Tag Archives: gardening

Dirt2Table: Springing into Autumn: A Gardening Celebration

Now that community residents have been through their gardening season, fruits of our labor are being realized through fresh vegetables and fruits harvested, eaten, canned, and dried!

But just because summer is coming to a close does not mean the gardening is over!  We would love to hear your gardening stories, share a taste of your goodies, and participate in continuing education on gardening.

springintoautumneventTo that end, Fairpark Community Council and Dirt2Table will hold an Autumn Equinox Celebration on Saturday, September 30th from 10-2pm at the Northwest Community Center.  We will have workshops on grafting and pruning, making cold frames, and fall and winter garden maintenance. We will ask residents to celebrate their garden adventures through the sharing of seeds, bulbs and scion wood as well as something from the garden (fresh, canned, dried, a recipe from garden goodies, etc.).

So as you enjoy the results of your gardening efforts this month, begin gathering your ideas for goodies to share, and plan to attend the celebration! Bring your friends and neighbors! Please save the date and watch for more details, including workshop times. Check our website, Nextdoor, Facebook page, September’s Gazette and posted flyers in the community.

 

More information:  dirt2tableslc@gmail.com

Second Annual Fairpark Festival of Spring Huge Success

18216421_1505291439489374_3659562656535945756_oGardeners from all over our community, as well as from surrounding areas flocked to the event on a cool spring day. There were over 300 people who attended, and the Plant Sale sold almost 2,000 plants during the four-hour Festival. Although some needed sweaters on the cool day, the weather didn’t stop hundreds from visiting the various tables. Salt Lake County Recreation, Lead Safe Housing Program,18278182_1505292946155890_2616975938661617678_o
Jackson Elementary and Utah Department of Health Safe Kids Injury Prevention Program all provided outreach and education materials for the Festival.

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Because of the enthusiasm and support for this year’s event, organizers are in the process of planning another complimentary event this fall. The current plans for the event will include a workshop for grafting fruit trees, a seed, bulb and scion wood exchange, a cold frame workshop and a garden veggie based potluck! See fairparkcommunity.org for more information.

Dirt2Table:

FOS Plant SaleSpring Festival and Plant Sale!

It’s almost here! The Fairpark Community Festival of Spring and Plant Sale, hosted by the Fairpark Community Council and several community partners, April 29th at the Northwest Community Center. The greenhouse has been erected at All Chay restaurant (1250 West 500 North) and the plants are growing!

Watch for information about pre-orders of plants for your garden. Stop by the greenhouse and check it out!

In the meantime, be sure to be preparing your garden area for the plants you will have this year. We will be writing more articles on gardening in general this season. More information: dirt2tableslc@gmail.com or 801-502-1991.

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Dirt2Table: Spring is Coming! Plant your Seeds Now!

dirt2tableIsn’t it fantastic? The days keep getting longer, the low temperatures keep getting higher and the dirt is thawing out. Soon, we can get our hands in it and prepare it for giving us back the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor.

During the month of March, we should all take advantage of the dirt’s willingness to start growing an array of wonderful treats for our tables. Among those plants that can be planted by seed in March are greens such as kale, spinach, chard and lettuce. It’s also a good time to plant seeds for root vegetables such as carrots, beets and onions. There are many varieties of each of the food plants mentioned, so have fun and plant as many varieties as you can!
Don’t forget that the Fairpark Community Council will be working hard between now Save the Date Flyer 2017and April 29th to grow a delectable assortment of starter plants, ready for you
to plant out in your patch of dirt by May 1st. We will be starting herbs, tomatoes, eggplant and pepper plants soon so that by the end of April they will be established
and ready to thrive in your garden. This year, to create an event that provides more value to our Community than just a plant sale, we are having the First Annual Fairpark
Community Festival of Spring and Plant Sale. The event will feature a seed giveaway and plant sale like last year, but will also include many educational booths and workshops to help make your spring and summer more enjoyable for
all.

