A great deal on Home Composters! April 17th

The Frederick County Department of Solid Waste Management (DSWM) is hosting a truckload compost bin sale on Saturday, April 17, 2010, 9am-3pm.

The event will be held outdoors, rain or shine.

The bins being sold are Earth Machines, which regularly retail for $100 and will be offered for $40, including tax and a composting handbook. Kitchen compost collectors and compost turners will also be available for purchase.

The sale is being held in the FrederickTowne Mall parking lot. For more information, email acreamer@FrederickCountyMD.gov.

Free Gardening Workshops!

Click on the picture for a better view of the flyer

Not that we need any more reasons to grow our own food, but this is a great explanation about how our global food system works ( or doesn't work for that matter). Thanks Michael for sending me this link!

How to feed the world ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.

What are you doing for Earth day?

Spring is quickly approaching which means Earth Day is also coming up soon.

Nowadays one Earth Day just isn't enough, so many organizations are putting on events during that whole week, or even through the whole month of April. Here is a brief list of Earth Day happenings around Frederick.

April 10th: The FCGA and the Common Market are joining forces to work on projects in the Garden. This will take place from 10-2pm.

Our Common Wealth is putting on a series of events that started last week

http://www.friendsoffrederickcounty.org/v2/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/POSTCARD-SPRING-2010.jpg

April 16th: Monocacy Valley Montessori Charter School is Holding an Earth Day fair from 1-4 p.m.

April 24th: EARTH DAY POLLINATOR GARDEN PLANTING AND LAKE CLEAN-UP WITH THE IZAAK WALTON LEAGUE

http://earthday.org/events/earth-day-pollinator-garden-planting-and-lake-clean-izaak-walton-league-0

Talk back! Let us know what your plans are for celebrating Earth Day in the comments section.

Interactive Planting Calendar

If you have gardened before you know it can be a bit confusing to keep track of everything going on in your garden.

I have looked all over the internet for an interactive planting calendar that tells me when to plant what seeds. Since I couldn't find one that suited my needs, I decided to create one. Below is a link to an excel spreadsheet. You can put in the last frost date and it will give you dates for starting seeds indoors, sowing outside, transplanting, and harvesting. Please let me know if something is inaccurate and I will fix it.

Happy Gardening!

Interactive Planting Calendar

Sustainable Frederick

Check out this great blog about sustainability!

Sustainable Frederick

Raised Bed Workshop

I will be out in the garden on Saturday, March 20th at 12pm to assist anyone who wants to build a raised bed.

There's lot's of ways to build both, but if you need some guidance, here is a list of materials to purchase for a very simple design.

* please not that some of these items have been updated from the last post

Raised bed:

• two 4' long pieces of 2"x6" 2'x8' or 2"x12" untreated wood. ( treated wood is highly inadvisable because it releases toxic chemicals into the food you are growing)
• two 6' long pieces of 2"x6" 2x 6" or 2"x 12" untreated wood
• four large "L" shaped brackets and screws
• Box of 3-1/8" nails
• Hammer

Mini-Hoop House

• three 6' or 10' long 1/2" PVC pipes
• 12 pipe mounting brackets ( must fit your pvc pipes) and screws
• enough clear plastic drop cloth or hoophouse cover to fit over your hoops( let me know if you are interested on going in on a roll together)
• giant binder clips (not found at hardware stores)
  

Other useful Materials

• a power drill if you have one - I'm bringing one, but it would be nice to have more than one.
• a level

That's it. Easy as pie! If you have any questions about this feel free to email me. If you bring this list to the hardware store they can probably help you pick up everything you need.

Also check out these links for ideas

Hoop Houses:

this one give you a picture of the pipe brackets that I mentioned in the list
http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2009/04/on-hoophouses/

http://www.agrowingtradition.com/2009/10/building-mini-hoop-houses.html

Raised Beds:

http://organicgardening.about.com/od/startinganorganicgarden/a/raisedbed.htm

http://www.thegardenhelper.com/bed~const.html