Workshop Season!

Workshop participants learning about
mushroom cultivation

Our community is full of people willing to share their knowledge and expertise about all sorts of different topics and we're lucky to have these people lead workshops out at SAGE!  Click HERE to see (and register for) our full list of workshops.  Keep checking back with us as more workshops will be added throughout the season!

Creating an oyster
mushroom bed!

Just this weekend we had Ryan, from the local company Soul 2 Grow, lead a "Mushroom Cultivation" workshop. Participants got first hand experience putting in an Elm Oyster Mushroom bed at SAGE.  After putting in the bed, learning mushroom facts and how to care for mushrooms, participants received their own elm oyster mushroom spawn to take home and get started.  Apparently elm oyster mushrooms can get to be the size of dinner plates...excited to see how they grow!

Learn about beekeeping with Karessa and the SAGE hives!

Next up on our work shop list is a Beginning Beekeeping Workshop on Saturday, May 18th. Karessa, our amazing beekeeper and one of the owners of Nectar Bee Supply, will be leading the course and is an amazing educator who will get participants hands-on experience with the bees at SAGE.  To register for this workshop, click HERE.

Soil Student Blogs Feature SAGE!

OSU Students sorting and packaging kale for the
South Corvallis Food Bank 

We love having OSU Soil students help out at the garden.  Each term we usually get a couple of groups of students who put in 4 hours of service helping at SAGE, learning about soil hands-on!  At the end of each term, students meld their new soil knowledge with their SAGE experience and share it on-line.  Interested in seeing SAGE with a slant toward soil?  Then take a look at the student created blogs from this term...

soilssage.blogspot.com

http://soil205sagegarden.blogspot.com

Complete Organic Gardening Course!

The COMPLETE ORGANIC GARDENING COURSE offered by Edible Corvallis Initiative in collaboration with OSU Extension and Oregon Tilth will take place throughout the month of April.  Learn how to grow your own food using organic methods by participating in hands-on garden activities, in-depth discussions and engaging educational exercises.  There will be a lead instructor with visits by specialist guest instructors from all three organizations.  In April, we'll meet every Wednesday evening from 5:30 - 7:30pm for interactive discussions with our hands-on gardening days being every Saturday from 9am - 1pm. 

You can register HERE 

or email me for more details!  

sage@corvallisenvironmentalcenter.org

Dandelion Heralds Spring

First dandelion flower of the season, spring is on its way!

Being blessed with our climate, this time of the year still allows us an opportunity to grow a lot of food. I've covered some of the purposeful plants we're growing, but what about all the goodies we're growing but not necessarily meaning to grow?  This includes things frequently termed "weeds."  Now technically a weed is just a plant that is growing somewhere you don't want it to grow, but many plants are known as rather notorious "weeds."  Dandelions, for example, inspire a lot of people to head out into their yard with death and destruction on their minds, but dandelions are stellar little plants with a change of perspective.  For one, they're quite tasty in a variety of ways.  For those of you who know me, you know I love most things (especially wild things) that are edible.  Well with dandelions, you can eat the root, shoot and flowers.  Dry and roast the roots for a tasty tea.  Eat the young leaves in salad or stir fry (a great bitter, excellent for digestion).  Dandelion flower fritters or flower petal jelly or wine anyone?  Ok, so most people know dandelions are edible, but did you know that nice long taproot is great at pulling up minerals from the soil depths?  Chopping the green tops off your dandelions and letting them decompose in place helps release those nutrients back into your soil, right at the surface where most garden annuals (being short rooted) need it.

Two weeks ago I saw my first dandelion flower out at the garden.  Lovely. It was a great reminder that spring is coming and the full on garden season is on its way.  Until that point though, there are plenty of "volunteer" edibles growing at the garden right now.  You just need a little change of perspective to see many of those "weeds" as wonderful food and free labor in your garden.

Winter Disbelief

People wandering by SAGE this time of year are always curious, "what are you doing?"  Despite having my boots on, harvesting tool in hand and a big tub filling with greens, people seem to want verbal confirmation that I'm doing what they're observations suggest; harvesting.  I can have rows and rows of kale around me and still people say "kale can last in the winter?"  Yes, it does and it is so easy to grow, you can do it too!

I've been pondering this phenomenon (because it happens to me multiple times a week) and I think, perhaps, people need verbal confirmation of my actions because it is winter and they don't associate that season with gardening.  Yes, we can grow food year round here and I consider us Willamette Valley folks pretty lucky for that.  If you need to see it with your own eyes though, here's some recent photos of the bounty (some, but not all the goodies) we're growing right now.  If still you'd like to see this in person, head on out to SAGE and wander around, you're more than welcome.

                        

Call for Coops!

SAGE's coop, where Coop Tour HQ will be once again this year.  Our beautiful coop was donated by a young man from Sweet Home.  Check out his handiwork or contact him for more information at: http://willydwonkacoops.com/


We're on the search for chicken and duck coops for this year's Cooped Up in Corvallis event -- a tour of backyard chicken and duck coops.  This year's coop tour will be on Sunday May 19th (save the date!).  If you or someone you know has a coop they are interested in featuring during this fun and educational event, please contact sage@corvallisenvironmentalcenter.org or 541-753-9211.

'Tis the Season....for Seed Catalogs!

Some of our saved dry beans next to their seed catalog descriptions

Seed catalogs, how I love thee.  When the weather outside is frightful, your pages are so delightful.  Colorful photos, mouth watering descriptions, the promise of another warm growing season.....major fuel for day dreams galore!

At SAGE we're lucky enough to have many of our seeds donated.  Shonnard's Nursery has always been a wonderful supporter; last year we received a box of surprise seeds from Seed Savers Exchange; and of course, Gathering Together Farm is generous enough to donate the majority of our starts.  The root crop seeds (beets, rutabagas, carrots, parsnips, radishes, etc) are always in high demand being that they produce delicious, popular crops and have to be direct seeded rather than transplanted from a start.  We've had wonderful community members in the past who've donated seed packs of these popular root crops...thank you!  But I'm getting off on a tangent with all this giving of thanks...

Back to the seed catalogs.  They float around my house this time of year and I love it.  If you need to bring some brightness into your day, flip through anyone of the amazing catalogs available.  Most can be ordered from seed company websites.  And smaller, more local companies such as Adaptive Seeds, Wild Garden Seed, and Uprising Seeds who don't necessarily have shiny photos, do have inspiring prose; "Unquestionably the brightest burst of rainbow brilliance in the garden!"  Any guesses what Uprising Seeds is describing?....Rainbow Chard!  How can that descriptive sentence not bring hope and inspiration to someone on a cold winter day?

Happy Winter Day Dreaming!
Deanna
(Garden Manager)