Community Garden - Henderson County

Just because you do not have a garden or a space for a garden, does not mean you cannot grow your own fresh, organic produce close to home.

Come join your neighbors in Jackson Park at the Bountiful Harvest Community Garden scheduled to open on April 22, 2009, Earth Day.

Applications for a soil amended 4’ X 16’ plot are available at the Henderson County Cooperative Extension Office, also in Jackson Park. The cost is only $5 for the entire season!

Gardening help from Extension master gardener volunteers, classes, free seeds, and even harvest information are all included with your garden plot at no extra charge.

Call 697-4891 for more information. Watch this video produced by WLOS to see what all the excitement is about.

WLOS Community Garden

Master Your Garden Lectures - Spring 2009

Henderson County Extension Master Gardener Volunteers are offering a series of lectures for a small fee of $5.00 per participant for each program. Money raised is used to support future educational efforts by the Volunteers. All lectures will be held on at 1:00pm in the classroom at the Bullington Center.

Spring 2009 Schedule

March 23rd – Wild Flowers – Alan Mizeras
April 13th – Build a Patio Fountain – Barbara Beck
April 27th – Vegetable Gardening - Pierre Hart
May 4th – Build a Hypertufa Pot – Ginger Brown (additional $25.00 fee)
May 11th – So You Think You Know How to Plant – Tamsin Allpress

To register for these or other upcoming Mastering Your Garden Lectures, call the Extension office at 697-4891. Keep checking our website http://henderson.ces.ncsu.edu/ for more information on upcoming lectures.

Beginning Beekeepers School

The Haywood County Extension Center will sponsor a Beginning Beekeepers School on Saturday, March 21st and 28th at the Extension Center on Raccoon Road in Waynesville. The program will begin at 9:00am and end at 3:00pm each day. This program is designed to help individuals understand the basics of beekeeping. If you are interested in this program please call 828-456-3575.

The cost of this program will be $20.00.

The Importance of Farmland in Your Community

March 19, 2009
7 - 8:30 pm
Haywood County Extension Office Auditorium
589 Raccoon Road
Waynesville, NC 28786

Farmland is important to residents of Haywood County. At this meeting we will report on the findings of two three-year studies on the value of farmland and ways to keep farming prosperous in your community. The Farmland Values Project is led by Leah Greden Mathews at UNC Asheville and the Farm Prosperity Project is led by Jeanine Davis at the NC State Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River. The Farmland Values Project will share results from surveys and focus groups about what local residents and visitors value about farmland, including their willingness to contribute to local farm protection efforts, with a focus on results from Haywood County. Results confirm the importance of farmland for maintaining residents’ quality of life, access to local food, and the scenic beauty of our region. The Farm Prosperity Project will explain how they worked with local farmers to develop tools to help farmers make decisions about their farms, how to preserve them, and what to grow. They will also discuss the research that has been conducted on organic and heirloom tomatoes. This meeting and three others in surrounding counties are designed specifically for the general public. There will also be a meeting for farmers (March 12) and one for local officials (April 15). Please call Terri Schell at 684-3562 to reserve a seat. Walk-ins are welcome, but we can plan better if you call ahead. Directions can be found at http://haywood.ces.ncsu.edu/. More information is available about these projects at http://www.unca.edu/farmlandvalues and http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/specialty_crops/farmprosperity/index.htm. These projects are funded by grants from the USDA-CSREES Small and Mid-Sized Farms Program.

The Farmland Values and Farm Prosperity projects are supported by the National Research Initiative of the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, grants #2005-35618-15647 and #2005-35618-15645.