Sweet Tater Day

Wondering what to do with those extra sweet potatoes this year? We are planning a “Sweet Tater Day”! Click here for more information.

Garden Harvest Celebration

Please join us for our Harvest Celebration at the community garden on August 6th at 5:30pm. Please bring a covered dish you have created from your garden and the recipe. We will also be collecting entries for the Mountain State Fair so bring your canned goods you would like to enter for juding. Also, if you would like to display any of the vegetables from your garden, please feel free to bring them to display. Don't forget your hearty appetite! Please RSVP by August 3 at 828-837-2210.

4-H Explorers Learn to Preserve

The Home-schooled 4-H Explorers learned to preserve vegetables they have grown in their plot at the community garden. Shannon Coleman, 4-H Agent, instructed the group on making pickles, salsa and preserving green beans. It was a long day of hard work! The rewards will be well worth it when it comes times to enjoy the tasty foods. Club members who canned will chose a sample of their work to enter in the Mountain State Fair this summer.

Next Gardening Class- July 16th

The next gardening class will be held on July 16th at 5:30. Please join us at the community garden to learn “When to Harvest”. As the vegetables are starting to come in, this class will help to know what to look for when harvesting your vegetables. Extension Agents, Keith Wood, Teresa Wiley & Shannon Coleman will be at the garden to answer any questions you may have.

Community Garden Up and Growing!

Participants in the Community Garden have been attending classes about gardening and participated in demonstrations about gardening. For many of the participants this is the first time they have ever gardened. Agricultural Extension Agent Keith Wood, Family and Consumer Science Agent Teresa Wiley, and 4-H Agent Shannon Coleman have been providing instruction on gardening and gardening techniques. Classes are $10.00 for the entire series for the public and are included in the registration fees for garden participants. Several classes are still to come so please call the Extension office for more information.
The Explorer’s 4-H Club is growing one of the rows in the garden. The Explorer’s are a home school 4-H club here in Cherokee County. One of the clubs main objectives is to learning about gardening and they are getting involved and are knee deep in dirt. The leader is Nancy Duggan, of Andrews, and she is an avid gardener herself so she has a lot to teach the youth. Youth in the club have also contributed by making plant identification stakes from recycled blinds. These have been a big help for the garden participants to identify their crops they are growing. Youth have also help with getting the trellis ready for the beans by helping Keith Wood put the string on the trellis. The youth will also be doing some canning projects when their crops come in but the majority of their row of food will go to help needy families here in Cherokee County.
As a rule of the garden all of the participants must give 10% of their products to a local charity. This giving back is part of our commitment to being good stewards and giving back to the county that helped the participants by providing a place to garden.

Proper Planting Techniques

Keith Wood, Extension Agent, Agriculture demonstrates proper planting techniques for the community garden participants.

Program to Encourage Family Gardening

Frank Bradley Sentinel writer
(Originally published in the Cherokee Sentinel 1.7.09)

Demonstrations and classes will be held to show people how to get the most out of their garden. As jobs shrink and food prices soar, there are some folks looking for ways to help struggling residents put more food on their table. Their answer--grow it.

At the commissioners meeting on Monday, Keith Wood, Teresa Wiley, Doug Clement and others brought a plan before the board to set aside some land near the county land fill in Marble in order for local residents to grow a garden.

They're not talking hundreds and hundreds of acres, yet. In fact, they are only looking at about half an acre to test out the idea and see if it takes root. The idea is to divvy up the land into small four feet by 50 feet parcels, allowing one per family on a first-come basis for the first 25 families to apply.

Well, if you already have sufficient land, gardening know-how and already have plans for putting in a garden this this spring, this won't interest you. But if you've been used to living out of Ingles for the past few years and are interested in getting back to the basics of where food really comes from, then this might just be your motivation to get up off the coach, get outside and do a little digging in the dirt.

The other benefit to you will be that the garden area will be plowed and ready for planting. You won't have to go out and buy some expensive gardening ve- hicles or hire someone else to get the ground ready for you to start planting. Then too, there will be demonstrations and classes held to show you how to get the most out of your garden. You will have the advice of county extension agents and master gardeners, who will teach you the tricks of the trade. You will be working your garden along with others who are learning or relearning the planter craft just like you. Learning about such things as organic gardening, how to use gardening tools, proper use of canning equipment, identification of different varieties of vegetables and herbs, food safety and money saving ideas as well as how to get the most from your gardening effort.

According to Wiley, who is the county's Family and Consumer Science Agent, intensive gardening on a small plot the size of the one to be provided to the new gardeners can provide enough food to feed a family of four.

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Cherokee County's Community Garden Project had a ribbon cutting ceremony on April 9Th. Vegetables gardening classes held by Keith Wood of N.C Cooperative Extension are open to the public from a small fee and are held at the Community Garden site at the Sheriff's training facility located in Marble, on U.S. 64, between the traffic light at 141 and the sanitary landfill. Ten percent of the produce will be donated to charity and local food banks.

The challenge for Master Gardener Volunteers is to learn how to start other community gardens in the future. To take what we learn with this project and teach others to grow some of there own food and/or to add more fresh vegetables to their diets.

The plastic mulch has been set in place and planting has begun. More pictures to follow. Watch us learn and grow.

Please call the extension office for more info. 828-837-2210