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August 7, 2007

URI veggie garden open house Saturday

The URI Master Gardener Demonstration Vegetable Barder is located next to the field house at East Farm.

Kingston -- After a hiatus of five years, URI Master Gardeners are resuming their Demonstration Vegetable Garden Open House on Saturday, August 11 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at East Farm.

The free event will offer visitors special educational presentations, a chance to have their soil tested and some cooking ideas by three professional chefs.

The open house at the demonstration garden on the main URI campus was a regular event up to five years ago but was suspended because many of the volunteers involved were busy with other Master Gardener projects.

This year’s event is the first open house at the new, much larger garden at East Farm.

The garden provides produce for the RI Community Food Bank and other charitable organizations and also serves as an educational facility for exploring different vegetable growing techniques. The garden is not certified organic but the Master Gardeners follow organic practices.

The 5,000-square foot garden is equipped with a drip irrigation system, a composting facility and offers demonstrations on container and no-till gardening.

An Ask a Master Gardener booth will be staffed by volunteers to answer gardening questions and hand out literature.

Master Gardeners will also demonstrate composting, no-till gardening, trellising, high and low-tech irrigation and water conservation using rain barrels. The adjacent field house has a demonstration rain barrel installation. A few rain barrels will be offered for sale.

Three professional chefs will be on hand and will concentrate on vegetable recipes. The chefs are Normand Leclair, cookbook author and founder of the now-closed Red Rooster Tavern in North Kingstown; Bruce MacDonald of Town Meats in Wakefield and Elizabeth Mersereau of the Brown University Dinning Services.

Master Gardeners will perform free pH soil testing for visitors. To take a good soil sample, dig up small amounts of soil from about 10 different spots in the garden or lawn and combine them in a plastic bag. A cup of soil is sufficient for each sample. Keep lawn and garden samples separate.

There is ample free parking in the vicinity of the vegetable garden. Comfortable walking shoes are recommended. Pets are not allowed in the garden.

East Farm is on Route 108 (Kingstown Road) about one-half-mile south of the main traffic light in Kingston.

Posted by Rudolph A. Hempe  at 1:27 PM to Public event | Permalink

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