busy all day long both Friday and Saturday and it sure paid off.

I have to add this:

The next gorgeous piece of art made by Alice (left), Carol (right) and their quilting group. It will be raffled off to benefit the library. Each year they make one of these and each year it's more beautiful than the last.

Now I'm headed outside to plant some garlic before the rain comes...

The Plan

A group of us with the Spicewood Community Library are building a teaching garden. This will be an organic garden where we'll hold classes for the general public on things like seed starting, saving true seed, intensive planting, building good soil, etc. It will also be a demonstration garden, giving people ideas on a cheap way to build a greenhouse, how to build and use cold frames, different ways of building beds (rock, wood, roofing metal, cinder blocks, unsided wide rows, etc.), how to make gardening accessible for the physically challenged, and where people who've never tried out an uncommon tool like a diamond hoe can do so before buying one. I hope to also have guest lecturers as often as possible. And I'll be talking to the elementary school next door to see if they can use it as well.

We're not going to do the first planting 'til late January and first class 'til atleast spring. At first, it'll be small class size, on things that can be taught in half-hour or hour classes, like making tomato cages out of cement form wire, direct seeding (depth and spacing) and installing drip irrigation. As time goes on and we raise money/donations for the greenhouse, more seating with tables for desks, etc., we'll hold larger, longer and more regular classes.
So far, the county commissioner has leveled the 80'x60' plot for us, and we have a fence built around it. The wire was donated by Bob Lacey, a local resident, and the rest of it, including labor and those gorgeous posts you see in the pictures, was donated by Austex Fence (SUCH nice guys!). Isn't it gorgeous?! Once Austex is finished building the gate, they'll come back out to hang it and cut the posts off all the same height.

And here's the plot plan I've drawn for the hardscape. Walkways around the large areas are atleast five feet wide. The wide row plot will hold seven 3'x17' beds with two foot wide walkways. The fruit tree and grape areas are eight feet deep.

We still have much to do and many things to obtain. I've made a list of both and put them here:

Want List

~*~

ToDo List and Schedule

I'll be updating those as we go along, so those lists will be changing over time (hopefully with the Want List getting shorter and the To Do List getting longer!).

It will be some time before the final garden looks like the plan above, but we'll get there. I'm so looking forward to the journey!

The Map

We've got a plan! Everything fit nicely in 80'x60'. Yeah, it'll take a few years to look exactly like this map, but I'm excitedly looking forward to it.