Volunteer Opportunities

Greetings from the Volunteer Department of the Calgary Horticultural Society, Happy New Year!

2011 will bring exciting relationships, amazing, fun events and many opportunities for gardeners to connect with fellow gardeners. We need your support to share your talents and time as we engage with new gardeners in the community, enhance our resource materials and celebrate gardening in Calgary.

Dig in and consider some of these volunteer opportunities:

1. Community Gardens Support Team

The Community Gardens Resource Network program of the Calgary Horticultural Society has grown dramatically since its inception three years ago. We are busy with requests for information and gardening guidance. To meet the growing demand, we are building a team of people to support the program. Some opportunities include:

• Providing advice to new gardeners
• Updating the database, collection of community gardens stats
• Developing and organizing displays
• Assisting with office work, and
• Photography

We need your support to share your talents and time as we engage with new gardeners in the community, enhance our resource materials and celebrate gardening in Calgary.

2. Receive great garden discounts while raising funds for the Society!

An interesting opportunity has come our way from Cobblestone Home and Garden center, located in southeast Calgary. For Calgary Horticultural Soceity members to volunteer as‘Garden Greeters welcoming patrons, providing directional and store information. Taking a shift to be a garden greeter will help raise funds for the Society and earn YOU at 25% discount at the garden center on the day you volunteer! Cobblestone will make a generous donation to the Society based on the time volunteers contribute.

May 6 to June 12 (variety of shifts available)

If this is something that might interest you, please contact Colleen fof further details (day, time, shifts available) as we need an indication of interest before we agree to providing a roster of volunteer greeters during their busy gardening season.

For information about volunteering, contact Colleen McCracken, Volunteer Manager at volunteer@calhort.org or 287-3469 X 222

STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE GARDENING IN CALGARY

STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE GARDENING IN CALGARY

An Evening of Discovery and Discussion about what SUSTAINABILITY means for your Garden

A presentation featuring Rob Avis, Verge Permaculture
When: Friday, January 21st, 2011
Where: Unitarian Church of Calgary, 1703-1 St. N.W.
Cost: early registration $5 per person or $10 at the door
To Register: book your seats through: http://www.calhort.org/events or call the Calgary Horticultural Society office at 403-287-3469, ext 0

An event sponsored by:
Community Garden Resource Network-A project of the Calgary Horticultural Society;
Green Sanctuary (Unitarian Church of Calgary)
Apiaries and Bees for Communities &
An Alberta Community Spirit Grant


CURES FOR THE MID-WINTER BLAHS!

Even in the depths of winter there is always great things for an avid gardener to do.

The Calgary Horticultural Society hosts workshops on most Saturday mornings on a wide variety of subjects to the gardener in you.

Upcoming workshops include:
Jan 29th- The Household Jungle-How to care for your Indoor Plants
Feb 5th- Passionate for Petunias
Feb 12th- The Edible Flower Garden
Feb 26th-Plant Propagation-Know before you dig

Please check the Society's website at www.calhort.org and click on the 'Our Workshops' button for further details. New workshops are always being added so check back frequently!

Making Lemonade

Sometimes I wonder if I’m crazy. Other times, I’m gosh darn sure I am. This is one of those times. I planted quack grass today. You heard me; I am growing this uber-noxious weed on purpose. I dug up some rhizomes, cut them up into sections, buried them in potting soil, and to add to the insanity, I even added some organic fertilizer to help it grow better.


This all came about when I was watching a friend’s cat this summer. As soon as he was let out into the yard, he would make a beeline for the quack grass and start chomping away. He completely ignored the grass on the organic lawn, the fresh catnip patch and the fancy cat grass grown specifically for him. I have noticed this behavior with dogs as well. They seem to have a clear preference for quack grass. Since it doesn’t appear to do the cat any harm, I decided to pot up some quack grass for the little dude this winter. I’ll also pot up his usual cat grass to see which one he likes best.


The McClure garden has a wealth of quack grass (that’s where I got the rhizomes from), and like they say, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” I think I have found the quack grass lemonade. There is a neurotoxin in quack grass that kills slugs. That’s why you won’t find slugs on these weeds. You can chop or grind up the quack grass leaves and roots and sprinkle around your plants. You can also make a tea by soaking chopped quack grass in water for 24 hours and spray/water on the soil as a deterrent. My personal favorite is the quack grass cake recipe from The Mighty Internet (www.ghorganics.com/page13.html).


Mix together 1 ounce of corn bran, 3/4 of an ounce of powdered milk, 1 ounce of cornstarch and 16 ounces of beer. Combine all of these with 8 ounces of dried quack grass to make a thick paste that will form pellets. It goes on to say you should run this through a meat grinder to create pellets which you then allow to air dry. Spread the pellets around the boundaries of the seedling bed. Slugs will be attracted to the beer bait and eat the toxic grass!

You realize what this could mean, don’t you? McClure’s biggest weed could be converted into marketable products for fundraising. Think of these value-added items:

• quack grass tea bags for easy brewing of a toxic tea


• powdered quack grass for sprinkling around your plants and because it’s powdered, you don’t have to worry about the quack grass growing and taking over


• quack grass cake – poisoned pastries for unwanted guests


• gourmet pet grass – the clear choice of discerning cats and dogs.

I’ll have to create some prototypes in the Spring and do some testing. When people ask what I do at McClure, it would be so much fun to tell them I grow weed as a cash crop.