Get Ready for the Next Meeting

The Light Brown Apple Moth quarantine has been affecting our traditional plant raffle for a while. So I've cooked up something that should stock this meeting's raffle with stuff you'll really want to buy a raffle ticket for a chance at. Be there or be square.

RSVP at: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/423359/

If you're willing to bring some refreshments to the meeting, please let me know.

The subject is "What grows where in the Bay Area?" It will be moderated by CRFG President Bill Grimes.

You guys are really going to be the stars of the next meeting. In order for all of us to get the most out of it, please reflect upon what your experience has been with growing certain crops in your area. Reflect upon how you'd describe your microclimate (for instance, I'm in a misty, windy part of Berkeley....other Berkeleyites live in warmer, more sheltered parts of our city), your soil, your average chill hours... Hopefully, neighbors can check with each other at the meeting to see what works for their area and learn about new things to try.

A site I have found INCREDIBLY helpful in helping me remember what went on and make sense of my garden is MyFolia. I was just on the verge of trying to create my own database program when I was invited to be a beta tester for this site. It does a lot of what I was looking for.

If you have time before the meeting, join MyFolia and start filling in what you've got planted. It will help you remember what all you've got and it will help other CRFG members know what you have. Then it's easier to ask each other for requests for budwood, scionwood, etc. And, if you're inclined to blog or journal, you can track your plants' progress. That way if your memory is bad, it's there in black & white. And it's available to be read by others who can learn from your triumphs and mistakes.

I think it has the potential to really be useful to our chapter if members join it. It's free. And I've NEVER gotten any spam from them.

You can view my garden here: http://myfolia.com/gardener/spidra

And you can join MyFolia as my guest here: http://www.myfolia.com/gardener/spidra/invite

I updated some of my plantings last night and I received permission from the site owners to start a CRFG area in the Groups area of the site. If you're a CRFG member who starts tracking your plants at Folia, please just post to the roll call thread so we can identify one another on the site and check out what we're growing.


Obviously, you don't have to use the site if you don't want to. But it would be great for us all if you did, I think. It would really help us help each other by increasing each chapter member's knowledge of other members' holdings, experiences, etc.


Megan Lynch
co-chair of Golden Gate chapter, CRFG