Winter Sowing Jugs 4/11/2013

So where is Serial Tiller Pat?  

So, did I fall off the end of the earth/garden?  No, I’ve actually have been a busy ole lady in the garden.  Well not the real garden, but getting my winter gardening issues ready to be put to bed for the summer.  Huh?  One of the things I do to get me through the long Minnesota Winters is belong to a Garden Club.  I actually belong to the Champlin Garden Club (which is my cities garden club); however there are more garden clubs to belong to then there are weeds in a first year garden plot.  There are community Garden Clubs, there are Garden Clubs for Ponds, Garden Clubs for Rose growers, there are County Garden Clubs and there are State Garden Clubs.  If you are interested in something specific they got it!

What do we do at the Champlin Garden Club?  Well, we met from August through April once a month.  At the monthly meeting we have guest speakers who talk about a variety of topics.  We have had speakers on “Planning, Planting & Tending a Rain Garden”, “YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT EATS?”, “Orange Punch” and my favorite  “Top Ten Gardening Mistakes”, by speaker Don Englebretson.  All of them were informative; some had more useable information for me than others.  But learning is never a waste of time, and I learned a lot from all the speakers. 

We also do Community Work.  I enjoy the community work but with my job I’m not always sure I can get certain dates off, so volunteering gets to be a bit of a challenge for me at times.  Never one not to carry my share of the load, I tend to volunteer for the organizing part of things and hope I can get time off to do the fun stuff.  Our Club has about 30-40 members and have several projects this year.  They have their 23^rd Annual Plant sale to raise funds for community projects, we are in charge of decorating the Cities Christmas Trees, we take care of Doris Kemp Park and this year we are doing our inaugural Champlin Garden Tour during Father Hennepin days. 

I’m a part of the Champlin Garden Tour Committee and I’ve seen the picture of the gardens on the tour, and all I can say is WOW!  These are truly inspirational gardens that make you want to step up your game and do more!  Now, I’m a vegetable gardener at heart amongst flower gardeners for the most part, and a weed is a weed is a weed.  But I think I could benefit from incorporating both ideologies into my backyard.  With the snowfall still on its way, I am continuing to look out my windows and plan, draw and envision my backyard piece of paradise and the front yard will be next year.  I would encourage everyone to look into joining a garden club; it has been a great educational experience as well as an inspirational experience.  Most Garden Clubs do not meet in the summer (because we all in the garden) but as you spend time in your garden this year.   There is so much more we can all learn and so much more we can teach each other!