It's a Busy Time In The Learning Garden

A few seconds after this was snapped, these figs tasted delicious!

Every year we seem to be busier and busier and lately it seems to have hit fever pitch.  This summer has been cool (until this week, at least), leaving tomatoes and figs to ripen later - it's rare for us to have three trees full of figs in September.  I usually take my August breakfast in the Garden - I'll walk to the fig trees with my cup of coffee and pick all I want for breakfast.  Here's the list of all we are busy with in September!

10 September - 9 to noon - It's Step Forward Day for the Pepperdine Waves!  We'll have about 50 volunteers from Pepperdine doing their annual service day.  It's a tradition for a crew of them to show up at The Learning Garden just after school starts; they clear out the high school garden beds so the current crop of high school gardeners this term can start with a clean 'slate.'  Come on out if you want to help supervise and keep the work moving forward.

10 September - noon to 1:00 The Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA) Best Practices committee meets on our patio.  Best Practices is the committee that decides the seeds we need to save and how best to save them.

10 September - 2:30 to 4:00 SLOLA's monthly meeting takes place in our picnic area.  I'll present a short program on saving lettuce seeds (easy!) and we'll take care of a little SLOLA business. After the meeting, SLOLA members will be able to check out seeds from the library. $10 gets you a lifetime membership.

17 September - 9:00 to noon Westside Produce Exchange meets on or about our patio - in the AM folks come and drop off their excess produce; at noon volunteers come in and separate the excess into different bags - you come back later in the day and pick up a bag of everyone else's excess and they get yours!  It's a win/win kind of deal.

17 September - Time TBA - Our Time Bank has a potluck with new member orientation.  Check their website for updates.

24 September - 2:00 to 5:00PM - Pesto Madness returns!  Shine up your taste buds!  This is our annual fund raiser with jars of our famous pesto for sale, $8.00 each.  $10 gets you in and you get a pesto making demonstration, a garden tour, but most importantly, a plate of pasta with our famous Pesto Madness Pesto, made with our own home grown Italian basil, heirloom garlic, fresh olive oil and pine nuts and aged Parmesan cheese, Italian sausage, bread, ice tea and a desert to top it off!  

Take a gardening class from this man!

25 September - 1:00 to 5:00PM - Modern Backyard Food Production, a UCLA Extension Gardening and Horticulture class begins in the Garden, meeting until early December.  As of this writing, there are still a few spaces left in the class.

01 October - 9:00 AM - noon - Growing Food In Southern California with Gardenmaster David King. This 9 to noon workshop centers on what to do in the coming months as Southern California heads into our 'other Spring' and one of our best, and least understood, growing seasons! You'll learn what to plant and how to plant it, what varieties go best here and why and all about getting the best garlic you will ever have! Dress to get into the garden and get dirty, The Learning Garden can be cooler than you think any time of year, so dress in layers. Coffee and garden-made mint tea will be served please bring your own cup! Email greenteach@gmail.com for more information. No need to RSVP – class goes on no matter what! $25 at the gate... 

01 October 1 to 4 PM Victory Garden Classes returns!  Join Gardenmaster, Master Gardener David King for this University of California Cooperative Extension Common Ground Garden Program that certifies the students as Victory Gardeners - trained back yard (or front yard!) food growers!  $20 per class or $70 for the series of four...  Email greenteach@gmail.com for more information... 

And October looks like it will be just as busy, so make plans to come out to The Learning Garden sometime for one of our events!

david