|
April 3rd, 2015
Dear Gardening Friends,
Happy April!
 Seems impossible, but it’s here already! Easter, Passover, all the lovely traditions of early Spring… and oh, yes, and our Annual Spring Sale & Food Drive! This year, we had the best Sale and the best Food Drive ever!
It was really hot, but Alex and Charles put up our Market tents, and that helped; folks were patient with the heat and the crowd, and everyone had a great time. Alex and I really want to thank everybody who came and who brought so much food and who purchased so much product and so many seedlings, berries & trees!! Also, a special thanks to those of you who drove in from our Market locations.
 Our Food Drive goal was to fill 4 large donation boxes reaching the required 400 lb. minimum the Food Bank has in order to do a pick-up; I put the word out, and folks were arriving with 20- and 50 lb. bags of rice, tons of dried legumes and canned fruit… our final collection weighed in at 539 lbs!!! It was a beautiful sight!
Plus, along with our own 5% of Sale donation and some customers’ checks, we also delivered $536 in monetary donations! The Food Bank can provide 4 meals with every $1 donated, so this means we enabled them to serve 2,144 meals, AND stock the local Food Pantries!! Yay, and thanks again to all who helped!!
It takes us months to get ready for the Season Kick-Off, and as always, we’re way too busy to take any photos during the Sale weekend...…suffice it to say we were swamped on Saturday, and had a very good day on Sunday, even though the LA Marathon make it tricky for some folks to get here.
One photo we did get was of our very long time customer (going all the way back to the Larchmont Farmers Market days), Tim Johnson, was our EarthBox Winner from the random drawing of those customers who participated in our Annual Tomato Survey last Fall. If you haven’t redeemed your Free Tomato Coupon for taking the Survey, it’s still OK to do so, even though the “expiration date” has come and gone.
|
|
|
 We've been working on our own garden out front…it’s a big job changing out so many EarthBoxes and Smart Pots! Of course, we get lots of help from Charles, our assistant, who is also joining us at the Farmers Markets these days. Harvesting from our Fall crops is ongoing: I harvested most of our “Conehead” Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbages, Franklin Brussels Sprouts and Leeks today. They are in the oven roasting, with Beets, Potatoes & Carrots as I type this! Smells heavenly!! |
|
|
|
Speaking of Strawberries…
My determination to have lots of strawberries to offer has paid off! We've re-ordered the baby crowns several times over, and are about to receive one last (huge) order of the Sequoias, so we’ll have them for some time to come. The lovely French Mara Des Bois had to be ordered 3 times! We currently have just 7 or 8 six-packs of those still available; we planted ours out early, and oh boy, are they delicious! If you’re interested, email us ASAP!
|
|
|
|
HEADS-UP LOCAL PEEPS!!
Announcing...
SPRING and SUMMER
OPEN HOUSES!!!
Every time we have an event here at the Home Nursery, I wish we could do more of them! We have so many local customers who can’t drive out to our Markets, and sometimes it’s hard to schedule an appointment with us…as most of you know, I spend 3 days/evenings a week with my Mama (who just turned 93!), and with one 12-hour bookkeeping day, all the production scheduling, ordering, writing the Newsletter, updating the website and the 2 Market days, our time in the Nursery is just so limited!!
So, beginning on April 15th, we plan to hold a monthly “Wednesday Open House”…not a Sale, but just a day to come without an appointment, share some lemonade, and get what you need for an awesome Spring/Summer garden!! So, please plan to join us, and bring your gardening friends!!
April Open House
at the Two Dog Home Nursery
914 S. Cloverdale Ave.
Los Angeles 90036
April 15th (a little relief on “Tax Day”!)
No appointment necessary!
from 10am until 4pm
No Pets Please!!
By then, we’ll have Melons, “Winter Squash”, Okra, Amaranth & Corn ready, too!
We’ll announce the dates for May, June & July in subsequent Newsletters!
|
|
|
|
I shot this little video at our
warehouse yesterday.
I already put this up on Facebook, but I’ll share it here, too…
“Think having an Organic Nursery is all about tiny seeds and baby plants? Not if you want to be a One-Stop Shop for your customers!! Here's my multi-talented hubby forklifting in 13 pallets of carefully curated Organic Soil, Worm Castings, Seedling Mix & Compost into our warehouse. From the warehouse to the Nursery, to the truck, to the Markets, to your cars...he gets a workout!”
We bring in big orders like this very regularly, and we hope you will remember us when you have soil, compost, & fertilizer needs. We really appreciate your support of this 7-day-a-week, hard working, family owned & run business, now in it’s 6th year!!
|
|
|
That’s it for now… we do hope to see you here on the 15th, and as always, at the Markets!
Happy gardening, and many thanks,
Jo Anne, Alex, Jake, Lalo & Charlie
|
|
|
|
|
