The quarterly meeting of the members of the Coalition of Community Gardens was held at the Oldsmar Organic Community Garden. President Rachel Marshall and her team told about their raised beds, their metal modular raised bed kit (Vego Garden) and their recycled plastic lumber raised beds (Lowes'). OOCG previous leaders put a lot of effort into growing their sponsors and that has helped them get be able to purchase these items. It was inspirational to see their worm tea operation, weed tea, bio-digester, and their organic pest management system. Kale and carrots from their gardens transformed into a terrific salad and the sweet potatoe dip and other goodies from the garden were much appreciated. Recipes to follow.

Coalition members came from far and near: Paula Olesen and Tammy Kennedy from Apollo Beach Food Forest and Community Garden; Alex Baron from Harvet Hope CG, Colleen Parker from Seminole Hts CG, Ardell O'Neal, Mustard Seed CG, Lutz. John Dukes and Johnna Gelfenstein , Brandon Seeds of Faith CG, Will Stone, Hillsborough IFAS, and Kitty from Tampa Hts CG.

Brand new community garden leaders, Charlotte Hillman & Natsu Green, SOGarden, made the trip! Pleased to see our gardening buddies from Pinellas, Amber Pederson and Bill Bilodeau from SUAC, Elizabeth Faubert, Dunedin CG.

Pam Lunn, Dancing Goat Farm joined us and shared that they have ample goat manure to share. She asks that you call her before you visit. (813) 784-0353 If you want to follow up with questions for Rachel, contact her at oldsmarorganicgarden@gmail.com, 

Seed Basics & Beyond: 9 Things to Know Before You Start Plants From Seed

Joe Lamp'l, you may know him from his Joegardener gardening shows and from PBS Growing A Greener World, is offering a free hour-long workshop (virtual) THIS WEEK Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat.

I find him very knowledgeable and easy to listen to. This seems like a good time to encourage all of our gardeners to start their plants from seed. You can click the link below to sign up. (free)

Seed Basics & Beyond: 9 Things to Know Before You Start Plants From Seed

FLORIDA STATE FAIR

The Coalition of Community Gardens has participated in the Florida State Fair for the past 5 years... and is proud to be doing so again this year. We are part of the Horticuture displays in the Florida Living building. We have free tickets for those who can come "staff" the display and then you can go enjoy the fair.

We also need some helpers to set up and take down the displays on Feb. 7 & 8 and take down on the 21st. Many thanks to David, Steve, Will, Joy, & Karen Elizabeth for helping out in the past. Kittwal@aol.com for more info.

EARTH DAY - April 22nd

City of Tampa has proclaimed April as Community Gardening Month. Do any other communities have something similar? .We are going to put something in the newspaper and on facebook about all events going on during April, so..... let us know. Let's try to support each others' events.

SEED SAVING COMMITTEE



We had heard that there was an interested in becoming more active saving seeds. If you or any of your gardeners would be interested in participating in a planning meeting, we will be settig up a zoom in February to discuss how we might like to proceed. At this point we have about 8 people from 5 gardens on this committee. For more info: kittwal@aol.com