Peach Picking - Jenkins Farm

We had a great time yesterday picking peaches at Jenkins Farm in Ravenna.  Due to our crazy winter, peach season is short this year, and farmer Claude Jenkins doesn't expect it to last much beyond this week.  Call first, and then hurry over there if you want peaches.  Blackberries will come later, and corn after that.  He has such a great operation over there.  Lots to take note of if you're a gardener or mini-farmer.

Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse - Upcoming Seminars

Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse in Denison is giving some great seminars in April.  Be sure to check them out!

Wednedsay April 4th, 2012

10am-11am

"How To Build A Rain Barrel"

Learn how to take a food-grade 50 gallon drum and turn it into a rain barrel to harvest rainwater.  Rainwater is great for your garden!

One lucky attendee will win a completed rain barrel.

Wednesday April 11th, 2012

10am-11am

"Herbs Through Time"

Master Gardener Sandra Haynes will talk about the history of herbs and how they played an important role in ancient civilizations.  Fascinating!

Saturday April 14th, 2012

10am-11am

"Mickey Goes To Cambodia"

Mickey Brown, travelling nurse, has just returned from a medical mercy trip to Cambodia and has fascinating tales (like her encounter with flesh-eating fish)

to tell of her experiences.

Sweetwater Farm will donate 10% of the sales of plants on the day of Mickey's talk (Sat, April 14) to her foundation which will help allow her to continue her wonderful work helping bring basic health care to many desperate people throughout the world. 

Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse is located at:

4400 W Crawford Street

Denison, Texas 75020

Hope to see you there!

Events - Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse Free Seminar

Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse in Denison is offering a free seminar on Backyard Poultry this Wednesday, March 21st from 10AM-11AM.  Peg Albrecht will be offering information on keeping chickens.

Chicken Butchering Classes

Cypress Lake Ranch is offering classes on how to butcher chickens. If you live in the North Texas area, give them a call. They are a knowledgeable family who can help you in your homesteading efforts. Follow the link below for more details.

Chicken Butchering Classes

Local Holiday Parade

I'm planning on shooting over to Whitewright this evening to enjoy their holiday parade and lighting ceremony in the nature park. Should be fun. Maybe I'll see some of you there! Go to www.whitewright.org for more details.

Greenhouse Seminar

Hi everyone.  I just wanted to let you know of a free seminar that's coming up.  Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse is putting on a Greenhouse Building seminar.  Here are the details:

"Greenhouses Made Simple"
presented by Master Gardener Gerald Frimann
Where: Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse, 4400 W Crawford St., Denison, Texas
When: Wednesday Oct 26th
Time: 2pm - 3pm

If you have any interest in building your own greenhouse, this might be just the talk for you.  Here is a link to their web page for more information:   http://www.sweetwaterfarmplants.com/

 Hope to see you there!

My family and I will be taking a quick trip to Denison tomorrow to check out Dominion Farms, a ranch offering grass fed beef, humanely raised pork, pastured chicken and eggs.  I'm hoping that I like what I see.  I've been searching for meat sources that haven't been feedlot finished or raised in nightmarish factories for some time now.  Not as easy as it seems.  I'll report back!

Gardening Seminar

Michele and I had a lovely day today attending a gardening seminar at Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse in Denison. SueZanne Peterson, rose expert, spoke on how to propagate roses from cuttings, and also shared general knowledge with how to keep roses in our area happy and thriving.

While both of us have been growing roses for years, neither have ever tried to propagate any. It just seemed too large a hassle. Ms SueZanne made it seem very easy with a few great tips:

- Start with well watered seed mix.

- Prune your cutting to have only a few leafy branches at the top.

- Make sure you plant your cutting with a good 3 grow nodes in the soil to take root.

- Keep well watered for a year. Yup, I said a year.

- After that it can be transplanted into a rose mix soil and kept watered and fed for another year.

She unpotted one of her transplant ready cuttings to show us how the roots had grown from the nodes. It was amazing to see how this formerly green branch had formed roots! I was lucky enough to win this small propagated rose plant to take home.

SueZanne also spoke a bit on companion plants, which are plants that can be grown beside roses (and in your veg garden, as to that) to serve as bug deterrents and/or soil improvers. She made the point that when we plant in monothematic ways (a whole bunch of one type of plant together, like an exclusive rose garden), we potentially open up our gardens to more diseases and problems. With roses, the only way to combat these issues is to spray, spray, spray. Using companion plants like garlic, salvia, and marigolds not only increase the visual variety in our gardens, but also increase the healthiness of them (less spray, spray, spraying).

