Monday, August 27, 2012

I Can't Believe It's Almost September!

Getting everyone in the speed
weeding mood: coordinator, Annette Pasterak!
We just concluded our first every "Weed Dating!"  Thanks to Annette Pasternak and Ingrid Schneider for doing the work to pull this thing off!  It was our first ever Weed Dating and everyone felt it was very successful - some weeds got pulled, some new friends made and a lot of folks had a fun afternoon.   We have no new relationships to report yet, but you never know!  

August was a fun packed month for those of us with Learning Garden and September, usually one of our more action packed months is just a few days away.  

This is the first blog post of the new web page - now all the posts that used to just hang out on The Learning Garden Almost Daily blog now will be updated on The Learning Garden's home page (http://www.thelearninggarden.org/blog/tlgdaily/).  The posts will continue to go up here and are automatically forwarded to the Garden's page, so you have your choice.  

So our September lineup is, as follows: 


01 September, 10 - Noon, What To Do And When To Do It, with Gardenmaster David King.  $20 at the gate and one of the best bargains around!  We'll be working on getting the fall garden planted and productive for you -always fun and informative.  No need to RSVP, just arrive! (Please note, the time is 10 to noonnot nine to noon - we changed the time but it has just come to our attention that some of our materials still had  the 9 AM start time still... Sorry for any confusion.) While the topic always fluctuates depending on questions and we seize on any 'learning  moments' as they arrive, part of this month's discussion, we will collect seeds from a squash and a tomato and prepare them to be saved, we will plant broccoli and seeds of other winter plants, talk compost and fertilizer and other exciting gardenery things!

08 September 9 to 2, Pepperdine 'Step Forward Day' Pepperdine students come out to help put the garden into shape for the coming school year - come on out and enjoy the energy!  We'll be helping get the high school beds set up for this term and we'll be working in our compost area to put that in a whole new order.

09 September 9 to 2 - Mar Vista Farmers' Market, The Learning Garden's Seed To Sale Program with Venice High School Students learning all aspects of the getting fresh food to the table, from planting and growing to packaging and marketing.  Come by our booth at the farmers' market and see the fresh food for sale!

11 September to 13 September The National Heirloom Festival - 2nd year at Santa Rosa!  We'll need replacement gardenmasters that week because our own is going!  If you can, join him at the Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA) table.*


15 September, 2:30 to 4:00 PM the monthly meeting of the Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA) meets on The Learning Gardne's patio.  Check out your fall seeds; broccoli, cabbage, fava beans, peas, radishes, carrots, beets  and more!

22 September, 1 to 4 PM our 8th Annual Pesto Day returns!  Shine up them tastebuds and come on out and chow down with us!  We make the 'besto pesto!' For a mere ten bucks we  will serve you pasta with pesto, Italian salad, Italian sausage, Italian lemonade (or ice tea, depending on what the Lemon Gods decide) and desert along with our unrivaled pesto demonstration on our patio.   

29 September 2 to 5 - Weedy Sunday in the Garden - helping the Traditional Chinese Medicine Herb Garden beautify and shine - and saving seeds of these often rare plants (certainly most of them are pretty rare in the US!).

30 September, 1 to 5 - first class meeting of UCLA Extension's"Modern Backyard Food Production" taught by Gardenmaster David King - enroll via UCLA Extension's webste.

05 October, 10 to Noon - and it's time for What To Do And When To Do It again!  

And don't forget: 12:30 to about 1:30 Every Friday in the Garden we have our weekly potluck - a wide variety of good food and eclectic conversation - everybody with a good attitude is welcome!


Looking ahead, don't forget to plan on our Thanksgiving Celebration at 11:00 AM on Thanksgiving Day.  We invite the staff and clients of the Program for Torture Victims as our guests for the meal. We do this early in the day so we have the afternoon free for our family events.  This is one of the great traditions of The Learning Garden; please join us!  



*Sign up to be a Gardenmaster! We need folks to commit to being present and responsible for the Garden on these following days:



Wednesday (12th)
Thursday (13th)
Friday (14th)
10:00 to 12:30






12:30 to 3:00






3:00 to 5:00






The hours are suggested – if you can do more, that's OK – there might be someone who wants to do less. The earlier Friday shifts are always desirable because the potluck happens at 12:30 on Friday and there are always people around. The compensation is negligible, but the rewards are enormous!

Drop by our new and improved web site where you'll find updated information and links, blog posts on events at The Learning Garden as well as gardening information and musings of Learning Garden staff and volunteers.

Follow us on Facebook.

But most of all:  show up at the Learning Garden and join our community!

david