VISTA Matters is the weekly community newsletter for garden members. Included are key dates and communications necessary for all members to know and be involved. 
VISTA Gardens News - August 1, 2017
Share Your "Two Cents"

The greenhouse committee is sowing seeds for fall planting and would like your input on which varieties you would most like to grow.   
  
The plan is to sow three varieties each of tomatoes and peppers, and two varieties of eggplant. 

Share your "two cents" and vote on your preferred varieties, as follows: 
  • Bring 12 pennies, these are your 'votes'
  • There are six jars in the greenhouse
  • Each jar has the name and picture of two tomato, pepper or eggplant varieties
  • Throw two cents into the side of the jar showing the varietal you prefer
  • Please only vote once per jar
Your choices are:  

Tomatoes
1. Sweetie Heirloom Tomato or Sungold Cherry Tomato
2. Red Brandywine Tomato or Cherokee Purple Heirloom Tomato
3. Yellow Pear Tomato or Italian Roma Tomato

Peppers (Slim Tim sweet peppers will be sowed)
4. Big Red Pepper or California Wonder Pepper
5. Thai Bird Pepper or Jalapeno Pepper

Eggplant (Black Beauty Eggplant will be sowed)
6. Shoya Long Eggplant or Chinese Bride Eggplant

Please submit your vote no later than Thursday, August 10th as the committee will be planting the selected seedlings on Saturday, August 12 (planting assistance is always appreciated!).

Seedlings are planned to be available at the VISTA greenhouse in late September / early October. 
Make VISTA the "Best of the Bay"!
Creative Loafing's annual "Best of the Bay" survey is open and they are taking votes for 'Best Community Garden'. Take a moment to vote VISTA as your favorite community garden!

Updated Education Calendar 

Saturday, August 19
Topic I: 
Starting Your Seedlings
Speaker: David Whitwam
9:00 - 10:30 am

Topic II: Native Plant Discussion
Speaker: Bruce WIlcox
10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Thursday, August 24
Starting Your Seedlings
Speaker: David Whitwam
6:00 - 7:30 pm

Saturday, September 16
Getting Your Bed Ready to Plant
Speaker: David Whitwam
9:00 - 10:30 am

Tuesday, September 19
Getting Your Bed Ready to Plant
6:00 - 7:30 pm
Greenhouse Nanny Needs Assistants

Roberta Owens has volunteered to be our Garden Nanny and will oversee the seedling program in our newly completed greenhouse.  With Roberta's guidance, VISTA will take another big step toward self sufficiency!
 
Roberta has farming roots and, as a former professional educator, will lead VISTA to excel in yet another critical area of community gardening.  
 
Roberta is looking for volunteers to help set up, start, care for, transplant and distribute seedlings.  Her committee will work on deciding seed selection, timing and planting events. They will grow both proven perfromers and try new varietals.  They will also run a seed exchange.  

If you would like to work with Roberta on the seedling program, please reply to this newsletter and your information will be forwarded to her. 
Example only, may not reflect final project
Garden Art Project

Community member, MJ, is working on an art project for the garden and is asking members to save and donate  
empty blue wine bottles

When you have a bottle to give, please reply to any newsletter to coordinate drop off.
Bonefish Grill VISTA Fundraiser!

Date: Thursday, October 26
Location: Village Center (Carrollwood)
13262 N Dale Mabry Hwy, Tampa, FL 33618

Bonefish Grill is donating a portion of ALL sales to VISTA gardens on October 26. 

Tell your friends, family and any random stranger to "dine at Bonefish!" on October 26!!
Ongoing Activities

Saturday Work Parties
Fulfill your community volunteer requirement by joining fellow gardeners on Saturday mornings to tackle the maintenance needs of the garden at large. It's a fun time and you get some exercise and the garden stays looking great. Keeping the garden regularly maintained prevents us from major intermittent workload.  The party starts at 9 a.m. every weekend, weather permitting. 

Compost Thursdays
Committee members meet at the garden Thursday's at 8 a.m. to turn the compost. Please join the team if you would like to learn more about composting.

Compost Materials Needed 
General reminder: To produce high quality compost the community needs to provide a steady supply of material. Please bring your garden or vegetable waste to the garden, don't let it go to the landfill!

Keep in touch with VISTA
We are working hard to streamline communications to ensure you receive the right content in the right place when you need it.
1. Facebook: Like "VISTA Gardens" to receive updates on key activities throughout the week
If you do NOT use Facebook please reply to this email and you will be added to a separate email distribution list. The team will do its best to email any time sensitive updates requiring community attention to this list when a post is made to Facebook.
2. Tuesday email: Summarizes key activity and news for the upcoming week
3. Monthly newsletter: More detail into topics of interest and education (see link above!)
4. Web site: Our address is vistagardentampa.org (note: no 's' in garden). A repository of membership information, detailed education, links to articles on shared topics of interest. Plus much, much more. 

VISTA Gardens | [email protected] | vistagardentampa.org
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