Daily Archives: February 28, 2010

Update – Spring Fruit & Grafting Show – Update

I’ve been busy organizing and having a ball doing it all.  My garden is neglected.  I am looking out at my Beauty plum in full bloom and watching for mason bees.  So far, I’ve just seen bumble bees and hover flies.  On top of working on the show in March, I’ve been creating an apple poster from my photographs of the last few years.  I’m excited about it and hope to have them finished soon.  Maybe for sale at our show!

 

The final stages of planning are happening for the March 14th Spring Fruit & Grafting Show!  It is evolving into another wonderful show for us.  I can’t wait!  Volunteer time slots are filling up.  I’ve been wanting people to have time to stroll the show and hear lectures so the volunteer time slots are short – Saturday Set Up 3pm to 5pm, Sunday Set Up 8am to 10am, Sunday 10am to 12:30pm, Sunday 12:30pm to 3:00pm, Take Down 3pm to 5pm, and we are done.  We still have a few openings so email me.  seattletreefruitsociety@hotmail.com

 

Things to keep in mind that day is that it is on a Sunday and the first day of daylight savings time.  So it will seem like an hour earlier than usual.  Also, Seattle Tree Fruit Society has no credit card sales so bring your check book or cash. Prices are now set – Tools Sharpened for a $1 donation please.  Grafting for $10, Rootstock $3-4, Scion Wood Free – please limit to five free then $1 each.  The Northwest Fruit Fertilizer will be $20 for a 20# bag.  Please bring all your plastic bags from home, we need your extra bags in the grafting area.                  

 

We have food vendors for this event.  We will have ‘Got Soup?’ from the local farmer’s markets, offering ~4 different soups using fresh, local, organic produce and local artisan breads.  Also, we have ‘Espresso First’ with beverages and bakery items. They will set up out on the patio and the food containers will all be composted.  The only non-composted items would be the recycle and plastic spoons.  Very cool!

 

In our Educational booth area we will have: our Literature Dept, Membership & Information table & Maggot Barrier Sales.  Marilyn and Dick Tilbury are preparing to try and answer questions on biology, cultural, and chemical control of insects and diseases of common tree fruit & berries.  They will have trap samples on display.  Roger Ledbetter is setting up a Mason Bee display with a few products for display with his friend Steve Brustkern.  There will also be Mason Bee houses, grafting knives, and finger protectors available from the Peninsula Fruit Club.  There will displays by Chinook Compost Tea, Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation, City Fruit, PlantAmnesty, Seattle Tilth, and Friends of Piper Orchard.  The South Sound Fruit Club will be selling a few of their blueberry plants (varieties Blue Crop, Jersey, Collins, Northland) in mixed bundles of 5 @ $50 to WCFS members, that mean us.  These plants are ~3′ tall, making this a great price!

 

I just took a break to go out and get the Sunday paper and see our ‘free’ ad, a bonus from advertising in the Flower & Garden Show Guide this year.  Here it is in the Pacific Northwest section, page 20 top.  I’m excited.  See you there.  Email me to volunteer.  Lori  seattletreefruitsociety@hotmail.com

Thank You Flower & Garden Show Volunteers!

This year’s show, Feb 3-7th was a pleasure to be a part of.  The new Flower Show owners did their best to continue the event as if nothing had changed.  It’s invigorating for me to smell the sweet spicy blossoms as I enter the show halls.  We shared the booth space with WWFRF again this year and worked like a well oiled machine on Set Up and Tear Down.  The WWFRF crew is a pleasure to work with and their booth displays of all the events up north are very noteworthy – like the March 6th Field Day.

We added new table covers that  drape over the tables with a green fabric panel ‘Seattle Tree Fruit Society’ with apples and pears beneath.   They look very professional.  Judy Moritz, re-sewed for us a missing part to our grid wall backing on which we hang the large display photos.  We were lucky enough to find the same fabric and Judy was sweet to sew us a new piece to match the ones she had made last year.  Thank you Judy.

Bill Moritz had the idea of having a discounted Flower Show membership offer and that brought in 14 new members during the show!   The volunteers did a great job of taking new memberships and listening to people’s questions about fruit.  We ended up with a long list of questions to be answered.  Thank you to Marilyn and Dick Tilbury who knowledgably answered the show questions.  We will be printing up some of these great questions and the answers from the Tilburys in future issues of USP.

 

Set up would not have been so smooth for me if it weren’t for my husband Steve Brakken, driving me all over to get materials, storage items, and booth parts.  He’s a jewel.  And Jayson Akai, constant, quiet and very handy with set up.  Set Up went so smoothly, I have them both to Thank for that. 

We placed an ad in the Seattle Times in the Flower & Garden Show Guide.  It was a first for us at advertising in the Show flier and it also gave us a free ad in the Feb 28th Sunday ‘Pacific Lifestyles’ section of  the Seattle Times about the upcoming Spring Fruit & Grafting Show on Sunday, March 14th.

Thank you everyone for helping me on every task getting ready for the show.  I hope I have remembered all your names here and have spelled them correctly.  The show booth would not have happened without you.  You are important to the club and to the Seattle community who sought out information from our booth that was not really offered at other booths.

Booth Coordination and Design: Kristan Johnson, Rachel Petrich, Linda Knudson, Judy Moritz, Steve Brakken

Our new Table covers: Kim Siebert, Kristan Johnson,  Don Puerling at Impact Canopy, Bill Moritz

Booth Set Up: Jayson Akai, Steve Brakken, Kristan Johnson, Rachel Petrich,

Filling Volunteer Time slots:  Marlene Falkenbury

Development of Fliers and Booth Information: Bill Moritz, Linda Sartnurak, Laure Jansen,

Take Down: Greg Giuliani, Jayson Akai , Kristan Johnson

Staff in the booth – There were volunteers from our sister WCFS club on Vashon Island too!

Vagn and Marian Jensen, Sheila Barker, Betty Armstrong, Bragdon Shields, Michael Reinhardt, John Reardon, Vicky Thomas, Jack Pedigo, Gini Paulsen, John Roach, Kathy Lange, Christine Robertson, Winifred Becker, Barbara Burrill, Maggie Asplamp, Lory Armitage, Carolina Nurik, Hildegard Hendrickson, Sandy Bowman, June Schumacher, Carole Blakey, Marlene Falkenbury, Diana Donnell, Tracey Bernal, Joslyn Slaughter, Linda Sartnurak, Vickie Brodine, Claire Bronson, Jerry Packard, Michell Ramean, Donna Manders,  Dave Hanower, Eveline Takahashi, Doris Leavens, Nancy Perine, Trent Elwing,