Free Workshops for Your Home and Garden

It’s that time of year again, when it’s time to start thinking about your yard and garden again. It was a bit of a rough winter for a lot of our yards and houses, but things are beginning to spring back, and we’re starting to see new signs of life. And along with those new beginnings of life in the yard, come new beginnings of yard work. Maybe you’re dreading it, or maybe you’re like us, and you’re chomping at the bit to get back to it. Either way, it’s coming. Fortunately for us, the City’s Environmental Services has workshops to help take care of business around the yard, the garden and the house.

Seed Swap and Potluck
If you’re looking for a fun way to kick off your gardening year with other local gardeners, this evening’s Tacoma-Pierce County Community Garden Program Seed Swap would be a good way to start. The idea is simple. You know how many more seeds come in a packet than you really need (unless you accidentally drop the darn thing, and the chickens get them… Not that that’s happened to anyone we know…). So bring a packet of seeds and a potluck dish to share to the Tacoma Nature Center at 6:30 tonight.

For more information, click here.

Envirohouse
The Envirohouse will be hosting a series of weekend workshops on a number of topics that could prove extremely useful. We’re looking at the “Pruning Basics” session in a couple weeks, and “Porous Pavers: Paths, Patios, and Driveways” sounds like it could be useful too (is your yard as muddy as ours is right now?). But there are a ton of other topics – the “Backyard Chickens” workshop sounds like another great one.

Edible Garden Workshops
If home-grown veggies are more your speed, the Community Garden Program is hosting a series of workshops to answer your questions on seeds, soils, planting and maintaining a vegetable garden.