Grantoberfest 2015!! A beautiful day for a fair!

Burnett Garden Club had a booth at Grantoberfest again this year. This is our third year participating in this fun event. Here are a few pictures of our booth before the festivities got started!

Lisa brought the stand for her barn quilt but it got commandeered for our sign before she could get back with the barn quilt, sorry Lisa!! We did have both the barn quilt and a great American flag on a shipping palate. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the booth with the barn quilt or the palate flag.

Linnea provided pumpkins and squash for decorating as well as succulents to display and give away.

Georgianne provided the beautiful new canopy! Our garden club plant sale sign worked great folded so the "plant sale" portion could not be seen. The Grantsburg Chamber of Commerce provided the cornstalk decorations.

We displayed blown up photos throughout the booth of all the fun things we have done in the club. We also displayed examples of some of our workshop products as well as other fun things club members have made to enhance their gardens and yards. Thanks to all the members who provided display materials.

Lucille came by to visit and helped us pass the time. Lots of other members came by to see us as well. This great photo of Georgianne and Lucille is borrowed from the Grantsburg Chamber of Commerce FB page. 

We spoke with many potential members and handed out brochures. We also made a few contacts for possible programs: Tom Bell who is new to vermiculture was willing to come and talk at one of our meetings about using worms to create compost. Also, Valerie Vollendorf of Vintage Meadows, specializing in antique flowers and heirloom vegetable seeds came by. We thought she would make a great presenter for the garden club!! Let's add these two to our list for 2016!  

Thank you to Georgianne for all her hard work putting together the 2015 Grantoberfest booth for our club!! And to me, Pam, her trusty sidekick!

Our first Grantoberfest booth indoors in 2013!

Check out more photos of grantoberfest at this Facebook link  2015 Grantoberfest (you will have to be logged onto FB to see it)

Meeting Minutes, September 2015

Sept 10, 2015
Meeting was called to order at 6:45 by President Kris Henning.
The secretary is absent; Janet Byers will take the minutes.

Secretary’s report: The minutes from the last meeting held in May are on the blog and were approved.
Treasurer’s report: Georgianne informed us that we now have $1862.30 in our account.
At our annual plant sale in June, we sold $713.75 worth of plants. We had expenses of $133.20 to pot up the plants for the sale. The Grantsburg Library bought $99.00 worth of our left over plants for the new planting at the library. This gave us a total, after expenses, of $679.55 in plant sales. We also sold our pretty pink Garden Club T shirts for $10 each for a total of $160.00. We spent $50 on prizes at the picnic, and $38.00 on meat and buns for that picnic.
We spent $77.00 in July to plant the containers at the Grantsburg Fairgrounds. We spent $20 for the newspaper ad for the plant sale and we spent $76.00 at Wood River garden store for the annuals for the Welcome to Grantsburg sign on Hwy. 70.
The treasurer’s report stood as reported.

Announcements:
Kris passed around sign-up sheets for 2016 refreshments, committees, and program suggestions.
We will collect club dues in September and October of $5.00 per member. If you would like to purchase the Horticulture magazine for $37.00, please let Georgianne or Kris know right away. A subscription to that magazine has many benefits.
We have a guest joining us tonight, Rhonda Johnson of Grantsburg. Rhonda decided tonight to join the club. Welcome Rhonda!!

Committee reports:

• Grantoberfest—Georgianne/Pam: We will have a booth at the Grantoberfest at the Grantsburg Fairgrounds on Sept 19th from 10am to 4pm. There will be a celebration of the Sesquicentennial of Grantsburg this year. Our club will be displaying items that our club members have made at our various meetings showcasing the wonderful projects that we make and showing how much fun we have at our meetings. Please bring the items you would like displayed to Pam’s house this week. They will be on display only- not for sale. Bring your items such as fairy gardens, bird baths, wicker items, etc. We can also still use more volunteers to help at our booth. Contact Pam if you are available to help, even if it is just for an hour or two.
• Holiday in the Park—Lisa: We will be having a display again this year for Holiday in the Park. Lisa and Audrey are the chairs for this display. Please contact either one of them with your ideas or to volunteer to help setting up the display.
• Plant Sale—Kris: We did not set up plants for sale on Friday night this year—it just did not pay. The income and expense sheet was discussed under Treasurer’s report.
• Sign/Flagpole planting—Georgianne/Pam: Our club has been planting at the Welcome to Grantsburg sign on Hwy 70 since 1989. We have done a great job with it each year.  The zinnias are fantastic this year! We will be discussing revamping it a bit next year. The flag pole planting also looks great this year. The marigolds there reseeded themselves again and are doing well.
• Tours—Linnea: We had our Community garden tour on July 16th. We had at least 20 people joining us on the tour. We went to see Sandra Harmon's home and gardens again this year to see all of her additions and to see how well the gardens have done this year. Then we visited the Grantsburg Library, next the Faith Lutheran Church veggie display garden, next to the lovely rolling expanse of gardens at Sharon and Rick Danielson's home. Wonderful ideas, ponds, trellises, trees, fabulous perennial gardens. We finished with a bang at the lovely home/gardens of Dean and Sue Faulhaber. Wow!

At our upcoming meetings, we will be discussing the possibility of a June garden party. Would be lots of fun!

• Fairgrounds planting—Lisa: We want to thank Wood River Garden Center and Village Floral for the flowers/plants that they donated that we planted at the fairgrounds this year. The 4H kids made some new planters this year and they watered the plants all summer. And the plants look GREAT!

• Library planting update—Georgianne and Pam planted the trees, perennials and shrubs at the Library.   Thanks so much to both of you. They have been weeding and watering the plants all summer. The mulch seems to be thick enough to be helping to keep moisture in and weeds down. Pam would like to see some large red tulips planted in there this Fall to add a wonderful burst of color in the Spring. Pam will check at the garden center to see if they have some bulbs. Mark Dahlberg donated a lovely Japanese lilac tree to the Library plantings this year. This is to honor his dear wife Maude.  Pam planted the tree and it is doing well.

Club T-Shirts—Lisa: We still have more garden club T shirts left for sale- only $10 each!

New Business: It was suggested that we look at doing a club cookbook for fundraising, with growing tips and photos of our club activities. Maybe also a float for the Fair parade?

Any other business:
Some of our members went to the Twilight Garden Tour at the Spooner Ag Station. They had stormy weather so the events were moved inside and it all went very well!!

Brag Time:
Linnea and Becky did VERY WELL at the Burnett County Ag. Fair in August this year. They each had many entries and captured many, many ribbons. Honorary Junior Garden Club member McKenzie Harmon also did very well at the fair with her Fairy Garden that she made at one of our meetings this Spring. Congrats to all!!
 
Meeting adjourned at 7:35. Next meeting Oct. 8th, Speaker-Pam Davies on Gardening with Children and update on MG class, refreshments Janet & Rhonda.

We are also having our seed/plant exchange tonight. THANK YOU so much to all who brought in plants/ seeds to share. What a wonderful variety.

Our presentation tonight is:
Preserving Your Produce,  presented by Mary C. and Kris.

Both ladies did a wonderful job of showing us what to do with the various canning/preserving items that they brought with, were very good at explaining what to do and not to do with your produce. They spoke about hot packing, cold packing, pressure cookers, water bath canners, dehydration and much more. They also had a wonderful hand out (Intro to Canning) from Ball. The session was very helpful and very informative. Thank you so much Kris and Mary.