If you have any ideas to help make this Festival of Spring and Plant Sale a success, please reach out to Tom King at 801-502-1991 or write to dirt2tableslc@gmail.com.

Get your Garden on with Fairpark Community’s First Annual Plant Sale!

Got Garden?

We have just what you need to fill it up!

EventFlyerAfter months of hard work by volunteers, the Fairpark Community Council’s First Annual Plant Sale is almost here!  Almost 4,000 veggies and herb plants are being cared for by dedicated volunteers.  The seedlings are growing like wild and will be sure to enhance any garden in our neighborhood with culinary delights.

Read more here (http://fairparkcommunity.org/?p=814) about how to pre-order your plants and pick them up as early as the end of April, and view full catalogs of the availalbe varieties of vegetables and herbs, as well as a full color listing of the vegetable seeds that will be given away at the May 14 event.

How did this all start?

The FCC Board decided to take advantage of the Salt Lake City annual Signature Event Fund application in fall of 2015. The FCC Board decided that a fun event would be a plant sale and education event.    The scope of events that happened after that was amazing!

IMG_2154A donation of a structure that looks very much like a bus shelter was timely.  Volunteers dismantled the structure over a weekend in late February and the following weekend rebuilt it at All Chay restaurant (1264 W 500 N), the proprietors of which graciously donated space for the project. The next 6 weeks were busy with fine tuning the structure with materials to make it a functioning greenhouse, planting seeds, separating seedlings, watering the plants and generating interest in our community for the project. Tom King, project lead, appeared on KRCL Radio’s Punk Rock Farmer show on April 15 to discuss and promote the project.seedlingseparation

The next few weeks will be spent continuing the care of the plants, advertising and promoting the event, taking pre-orders with the culminating plant sale event at Northwest Community Center, Saturday, May 14 at 10am.

As a special incentive to get people to attend the May 14 event, we will be offering free seeds for lettuce, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers and more! There will fun be activities for kids of all ages.

View the full color listing of the vegetable seeds that will be given away here.

IMG_2980Left over plants from the May 14 event will be taken to the Get Into the River Festival from 5-7pm, at the Fairpark Amphitheater, 155 North 1000 West.

We are very excited about this community building/enhancing project.  We hope residents will become more interested in growing their own food, sharing their stories about gardening, sharing samples of their edibles, and develop sustainable habits that will improve health and lifestyles for years to come.

Garden on dude!

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Start Your Garden Catalog!

dirt2tableThe long awaited Dirt2Table Start Your Garden Plant Sale Catalog is finally here!  View the catalog and follow instructions for accessing the pre-order form.

Plants are $1 each, or $5 for a six pack or $25 for 6-six packs. Mix and match is ok!
(all proceeds will be used to enhance the next Annual Fairpark Community Plant Sale).
Fill out your pre­-order form and submit it via any of these methods:

  1. at the All Chay Restaurant, 1264 West 500 North
  2. Scan and email to
    dirt2tableslc@gmail.com
  3. Text photo of order form to
    801­502­1991

Order pick ups will be arranged using the contact info you provide on the order form. We anticipate starting to have orders picked up on May 6 th or 7th
in advance of the May 14 th event in the park.

For status on your order you can call Tom at 801-502-1991.

*** Attention! Quantities are limited! All orders will be filled on a first come first serve basis. Please get your order form to one of our partners as soon as possible to try to ensure your order can be complete. Payment will be at time of pickup, in case substitutions or subtractions apply***

To view the full catalog, click garden catalog.

To print an order form, click plant order form.

To print a flyer, click flyer.

New! (April 19, 2016):  Seed Giveaway Listing for anyone who attends the event on May 14 – even if you have pre-ordered and picked up your order! Click here for the listing.

Click the thumbnail images below to view one catalog page at a time.

Pages 1 and 2

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Pages 3 and 4

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Seed Giveaway Listing image

seed giveaway listing-1

Dirt2Table: Save the Date – Fairpark Community’s First Start Your Garden Plant Sale!

dirt2tableAnnouncing ¡Viva los Vegetales por Comida!

