From the Gardens Registrar: PARKING INFORMATION – IMPORTANT; More Fun With Sweet Potatoes; Lakeshore Nature Preserve; New Orientation Day Added; Bring In Your Plant Pots; Ask Our Garden Experts; Gardening Manual

Hello Gardeners,

PARKING – Parking for the Eagle Heights Gardens is along Eagle Heights Drive. We do not allow parking or driving in the gardens. If you have tools and equipment to bring to the garden, please park along EH Drive, go get a garden cart, and bring it to your car to unload your stuff. The entrance to the gardens is at a dangerous intersection at the top of the hill, where visibility is poor – if you drop things off by the gate, you will have to back out on to Lake Mendota Drive, where there is the real possibility that you will be hit by another vehicle, or will run into a pedestrian or bicyclist. Yes, getting a cart takes longer, but it is much safer.

SWEET POTATOES IN CONTAINERS – Two UW students have been awarded a grant for their project on building community through sweet potatoes. They will be experimenting with container-growing methods for sweet potatoes on the land used by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) next to our community garden at Eagle Heights, and are reaching out to some community organizations as part of the project. They will attend our Seed Fair and demonstrate their designs. They will also be able to provide some 5-gallon buckets and other materials for growing sweet potatoes in containers. Look for them at the same table as the Sweet Potato Project – that’s the project that provides free sweet potato slips to gardeners who will donate half of their crop to food pantries.

LAKESHORE NATURE PRESERVE – The Eagle Heights Gardens are situated in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, a 300-acre natural area along the south shore of Lake Mendota. Because we are part of the preserve, we require our gardeners to follow their rules. Please note that collecting or picking of plants or branches is not allowed in the Preserve. We do our best to furnish sticks for our gardeners to use for climbing plants. Please do not forage in the woods that border our gardens.

The Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve will also have a table at our Seed Fair. They will be handing out informational brochures with maps, and will also have some fun activities for adults and children.

GARDEN ORIENTATIONS – We have added another garden orientation to our schedule for this weekend. We don’t require it, but we do strongly recommend that all new gardeners attend an orientation to learn some of the basics about our gardens.  This is the schedule (all orientations will start at the garden shed):

Saturday, March 30         Eagle Heights                               11:30 a.m.           Orientation in Mandarin

Saturday March 30           Eagle Heights                              12:00 Noon        Orientation in English

Sunday March 31              Eagle Heights                             12:00 Noon        Orientation in English

(NEW!)

Saturday March 30           University Houses Gardens          11:30 a.m.           Orientation in English

Sunday March 31              University Houses Gardens          1:30 p.m.             Orientation in English

Orientations will take 30 – 45 minutes or so, depending on how many people have questions. If you aren’t able to attend one of the scheduled orientations but would still like to get oriented, please let me know, and I may be able to meet you at another time to show you around.

PLANT POTS – Do you have piles of plant pots and trays taking up space in your basement, garage, dining room table, refrigerator, etc? Now’s your chance to get rid of them. Stack them up and bring them to the Seed Fair, to Room 139. We’ll have an exchange. You know they multiply over the winter – declutter, and spark joy in someone else!

GARDEN EXPERTS – And while you’re in Room 139, leaving or taking plant pots, be sure to talk to the two experienced gardeners who have agreed to answer questions for beginning gardeners. This is a great opportunity for guidance.

GARDENING MANUAL – Our website has quite a lot of information on gardening, but the very best resource is a manual written by a former gardener, Robin Mittenthal, which he put together specifically for new gardeners gardening here at Eagle Heights/University Houses. Here is a link: http://www.eagleheightsgardens.org/tips/garden_manual_v_1.12.pdf

It’s 108 pages! But if you only read the first few pages, you’ll already learn some important things. Robin really knew his stuff, so take a look at it.

Happy Gardening and see you at the Seed Fair, (which, as you recall, will be Saturday, March 30, from 9:30 – 11am, at the Eagle Heights Community Center.)

Kathryn