Weed and Wine and Megan's Garden

Fun Times at the Weed and Wine garden meeting! A productive time cleaning the Highlands club house garden, followed by a visit to Megan’s garden.

October - Our own seedy exchange

Were you ready for the snow?

As flakes fell, the Highlands Community League Hall felt extra cosy for our October meeting.

Some members were prepared for the snowfall (I was not one of them).  We talked about putting the garden to bed, the great re-jig of the Community Garden (thanks, Ollie!), potential club holiday plans, and some projects for the new year.

With "business" out of the way, it was on to our seed and bulb exchange!

Among the selection were Ollie's tulip bulbs and Cheri's native plant seeds.  Margaret also offered to split her lovely mums (left, still blooming) next spring.  Fingers-crossed this bout of snow doesn't stick around so we can put our new finds into the ground.  

(Below: Our youngest member was not for swap.)

November's meeting will be our holiday / year end celebration.  Keep your eyes on your inbox for an email with more details.

Dionne's Herb Garden

The night started out warm, but cooled down quickly as the sun went down.  Dionne was prepared: herbal mosquito repellent!  Thus protected we toured her garden of herbalist delights.

Amongst the towers of sunflowers (they help take the metals out of the soil) there was milk thistle, Campanula (can cut down and it just spreads and spreads), Skullcap, and California poppies. 

Members seemed most interested in the ones that had calming and sleeping benefits.

Once dark, we headed inside for the meeting and enjoyed lilac cordial with pretty floating ice cubes of calendula and violas (all homemade from flowers in her garden).


We talked about:

- Building bee hotels in the future
- the plant exchanges happening on the weekend

- The Open Farm Days at Northlands - Margaret continues to recommend the tours.  Hopefully it'll still be around next year for others in the club to partake.

August's Weed and Wine

Marie in vintage Highlands Garden Club gear.

After some hard work in the community garden, we retired into the community hall for some much hard-earned wine and gardening talk. 

Dandelions as big as carrots!

 

 

 

Margaret demonstrated good technique for "slug scooping" and gave us each our own super doper slug scooper spoon (patent pending).  Perfect for all the slugs we've been seeing with our raining weather. 


Unfortunately, another pest has been attacking our gardens: the scarlet lily beetle.  Lori is following up with the Lily society for more information and help. Stay tuned!

July Meeting at Margaret's: Business in the Front, Blooms in the Back

Slightly overcast skies hinted at storm, but we were lucky -- the meeting wasn't rained out and we had plenty of time outside again to explore Margaret's garden.

This time (a month earlier than last year), the kale was a little less monstrous and a different set of flowers were in bloom. 

Happy bees buzzed around as we checked out some native beauties in the far far back -- no space wasted, flowers and plants right into the alley! 

We later convened back to the front yard to enjoy tea and treats.


We discussed upcoming events: The tour of Wilf Maul's acreage is on!  Also of interest is Alberta Open Farm Days at Northlands on Aug.21st.  There will be farm tours, demonstrations of honey harvesting, and talks on beekeeping, keeping chickens, and backyard farming. 

 

 

 

 

January - For the Birds

January's meeting kick-started event and activity planning for the year.  Exciting things are certainly ahead!  

After sharing our ideas for themes and possible tours, we created pine cone bird feeders.


Lori brought the supplies (along with some treats for us!):

- Pine cones
- String
- Unsalted peanut butter and lard mixture (2:1)
- Knife or spoon for application
- Plates and plastic bags for transport  

We then:
1. Tied string to the pine cone
2. Dipped the pine cone into the unsalted peanut butter and lard mix, and used a butter knife to get more into the cracks
3. Set the coated pine cone onto a plate and placed it outside in the cold to set

After another cup of tea... voila!  Our bird feeders were done.

The whole craft was easy and fun to make (only slightly messy).  And a perfect treat for all the birds we've been seeing out and about!



Have you a variation on this simple bird feeder?  Send in your stories and photos.

Celebrate the Season - Final meeting of 2015

Festive wear and festive treats helped us to ring out the Club's year. 

Audrey and Barry hosted us in their beautiful home.  We spoiled each other with holiday baking and other goodies to share. 

A quick recap of our year revealed just how busy we've been as a club and soon we were talking again about plants and our garden plans for the new year.

Until our next meeting (check our events calendar here) : Happy Holidays!   

(Below: One way to preserve the harvest into winter -- delicious root vegetable chips!)

August: Meeting at Margaret's

August's laid back meeting was the perfect chance for members to explore Margaret's garden. 

She created focal points with recovered wooden stumps.  And little springs of wild grasses with usual seed heads nodded between larger plants. 


















The front yard's main motif was aquatic - a fish! 

To the one side was a collection of different coral bells.

There were many plants in flower, including (right) a gentian that Ollie declared was an amazing true blue! 

The side of house was Margaret's prairie garden with saskatoons, currants, milkweed, and a native grass (below) that Erica remembers calling "mascara grass" as a kid. 

The backyard was a combination of a flowers and edibles and a haven for insects and natural life. 




(Below) Bees happily foraged, a yellow spider hid among golden blooms, and wasps were welcomed - as carnivores to eat any hand-squished cabbage worms. 

When the sun started to go low, we headed inside for our meeting.  Over plates of treats, we reviewed articles on monarch butterfly migration, bee hotels, and the "pretty pain" also known as Himalayan balsam.

Margaret also shared her garden bounty - cucumbers yum!