Spring is in the air...

It happens every year... yet it is always new...

So much is going on in and around the garden (and in my head) right now in preparation for our growing and educational season.  

I have started some lettuce seeds in the greenhouse. It's probably too early, as we still get some really cold nights and the greenhouse is not heated, but it's worth the try I thought...

We are getting ready to have children's workshops in March and I'm preparing for that...

There is quite a bit of cleaning to do, some digging, raking and - the list goes on.

Our Shiitake workshop has nearly 40 people signed up - we will see the actual turnout this saturday, and I will post plenty of pictures :)

I wanted to share some pictures from our Friday Flower Pot Extravaganza here:)

Huge thanks goes out to Hitomi for organizing this event and to Takuro for opening up the clay studio so graciously and for donating clay!!! Thanks guys!

We had a nice turnout of people, and they all turned out some great pots! 

Here are Crystal and Kacy hard at work and having fun:)

Gloria getting instruction from Hitomi:)

And Takuro, with little Ken:)

There were also Bruce from Bulldog Pottery, Evan and Mike and Weezy from Wet Dog Glass,

Santiago the do-it--all man, Adam the Ad-Hoc, and Andreas. Well. I was there too.

On Sunday Adam and I went back to trim the bottoms, drill the holes, and throw plates to go under pots...

We will repeat the extravaganza again this friday, from 4:30 to ...

I will start herbs, and flowers suitable for pots, or garden soon, and STARgarden will have the

Flowerpot Fundraiser in the beginning of May.

Come join us!

Flowerpots

STARworks Ceramics is hosting a flowerpot making extravaganza on Feb. 20'th at 4:30 pm and Feb. 27'th at 4:30 pm. Bruce and Samantha did a great job at posting more info about this on their BLOG, so check it out! Hope to see you!

Shiitake growing workshop

STARgarden is hosting a Shiitake growing workshop on February 28, (Saturday) from 10 am to 12 pm. Workshop instructor is Greg Bender who has grown Shiitake's for 7 years. We are partnering with NC A&T to make this workshop possible. Participation is free. Bring your own 2 oak logs. We can provide some logs for a small fee. For more information and to register, please contact Anne Pärtna: anne@starworksnc.org or #(336) 653 9551

Greenhouse is UP!

I finally have something to brag about.

Here is a more or less step by step photo account on our greenhouse progress.

Million thanks go out to Wet Dog Glass peeps Eddie, Angela, Phil and Evan for lending a hand and all the others for moral support! I can't thank Adam enough for listening to all my ramblings of how we should do things and occasionally messing up his plans and for being always ready to help with anything to do with this garden project.

Thanks for Lyza and Andreas for being patient and good sports, and for Weezy who helped Lyza and Andreas to be good sports this weekend:)

Thank you Nancy and Beth for writing up a great grant and finding us money for this project!

And great thanks to Nancy's parents who donated a bunch of gardening tools last year - I use them all the time!

This project was made possible with a grant from the Conservation Fund's Resourceful Communities Program!  A HUGE THANKS!

Building the skeleton.

Center post is up.

Helping hands.

Hmm... so how should we do this?

The plastic goes over.

Nice'n tight

This way? What do you think?

I can see it... green!

"evens withs titaniums arms he's liftings heavy things"

Greenhouse

Adam has been busy in the garden past couple of days, while I've been staying warm in the office, working on workshop brochure, making to-do lists and pouring through some catalogues. This morning I found Adam doing this out there... looks easy, eh?

School lunches and garden update

What a beautiful day it was yesterday! Adam and I spent most of the day in the garden, leveling the greenhouse floor more and moving the soil and compost around. In the future BioFuels space there are some old plastic tanks that will be cut up and we're hoping to use some of the cross sections to build oval and round shaped flower/veggie beds around the garden. We're keeping a close check on the weather and any dry/warmish window will be used to erect the greenhouse. Posts are in the ground and leveled, concrete poured to anchor them... I will post the next steps as they are completed.

As we all know School lunches are in a BAD shape in this country... Adam found this article yesterday and i wanted to share it with ya'll. 

School Lunches.