Café Appalachia is teaming up with the West Virginia State University Extension Service to host a six-part series of gardening workshops through October 2020.
The free Lunch-&-Learn events will begin March 26 with a session on raised bed construction and irrigation. Each session will take place from 10 a.m. until noon at Café Appalachia in South Charleston, West Virginia.
Extension Agent Kristie Martin said the café provided the ideal venue for such a program.
“Café Appalachia’s beautiful garden is the perfect venue for these informative and hands-on sessions,” Martin said.
“Hosting sessions throughout the year will allow us to educate people on a variety of aspects of gardening—from preparing for planting to tending your crops to harvesting the nutritious and delicious fruits and vegetables of your labor.”
Cheryl Laws, the founder and CEO of Pollen8 Inc., the non-profit parent organization of the café, said she's enthused about the program's far-reach implications.
"We are so excited to begin to connect our community with their food sources and provide them an opportunity to learn how easy it is to grow their own food,” Laws said.
“Then we will offer them to taste the reward from the food served at Café Appalachia."
Participants are also invited to have lunch at the café at a discounted rate of $8 following the sessions.
The full schedule of Lunch-&-Learn sessions is as follows.
· March 26: How to Start Raised Beds & Garden Irrigation
· April 23: Crop Seeding & Transplanting
· June 18: Garden Plant Care: Suckering & Pruning
· July 23: Crop Harvesting
· Sept. 24: Low Tunnels & Cold Crops
· Oct. 22: How to Winterize Raised Beds
Each workshop is free to attend, though space is limited and registration is required by contacting Café Appalachia's AmeriCorps VISTA Danielle Justice at 304-654-6009 or DJustice@stepbystepwv.org.
Funding for the series is provided in part by a mini-grant from Try This, West Virginia.
Café Appalachia, at 206 D St. in South Charleston, is a program of Pollen8 Inc., a non-profit organization that creates social programs for families impacted by the drug epidemic in West Virginia.
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