
Calendar
Shell Beach at sunset. Picture taken from the Pismo Preserve.
Central Coast Chapter Meetings & Other Events
Our Newsletter Keeps Everyone Up To Date.
Send Us Your Photos & Events!
Let others know what's going on by sending your articles, photos, and event info to: crfgccnewsletter@gmail.com
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Please submit your items by the 15th of each month for inclusion in the next newsletter.
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October Meeting: Saturday, October 14, 2023
Cuesta College North County Campus
This meeting is open to the public.
As always, no pets.
Location: 2800 Buena Vista Drive, Paso Robles, CA
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Bring: The usual: a healthy snack to share, your water bottle, hat and chair.
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Schedule:
12:00 - 1:00: Set up
1:00 – 1:30: Arrival, socializing and refreshments
1:30 -- 3:30: Chapter announcements. Agriculture Professor Dean Harrell will tell us about agriculture at the North County campus, then we will help Dean's students build two bioreactors. (Our chapter made one back in April and May of 2021. You can read about it starting in the May 2021 Chapter Newsletter.
3:30-4:00: Clean up.
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Directions:
Saturday, October 21: Orchard Work Day 9am - 12pm
CRFG Orchard on the Cal Poly campus.
Help us pull weeds, cut dead branches, and fix the fences.
November Meeting: Cal Poly Plant Conservatory
Open to the public.
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Instructional Support Technician Gage Willey will give us a tour of Cal Poly's Plant Conservatory.
Details about this event will be posted here as they become available.
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December Meeting: Holiday Party
Chapter members only.
Plant exchange, potluck, and fun!
The location will be the same as last year. Details will be emailed to members in the November newsletter.
Volunteer Opportunities
Volunteer at our Chapter's booth for these fun events!
Email our Chair and Vice-Chair (Linda and Manny) at central_coast@crfg.org.
September 12th–14th: National Heirloom Exposition, 2023 Ventura County Fairgrounds
Our Chapter will have a booth at the upcoming National Heirloom Exposition held this year in Ventura County on September 12, 13 & 14th. This is what Linda Robertson says:
“The festival started in Santa Rosa, and I helped out with the Redwood Empire chapter table for a couple of years when I lived up north. Our display was a large collection of seasonal fruit contributed by chapter members from their orchards, along with a few plants. The Monterey chapter had a similar table that was all apples.
I'd really like to put together a committee to work on preparing a display, and if possible get a couple of people who can make the trip down there for a day or so. I can go. Let me know if you're interested.”
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We would love to have some fruit on display in the booth. If you have any nice looking home grown fruit, even one piece, that you can contribute to the display please bring it to our monthly meeting this Saturday. Please include the variety name. If you have fruit to donate but can't make it to the meeting please ask someone to bring it, or contact Chapter Chair, Linda Robertson, tinyapplefarm@gmail.com, or Chapter Secretary, Elaine Rathbun, elainerathbun@msn.com, to arrange for pickup.
From the Heirloom Expo:
“What began in 2011 as a celebration of pure food and sustainable living has developed into an impressive event that annually draws upwards of 20,000 participants. Featuring the largest display of heritage produce, the Expo now focuses on the preservation of heirloom foods without genetic modification. Many individual and commercial growers supply an abundance of fruits and vegetables for exhibiting and tasting.”
It’s become known as the “World’s Fair of Pure Food.”
Check out the Heirloom Expo’s website for more information:
www.TheHeirloomExpo.com
info@theheirloomexpo.com
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September 30, 2023: Arroyo Grande Harvest Festival Saturday
The A.G. Harvest Festival features everything from entertainment, food, scarecrow and baking contests, games for the kids, movie night, and more.
We’ll have booth at this event to inform the public about CRFG and sell plants to raise money for our CRFG Chapter's scholarships. You can volunteer to help set up, take down, attend our booth for a few hours, and/or donate plants for sale.
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Start saving plants to donate. Make sure they are clean, pest free and labeled clearly as to variety and growing needs. And label it with a price. Only you know how valuable the plant is, how hard it was to propagate etc...
To learn more about the event, check this website:
https://www.agharvestfestival.com/homegrown-growing-contest
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Meetings
Our meetings are usually held on the second Saturday of the month, with the exception of the February meeting which is held on the third Saturday. (The February meeting is the annual scion exchange and grafting instruction.) In general our group gathers at 12:30 pm for refreshments and socializing, with the meeting itself starting at 1 p.m. This is not always the case though, so check this web page or our newsletter for the specific times for each meeting.
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Most of our meetings are open to the public. We encourage the public to join us and learn with us!
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Please read our "meeting manners" below prior to attending. No pets at any meeting, please.
Our Best CRFG Manners While Visiting Homes, Nurseries, Growers, etc.
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We never bring pets to meetings/tours and we never even ask if we may!
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We do our best to use public facilities or our own restroom before the meeting.
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We do our best not to ask to go inside the hosts’ home.
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We never pick fruit, flowers, foliage, weeds, seed pods and we never even ask.
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We do our best to car pool and park with great respect to our host and the neighborhood.
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We never talk when our host is talking. We do our best to stay up close when given a tour.
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We never “take over” the tour and tell everyone how we do it at our home!!
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We have thoughtful questions but try not to ask questions that embarrass our host.
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We do our best to help our host feel good, feel appreciated. We clean up our mess.
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We stay on the path, with our host …and never go walking around on our own unless given permission by the host.
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At the end of the tour, we make a special effort to thank the host. We “gather up” and have some sort of “closure” to the tour.
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We even write thank you notes when we get home, especially if we asked a lot of questions, were impressed, were surprised, were treated well. We write thank you notes even when we are not the leader!