You are invited! Each spring, the Master Gardener program of San Diego County holds a day of classes and workshops, plus a marketplace. This year’s Spring Seminar is called “Garden Spaces: Growing Outside the Box.” It will be held on March 17, 2018 at the San Diego County Operations Center in the Kearny Mesa area.

Registration is now open. Click here to go to the event’s webpage. There you’ll find a map of the location, the day’s schedule, a registration form, and of course, descriptions of the classes and workshops.

This year I’ll be giving a couple of those. In the first, I join my fellow Master Gardener, My Than Kim, in a presentation titled, “Chickens and quails enhance your garden.” The class description: “Learn how to use chickens to control bad bugs and weeds, as well as make compost. And learn how to raise quails, which are cute, quiet, require only a small space, and give you eggs in just 6-8 weeks.” In essence, I’ll give a fuller presentation of the post I wrote some months ago titled, “Chickens: my garden’s little helpers.” My cohort, My, is an innovative gardener and she is the one who raises quails. We will be sure to leave time for a good question and answer session.

After that, I’ll give a workshop titled, “Drip Irrigation Troubleshooting.” The description: “Learn to identify and solve problems with drip and micro-sprinkler irrigation systems. The class offers a hands-on look at the challenges of clogging, inserting new fittings, watering plants with different needs, and your own specific issues.” I’ll bring materials that we can practice with together, and I’ll do my best to get you ready for a successful summer irrigation season.

I know most of the other presenters of classes and workshops, and they will all provide a lot of useful information, no doubt — making it hard to choose which ones to attend. But a couple of classes I would particularly hate to miss are Robin Rivet’s talk on trees and Marcia Van Loy’s talk on pollinators. Hope to see you there.