NEW DAY: Rainier Community Garden Potluck & Meeting!

Saturday, March 1st - Grape Pruning Workshop March 18th - Monthly Meeting & Potluck March - Garden featured on TCTV Channel 3 Garden Awarded $2,400 FFA Food For All Grant Garden Raises $110 in Grapefruit Sales Mentor Opportunity with GRuB View this email in your browser

Rainier Community Garden to be featured on TCTV Channel 3 in March On Feb 10th, Thurston County Commissioner Sandra Romero came to Rainier High School to film a documentary on community gardens for the local TCTV Channel 3. The show will air in March. Angie Karnes and Trent Stroessner (RHS student and Rainier Community Garden volunteer) were interviewed and gave a tour of the garden and orchard. Sandra commented that this is the only community garden that has an orchard in Thurston County. Garden Awarded a $2,400 Grant from FFA Food For All For the past three years, the Rainier Community Garden has been a proud recipient of the FFA Food For All Grant. Garden raised $110 from Grapefruit Sales last month. Thank you to all who participated. We sold a total of 22 boxes and raised $110. A Huge Thank You to George and Linda Johnson from the Rainier Lion's Club for organizing the fruit fundraisers - we raised a total of $374 for the garden in 2013/2014. Watch for Peaches, Pears and Nectarines later this year! Mentor Opportunity at GRuB (Garden-Raised Bounty) GRuB is an organization that serves Thurston and Mason Counties by partnering with youth and people with low-incomes to create empowering individual & community food solutions. They are looking for experienced gardeners to serve as mentors for first time gardeners. What a fun way to get someone excited about gardening! Time commitment: 2 hour training the evening of April 30 and 3-5 hours per month May - Sept. Contact: liza@goodgrub.org or beth.halpern@comcast.net Mark your calendars... NEW DAY! Monthly Meeting & Potluck We now meet every 3rd TUESDAY at 6pm.  We had a great meeting last week with several new faces. A Big Thank You to Thomas Mani for his presentation on Beekeeping and to his wife Karla Broschinski who came to film it. We will let you know if they make it available for us to share. We covered a lot of information including developing a planting plan for the new season. Please check out the meeting notes here. We are also accepting NEW PARTICIPANTS now for the new season. Please join us for our NEXT Potluck on March 18th, if you'd like to find out how to get involved. Also, our Saturday work parties will be starting soon... Stay tuned.   Here's a great opportunity to go and learn and bring back cuttings for our community garden... Grape Pruning Workshop Saturday, March 1st 10 a.m. Location: Historic Borst Home and the One-room Schoolhouse in Centralia The WSU Lewis County Master Gardeners are offering a FREE grape pruning workshop at their demonstration garden in Fort Borst Park on Saturday, March 1st at 10:00 am. The garden is located between the Historic Borst Home and the One-room Schoolhouse in Centralia. No pre-registration required. Topics covered include: Plant growth as related to grape pruning Pruning equipment When to prune Taking cuttings and planting of cuttings Discuss/demonstrate pruning and training new vine Discuss/demonstrate two pruning systems - spur pruning and cane pruning  Four-post-pruning chores in the vineyard Cuttings will be available. Donations are appreciated for the cuttings and we reserve the right to limit the number of cuttings per individual. Directions to the Borst Demonstration Garden: Take I-5 to Exit 82 “Harrison Street” and turn left at light. Follow Harrison to Johnson Road (approx. ½ mile). Turn left on Johnson Road and go .2 miles to “T” intersection. Turn right and follow the road as it skirts past the school and the ball fields until you get to the Parks maintenance shed. The garden is to your left between the One-Room schoolhouse and the historic Borst Home.

About the Garden: The Garden is located at the south end of the Rainier High School parking lot by the large greenhouse at 308 Second Street West in downtown Rainier.   Our Garden's purpose is to bring the Rainier community and surrounding areas together and provide educational gardening opportunities for everyone while growing fresh food and impacting local hunger issues.   We appreciate donations for garden and building materials, wood chips or plumbing supplies for a new watering system.   We have built 39 raised beds and are growing an orchard. In 2013, the garden produced over 2914 pounds of food and  donated over 2247 pounds to the Rainier Food Bank. In 2012, the garden produced over 1800 pounds of food and we donated over 1400 pounds to the Rainier Food Bank.   Contact us: Angie Karnes | Garden Manager | 360 • 561 • 0990 | karnesa@rainier.wednet.edu Mike Karnes | Resource Developer | 360 • 259 • 6455 | karnesm@rainier.wednet.edu Jeannine Pia | Outreach Coordinator | 360 • 528 • 0923 | rainiercommunitygarden@gmail.com   www.facebook.com/rainiercommunitygarden forward to a friend   Copyright © 2014 Rainier Community Garden, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have either signed-up on our mailing list or have expressed interest in our community garden project. Our mailing address is: Rainier Community Garden PO Box 98 Rainier, WA 98576 Add us to your address book We are located at: Rainier High School 308 Second Street West Rainier, WA 98576