MILLS RIVER, N.C. — 2020 has brought a surge of interest to many activities, not the least of which is gardening. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, seed companies were overwhelmed with orders and many had to shutter their websites just to keep up with demand. People are growing “victory gardens” like no time in recent decades, endeavoring to feed themselves from the backyard. What about those who want to grow their own food, but don’t have a sunny patch of earth to tend? Is it possible to grow a thriving garden on a driveway or patio?
Enter Patryk Battle. Battle is a veteran gardener and farmer, currently the Director of Living Web Farms, an education and research nonprofit focused on food systems near Asheville, NC. He is a source of abundant information and wisdom on gardening and farming, and has been teaching workshops on many topics related to growing, preserving, and preparing food for years. “There’s a huge upsurge in gardening ⎼ everybody realizes the importance,” Battle shares. “Some people think that because they don’t have ground available, they can’t garden… but they can use containers!”
This August 11th, Battle will present an online workshop on Beginner & Container Gardening. “First we’ll cover some basics of beginning gardening, to empower anybody to let nature guide them in the process of growing plants,” says Battle. “Then we’ll move on to container gardening, which can be done by any beginner.” Included will be guidance on materials to use, different types of growing containers, the range of plants that can be grown, and ways to care for their particular needs. “When plants get dry, they usually go down deep into the earth in search of water,” he states. “In container gardening, there’s no source of water deep down, so we must pay special attention to keep plants from drying out.”
While this workshop was originally scheduled to take place on Living Web Farms in Mills River, this is unfortunately no longer possible. This workshop will be available to participants as a live Zoom meeting, YouTube stream or pre-recorded video. “The mission of Living Web Farms is to provide pathways to the future should we run into disruptions, and indeed, we are seeing a bit of a disruption now. We think it’s important to have lots of food growing, and to empower people with knowledge.”
To register for Beginning Gardening & Container Gardening, visit the following link: https://livingwebfarms.org/
To view Patryk Battle’s recent short-form videos, check out Resilience Daily on YouTube.
–Patryk Battle, Living Web Farms