Turkey Creek Nature Preserve

Today was the Float Your Boat fundraiser at Turkey Creek Nature Preserve.  People who attended paid to float little,  colorful, balsa wood boats on the creek and over the falls( like rubber ducky races) There were several heats and then the final for the prizes.  I was there to volunteer at the Vulcan Trail Association booth.(my hiking club)  The Vulcan Trail Association has been building a new hiking trail at Turkey Creek and the grand opening for the trail will be in late September.
If you haven't visited the park, please do.  Its a great place to get in the water, sit on the rocks and cool off in the hot summer weather.  Really fun  place at any time of the year.

Talked with lots of great people and enjoyed the outdoors.  Our booth was next to The Stoneshovel booth.  Stoneshovel is owned by Arnie Rutkis, who designs and builds native plant gardens. He propagates the plants and had several different kinds for sale. Arnie also built the beautiful garden at Turkey Creek Nature Preserve.  One of Arnie's  boats won first prize in the final float race! The prize was a nice Patagonia duffle bag from Alabama Outdoors.
Arnie has been in some of the classes I've taken at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens,and when I get back to planting more natives, he'll be my source for plants.  You can find out more about his business at www.stoneshovel.com or e mail him at arnie@stoneshovel.com.  Please check him out.

The Vestavia Hills Library has a fairly large Go Green section and I have been enjoying checking out the books.  This week I found a book called The Heirloom Life Gardener , by Jere and Emilee Gettle.
They own the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company in the Ozark Mountains in Missouri.  In a world where agriculture has been taken over by corporate agriculture and factory farms with monoculture crops from hybridized and genetically engineered seeds, it is becoming more and more important  to buy and grow your garden with heirloom varieties of plants and seeds.  The produce tastes much better and is much more nutritious than the hybridized food most people eat which is bred for shipping  and long shelf life, and to withstand the herbicides poured on the fields to kill the weeds.
It seems that more and more heirloom produce is showing up at farmer's markets, good thing.  

The story of how Baker Creek got started is quite fun to read.  I'm only about a third of the way through the book, so will keep you updated, but if you like gardens, you'll find this book interesting.

Happy growing,
Susan