FFA Food For All Results for 2014

Last year, 2013,  the Rainier Community Garden grew over 3,000 pounds which they donated to the Rainier Emergency Food & volunteers who worked in the garden.  The numbers aren't in for 2014.  

Look at the impact of FFA gardens nation wide:

Sponsor a Bee Hive

Reduce Your Ecological Foodprint - Invest in Honey Bees:

Bee Forever Apiary

Building houses for the Birds & Bees

Last Saturday's "Build-a-Birdhouse" workshop was packed with people....  Lions Walt Dohring and George Johnson helped kids of all ages build bird houses and Mason bee houses.........  Great idea that Jeannine and Angie had to put on this workshop for our community.  Thank you all for the great turnout!



Lion Walt Dohring helping kids build bird houses at the Rainier Community Garden workshop.



Say hello to George from the Rainier Lions Club, our local mason bee expert. He helped kids and adults build a habitat for mason bees.  City Councilman Dennis McVey and his wife have Mason Bee Houses in their yard.  He came to Rainier Community Garden on July 19th and shared a lot of information about Mason Bees.  

Family Fun Day Recap you Rainier Community Garden!

Thanks to the Rainier Lions Club, the Rainier Chapel and to the volunteers from the Rainier Community Garden, Rainier Community Cares and other groups for making such an enjoyable afternoon.
Plus a shout out to Mee-Sha-Leen's in Rainier for providing the Rainier Community Garden crew with Hot and Iced Teas that afternoon on a silver platter. We also sampled her cheese cake and chocolate cakes. Delicious! Thank you! 
www.meeshaleen.com
Click here for photos.

Click here for more photos and blog from the Lion's.

FREE "How to Build a Chicken Coop" Workshop!!!

FREE Workshop! "How to Build a Chicken Coop"   Saturday, May 31st 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.   Learn how to build your own chicken coop at the Rainier Community Garden. This is a demonstration and hands-on workshop.  Open to All Ages (Children are welcome accompanied by an adult.) Please register by May 24th.  email: rainiercommunitygarden@gmail.com Share Tweet Forward

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. Right now we are looking for seed potatoes, onion and asparagus starts.   We have built 39 raised beds and are growing an orchard. In 2013, the garden produced over 2,914 pounds of food and donated over 2,247 pounds to the Rainier Food Bank. In 2012, the garden produced over 1,800 pounds of food and donated over 1,400 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

Rainier Community Garden

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

Rainier Community Garden Meeting & Potluck!

November 18th at 6pm Monthly Meeting & Potluck We will meet in Angie Karnes' classroom by the garden at Rainier High School. Here's a map. This month we'll plan our next BIG Harvest & Work Party and talk about digging up some more potatoes, adding some amendments, continuing with our garden inventory project and putting the garden to bed. Here are last month's meeting notes from October 21st. Bring a Potluck dish to share and remember to bring your own table service to help reduce waste. We meet the 3rd Monday of each month. NEW PARTICIPANTS are welcome! See you there! Regular Saturday Work Parties End for the Season Time to put the garden to bed We've had a bountiful season with over 2,745 pounds of vegetables harvested and over 2,117 pounds delivered to the Rainier Emergency Food Center. The cabbage, swiss chard, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and brussel sprouts are still growing, but things are definitely slowing down. So, we are ending our regular Saturday Work Party schedule for the season. We will however, have an occasional BIG Work Party and we will keep you posted with dates and times.

BOO!!! Trick-or-Eat!!!

Wild & Legal Potluck Monday Oct 21st!

A Wild Meeting & Potluck

THIS MONDAY 6pm

Special Guest Peggy Sills from 

Yelm Organic Friendly Farms will offer tips on Soil Testing

We will meet in Angie Karnes' classroom by the garden at Rainier High School. Here's a map.

This month's Potluck Theme: 

"WILD & LEGAL"

Bring a Potluck dish to share that is grown wild or just plain funky, but keep it legal since we are on school grounds :)

Please remember to bring your own table service to help reduce waste.

We meet the 3rd Monday of each month. 

NEW PARTICIPANTS are welcome! 

See you there!

FUJI APPLES FOR SALE

Apples for Sale! 

We are pleased to be partnering with the Rainier Lion’s Club once again.

We are selling 40 lb. boxes of Fuji's for $30.

TO ORDER: Send an email to rainiercommunitygarden@gmail.com

Orders must be in by October 1st.

Pick-up is approx. the 3rd week in October.

Every box you order will help support our community garden.

Rainier Community Garden Canning Classes were a Success!

By:  Jeannine Pia

We had a great time at last weekend's Food Preservation and Hands-on Canning Classes at Rainier High School. A special thank you to Lois Willman, Master Food Preserver from Lewis County WSU Extension for teaching the classes and to the Rainier Lion's Club for helping to host the event. 12 people attended the Food Preservation Class and learned tips and safety guidelines. 7 people went home with a jar of freshly canned peaches. They were very proud of the work they did and their new baby peaches. They even posed for their "peach portraits". Check out these photos!

Dear Readers,

George & I attended the food preservation class.  It was very interesting & fun.  We learned a lot.  We are grateful to everyone who attended the classes.  Thank you for coming.  We also want to thank the following people who helped make this class possible:

Jeannine Pia

Lois Willman

Tim Garchow

The janitor & Home Economics teacher

Anyone else who helped coordinate this class

To those of you who are canning up a storm, you can buy your Fuji Apples from the Rainier Community Garden this year, too.  They supplied over 4,500 pounds of food to our Rainier Emergency Food Bank this year.

Thank you again,

Linda & George Johnson