Afterward we spent some time walking around Sweetwater's two lovely greenhouses, and the array of plants and trees that they offer. Of course I couldn't help but to grab some of the lovely plants that owners Barb Palmer and Dave Kenyon have to offer, including a few six-packs of marigolds for the vegetable beds and a cute little fig tree.

Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse is hands-down my favorite nursery and garden shop in the Texoma area. I was happy to spend an informative morning there. Armed with new knowledge, I am ready to propagate!

Organic Rose Gardening Seminar

Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse will be hosting a seminar on caring for roses organically this coming Saturday, June 12th from 10AM to 11AM. Sue Zanne Petersen will be speaking. Admission for this seminar is free. Click here for Sweetwater's website.

Michele - Gardening seminar

The folks at Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse put on a great seminar last week. The topic was year round gardening and the speaker, Ed, was full of good information. Among other things, he pointed out that in our climate, you really can have a garden all year long. He showed charts and gave examples of vegetables that would survive cool Texas winters and well as ones that could cope with the heat of our summers. These charts are all available at the local extension offices, so if you haven't been there yet, you might want to check it out.

Another bit of information that I found to be very helpful was that you need good soil to grow good plants. Although that may sound obvious, I doubt that the soil in my garden would win any awards for proper nutrient balance. There are test kits available at most local garden centers that will do basic tests on your soil. Kits are also available at the extension office, and for a mere $10 they will send it off to be tested. You get a report back detailing what is good and bad about the soil, along with suggestions on how to get it up to par.

Natural pest control was discussed, as well as fertilizer, planting techniques, and the benefits of gardening. I always thought the main benefit of gardening was the food, but Ed pointed out that along with providing beauty and food, gardening is great exercise. It will get you outside on these beautiful spring days and get you moving.

Overall, it was a very well spent hour and I would recommend attending similar talks if you get the chance!

Jenny - Ya Can't Beat Local Knowledge

Well, it's taken me 2 weeks, but I wanted to report on my visit to the local nursery that I mentioned in my last post on the Bonham garden expo. My family and I drove out to Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse in Denison the day after the expo. We wanted to check the place out and see how knowledgeable the owners, married couple Dave and Barb, would prove.
Well, we ended up staying there for about 2 hours! The establishment is a smallish one with one large greenhouse and a couple of outdoor areas beside it. They sell a variety of perennials, annuals, shrubs and trees. Though some of the more mainstream plants, such as petunias and pear trees, can be found at the larger discount stores, I did notice that Sweetwater tended to have a wider color variety. The plants were also in better shape than in the big stores, and clearly treated with more love.
Where Dave and Barb really excelled was in knowledge. They knew their plants. They knew the area. They had experience in planning and planting garden beds, and were willing to share everything in their heads to help you create whatever kind of garden or vegetable bed you had in mind. Have a problem area or a deathtrap garden bed (my front walkway)? Well, bring them a picture and lots of details on the soil, sun, traffic, etc going on there. They'll try to make some suggestions to help you turn that area around.
Their patience with me knew no bounds. After 2 hours of brainstorming, and a truckful of plants, including a lovely butterfly bush and a few very healthy strawberry plants, we went home full of ideas and enthusiasm. If you live in the Texoma area, and need a little collaboration on your flower or veg gardens, go and see Dave and Barb.

Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse
4400 W Crawford St
Denison, TX 75020
http://www.sweetwaterfarmplants.com/

Jenny - Fannin County Home & Garden Expo

Well, my family and I had a good time today at the Expo in Bonham. It was a smaller sized show, but full of information for our area. It included several talks from experts on things like home orchards, heat loving plants, and tips for growing your own veg garden. The vendors ranged from a very promising nursery that I intend to visit tomorrow, Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse, to an outdoor wood furniture maker, to handmade jewelry and flower arrangements and more. The Fannin County Extension Office had many representatives there to answer our questions (my husband grilled one on fire ant control), and one spent a lot of time with me describing the Junior Master Gardeners program. Being a homeschooler, I was curious as to how I could adapt their programs to our support group. She was wonderful and took time out to help me understand how I could do this. The Extension Office also had gobs of printouts for us on topics like fire ant control, rain barrel making, drought tolerant plants, and water conservation. I have a feeling that all of these printouts are readily available at the office in Bonham for those who are interested in picking some up. A couple JMG kids from a program run at a local school made my daughter a cool-looking hat out of newspaper,and another expo volunteer twisted up a pink balloon teddy bear holding a yellow tulip for my daughter. Fun day. I'm looking forward to putting into practice some of the tips I picked up today, and to checking out that nursery!