Where: In the Learning Garden (just outside of the cafeteria) When: Thursday, July 12
11am-1pm
Local gardener Rebeca Potasnik will teach a workshop on how to set up a water-saving small scale drip irrigation system. You can do
this at home. It’s inexpensive and saves you water and time. Learn by
helping set up our own micro-sprinklers in the garden beds. It’s so easy
you will be amazed.
Everyone is welcome! The workshop is free.
A lot got done in the garden during the work party. New potatoes dug up, strawberries and currants tasted, herbs picked, weeds plucked, plants planted and watered.
Keep your eye out for our next workshop on setting up a micro-drip system in the garden!
Garden expert Lynn Villella says that “after the new moon is a good time for above ground crop planting.” Lynn will be leading another planting work party in the SMU Learning Garden during this post new moon week.
Come and learn about gardening from an expert, ask questions, dig in the dirt, plant some plants, check out our new greenhouse, find out what’s growing in the garden and taste some ripe berries. Have you ever tasted a red currant? Maybe you can get some strawberries too.
Saint Martin’s Learning Garden Party with Lynn Villella The Learning Garden is located just outside if the St. Gertrude Dining Hall. Thursday, June 21 12-2pm
This morning, students from Prof. Porter's First Year Seminar class prepared the ground for the arrival of our new greenhouse! We are thrilled about this new solar gem greenhouse, which is being donated to us by an SMU alumni, Dennis Heitzmann.
planting potatoes
Students also planted potatoes and weeded the garden beds and paths.
red currant
You can already see the delicious currant berries forming on this bush!
This Fall, 2011 alumni magazine Insights published an article written by SMU's Digital Journalism students. The students researched and wrote about the ways that the monks, nuns and students lived off of the land, right here on the SMU campus. Fr. Kilian and Abbot Neal shared great stories - killing chickens and riding horses through the trails. Fr. Peter helped us find archival photos of the campus back in the 1930 and 50s. Take a look at pg. 16 - A Heritage of Sustainability.
The Farm 1950
Student Liz Wrazien, made this companion video to the article.
The first three edible weeds that every PNW Garden can easily include are Chickweed Stellaria media, Dandelion Taraxacum officinale, and Wintercress also known as Shotweed Cardamine oligosperma. These three weeds are true guardians of the soil. They return and recycle nutrients back into the garden soil. They are succulent enough to be natural green manures. Their flowers, seeds and leaves attract pollinators and encourage birds and wild things to come to the garden. They can be fed to chickens and are easy to control. Most importantly they can be enlisted to compete with and help with keeping the less desirable weeds at bay. All of them provide food that is palatable and high in vitamins and minerals for both man and beast throughout the year.
Cardamine oliosperma is at its best in the winter. It is used like water cress. If you can keep track of the newly emerging basil rosettes they have better flavor. It is very tasty mixed with goat or cream cheese and put on toast or crackers or in a cucumber sandwich. This lovely plant is above ground during the colder wetter months providing a protective cover of green leaves to catch and slow the incessant rain here in the winter months preventing erosion of topsoil. When the soil dries out in the spring Wintercress goes to seed with amazing seed dispersal hence the name Shotweed. The plant dries up and disappears reappearing in the fall from self sowing.
Chickweed our beautiful Stellaria media star shaped flowers and succulent leaves. Chickweed will linger into the warmer months but disappears in the hottest part of summer in full sun. If you pull it twice a year it keeps pretty tame. The nice thing is, it is a fine green quite lettuce like, and good in omelets soups.
These plants augment the plants growing in the garden and provide early spring greens. It is also good knowing that you could leave your garden fallow for a year or two and come back to find it mostly full of edible plants.
Saint Martin's University has a rich history of sustainability and continues to aim at sustainable practices today. This video gives a brief overview of that history. Also check out Saint Martin's Insights Magazine, which comes out the third week of December.
It is time for another garden party in the Learning Garden!
Growing your own food can save you a lot of money and help you eat well.
Local expert gardener, Lynn Villella, will lead a workshop on how to winterize your garden. Lynn will show us how to prepare the garden beds for the winter and what kind of crops to plant.
Drop by for a free hands on “Winter Garden” workshop in the SMU Learning Garden.
Tuesday, Nov 15
Between 9:30 and 1pm (drop by any time, stay as long as you like)
The Learning Garden (outside of the dining hall)
Be prepared to pull radishes, plant garlic, have some hot cider and more!
Sustainable South Sound is putting on the Food Summit.
"The goal of the Food Summit is to bring our community together to celebrate, network and develop an action plan for a safe, local and sustainable food system."
October 14 community potluck and activities are all FREE! The keynote speaker, Mark Winne is the author of Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart Cookin’ Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture and Closing the Food Gap.
Olympia artist David Scherer Water will be holding an art workshop in the SMU garden next Tuesday, July 19 from 1:30-3:30pm.
Join the Anthropology of New Urbanism class and help make beautiful garden art out of found and recycled objects.
Please seek out and bring any plastic, metal or non-food lightweight junk you may find, acquire from housemates, family. Broken toys are great.
David Scherer Water enjoys making things out of junk. He's the artist responsible for "The Flat Win Company" which sells neatly packaged found materials back to people. Products include empty beer cans, burnt toast, twigs and small bags of gravel. David got his first "big break" as a visual artist when he was given permission to decorate the lobby and halls of a small apartment complex in downtown Olympia, The Martin Building.
Wondering what to do after you graduate next year? Take a look at this awesome new program. It's like Americorps but all about growing gardens.
"The vision for FoodCorps is to recruit young adults for a yearlong term of public service in school food systems. Once stationed, FoodCorps members will build Farm to School supply chains, expand food system and nutrition education programs, and build and tend school food gardens.
The ultimate goal of the organization is to increase the health and prosperity of vulnerable children while investing in the next generation of farmers and public health leaders."
This seems like a great opportunity to participate in the new garden revolution. And there are other perks too. Participants receive the following benefits:
A biweekly stipend totaling $15,000 for the year Health insurance, if not covered under another policy Child care, if necessary Student loan forbearance A $5,550 Education Award for past or future education Career mentoring, professional development, and strong work experience
Garden Parties should always start with lunch in the sun. for more pics go here There was a new visitor squatting on the side of the shed - a wasp. She didn't bother us. and another one, lounging on a mint leaf - a lady bug with no dots. we built a trellis, planted some lettuce and weeded and fed the strawberries. Thanks to Tanya from Bon Appetit for feeding us with iced tea and treats!!
The sun is finally out and the weather report says that it should get up into the 70s this week. Come garden with us tomorrow Wed May 18, 12-1pm. We will be planting, weeding and building stuff in the garden. Bring your lunch and eat outside!
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