The Fabulous First Annual Fairpark Community Start Your Garden Plant Sale, May 14, 2016

That’s right, this year will mark the first in a long succession of annual plant sales that will help enrich and grow our community with the shared experience of successful gardening. The plan is to make it both easier and more fun for folks who are already growing some of their own food as well as to encourage and support those of our neighbors that aren’t yet growing delicious food right in their own yards.

Details about the event and how volunteers can help will be available in a future Gazette and on the Fairpark Community website.

Join the event at our Facebook page
This event is made possible through a grant from Salt Lake City’s Signature Event Fund, which provides funding to support community events in Salt Lake City.

Dirt2Table: When the Cure is Worse than the Disease

Don’t make the cure worse than the disease when dealing with pests in the garden. There are a variety of ways to keep pests from totally destroying our gardens without having to apply poisons that will harm ourselves and our natural friends the dirt2tablepredatory and pollinating insects.

The first thing that one should do is become more tolerant. Learn to tolerate some level of damage to our plants and produce. If we do this, we find that we aren’t so eager to reach for the chemical warfare agents at the first sign of aphids or snails. Combine this more tolerant attitude with regular monitoring of your plants to see if they are being attacked by anything. Quite often our vegetable plants will not be bothered by pests. If they are being eaten by something, try to determine what is eating them before taking any steps to protect them. Tomatoes aren’t usually bothered by pests, except for the tomato horn worm, and while these can do a lot of damage in a short period of time, it is usually only one or two of them at a time and they are pretty easy to locate and destroy by hand. Each of the so called cut-worms is about as big as an adult man’s index finger, and though they are green they are pretty easy to spot, catch and smash.

Earwigs and snails are two other types of pests that can do some damage to our vegetable plants.

Snails are the biggest threat as plants are just emerging from the ground. For the last five years or so every time I plant a hill of cucumbers, squash or melons I cover the hill with a little cage I made out of ¼ inch hardware cloth. That is like window screen but with bigger holes. The cages are about 6-8 inches tall and about 8-10 inches in diamater. They can be used year of after year to keep your little seedlings safe from snails until they are big enough to survive without protection. You can also put out a bowl with a little beer or sugar water for the snails to drown in. Putting the rinds from halved cantaloupes with the open side down where snails are a problem will cause snails to gather inside, making it easy to dispose of them.

Earwigs can cause significant damage to some crops. One non toxic way to keep them under control is to put soup cans with about an inch of cooking oil in the bottom so that the earwigs can crawl in and be trapped. I have had a small soup can get half full with earwigs within two months.

For more information regarding pesticides and alternatives, visit: http://www.beyondpesticides.org/

Dirt2Table: Cold Frames

dirt2tableHowdy fellow plant, gardening and food lovers! This is a good time of year to start planning and even acquiring materials for a some possible projects for next years food production. One possible project that most of us could benefit from is something that could extend the food growing season both earlier in the spring, and later in the fall. I’m talking about a cold frame.

A cold frame doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate to enable you to be eating garden fresh salads as early as February, and then next fall, all the way through October and into November! This article isn’t going to tell you how to build a cold frame, but if you do a Google search for “Cold Frames” and just look at the images tag, you will see hundreds of different ideas for cold frames from small and super easy to build, to high tech, high efficiency models that are closer to full blown greenhouses than cold frames. Somewhere on this spectrum might be something that is just right for your garden. You can also find free plans for simple cold frames with a Google search. Start thinking about where you could put one, and what materials you might already have or might need to obtain to get it built by the end of January. Then, when there is a January thaw, you can either prepare the soil where your cold frame will be or fill containers that you will put into your cold frame, and plant some lettuce, spinach, onions, kale, and other early salad crops. A few radishes would be good too.Cold-Frames-102

Next issue, we’ll talk about another project to work on during winter so you will be able to put it to use in the early spring. Yes, I mean Beekeeping.

Contact Tom King at tom.king@fairparkcommunity.org for more information.