Growing Cucurbits Class Saturday 4/28

Did you know that the inside temperature of a cucumber can be as much as 20 degrees cooler than the outside air? What better plant for a Texas garden than a cool cucumber! Not to mention the juicy sweetness of a homegrown melon or the prolific nature of a summer squash plant. All these heat loving vines are in the Cucurbit family and will be our subject of study at this week's garden class. Saturday at 10:30am we'll go over soil prep, varieties that do well in Central Texas, planting, pest control, and harvest.

Please be aware that the Red Poppy Fest is this weekend. See our website at themonumentmarket.com for parking and detour info.

Preparing the Soil for a New Garden

We are going back to basics this week at the Monument Garden Class where we'll be going over a variety of methods to start a new garden. We'll discuss site selection, different ways to break ground, and the all important soil preparation. This is the perfect class for those of you who have been thinking about starting a garden, but haven't know where to begin!

Raised Beds and Irrigation Systems for the Home Garden

David Alves from Vegetables in a Box will be joining us in the Market this Saturday for this month's Guest Speaker Garden Workshop. He'll guide us through basics of building a raised bed garden box and talk about some options you have for irrigating your garden, focusing mostly on drip irrigation. Class starts at 10:30am on Saturday and is free! See you there!

April Garden Classes

The warm days are back and gardens are flourishing in the longer days and frequent showers. It has been a great spring for growing things so far. Let us hope that the rain stays with us this year!

This month's gardening classes have topics for both the novice and experienced green thumb. All classes are Saturdays at 10:30 in the Market and are free.

We'll start of the month on April 7th with our usual first Saturday "This Month in the Garden" class where we'll go over the to-do list for the month.  We'll talk about what you can plant from seed and from transplant as well as other timely garden tasks.

For our second Saturday Guest Speaker Workshop on April 14th, David Alves from "Vegetables in a Box" will be joining us to go over raised beds and irrigation systems for the home garden. The two raised beds on the north side of the Monument Garden are his work. Davis will be discussing the pros and cons of raised beds as well as the basics of drip irrigation. He'll show us a way to put liquid fertilizer, like compost tea or fish emulsion, directly into your irrigation system so that every time you water you are also feeding your plants.

On April 21st we'll go back to basics and talk about how to prepare your soil for a new garden.

On April 28th we'll get specific and talk about growing cucurbits which include cucumbers, squash & melons.

I hope to see you there!