Hello Gardeners,

Our annual Seed Fair will be held at the Eagle Heights Community Center, on Saturday, March 30, from 9:30am – 11am. This event is for our gardeners only, not for the general public. To get your seeds, you’ll give your name to the volunteers at the check-in table, they’ll look up your plot number, and then they’ll give you 15 tickets. (Note: this is 15 tickets per plot, large or small, but gardeners with two small plots will only get a total of 15 tickets.) Each ticket is good for one packet of seeds. We have lots of seeds this year:

Beans

Beets

Broccoli

Brussels Sprouts

Bunching Onions

Cabbage

Carrots

Cauliflower

Celery

Chard

Chinese Cabbage

Collards

Cucumbers

Eggplants

Assorted Greens – European and Asian

Herbs, including Basil, Dill, and Parsley

Kale

Kohlrabi

Lettuce

Melons, including Watermelons and Cantaloupes

Mustard Greens

Okra

Parsnips

Peas

Peppers – both sweet and hot varieties

Radishes

Rutabagas

Spinach

Squash – Summer, Winter, and Pumpkins

Tomatoes

Turnips

We also have a huge selection of flower seeds this year. Flower seeds are “free”, which means you don’t need tickets for them. You’ll have the opportunity to ask gardening questions of two of our very experienced gardeners, and we will be selling row cover, a type of light fabric that protects your plants from insect pests and light frost. (You’ll have other chances to buy row cover later on, if you don’t want to get it at the Seed Fair.)

If you are not able to come to the Seed Fair, but you still want free seeds, email me, and give me a list of the seeds you want. We may already be out of some things, but I’ll gather what I can for you after the Fair, and I’ll leave the seeds for you to pick up at the Community Center.

SEED FAIR VOLUNTEERS – We already have most of the volunteers we need for the Seed Fair, but we could still use a few more people who are bilingual – English/Mandarin or English/Korean. Volunteers will need to report to the Community Center at 8am on March 30 to set up for the Fair, and should commit to staying as late as Noon to clean up. (We’ll probably be done more like 11:30.) Working at the Seed Fair constitutes a workday. It’s fun, but it’s an extremely busy, tiring morning.

GARDEN ORIENTATIONS – We strongly recommend that all new gardeners attend an orientation to learn some of the basics about our gardens, and have an opportunity to ask questions.  We have the following orientations planned for Seed Fair weekend. 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

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.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.

Happy Gardening (soon, we hope),

Kathryn