Talks & Book Signings
PLEASE NOTE: Beginning in 2011: In order to preserve strength and have more time for other pursuits, including writing more books, Pat Welsh will schedule talks during two months of the year only: March and September. Exceptions to this rule are existing dates already scheduled; Master Gardener Seminars, since they cannot always be scheduled during these months; and outdoor talks that were rained out and need to be rescheduled.
Date: Saturday, May 8, 2010
Time of Talk: 9:00 a.m.
Event: Orange County Master Gardeners General Meeting & Graduation
Subject of Talk: “The Story of Southern California Gardening: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going?”
Note: By invitation only. Not open to the general public (an activity of the Master Gardeners of Orange County).
Date: Saturday, September 4, 2010
Time of Talk: 11:00 a.m.
Event: Lecture and book signing at the San Diego Botanic Gardens
Subject of Talk: “Organic Cool Season Vegetables”
Location: San Diego Botanic Gardens (formerly Quail Botanical Gardens)
Address: 230 Quail Gardens Drive, Encinitas, California 92024;
Contact: Diana Goforth
Phone: (760) 436-3036 ext 206
Note: Cost is $10 for members, $12 for non-members; pre-registration required by September 1. Book signing before and after talk. Learn some valuable tips and tricks to growing organic cool season vegetables. Visit San Diego Botanic Garden’s website for more details at www.sdbgarden.org.
Date: Saturday, September 18, 2010
Time of Talk: 10:00 a.m.
Subject of Talk: “How to Grow Cool Season Crops the Organic Way”
Location: Rancho Los Alamitos Historic Ranch and Gardens
Address: 6400 E. Bixby Hill Road, Long Beach, California 90815
Contact: Michael Powers, Education Program Associate
Phone: (562) 431-3531
Note: Cost is $10 for members, $15 for non-members. Book signing before and after talk. Learn some valuable tips and tricks to growing organic cool season vegetables. Event will also feature exotic fresh fruits and vegetables from around the globe from Melissa’s Produce. Visit Rancho Los Alamitos’ website for more details and reservations at www.rancholosalamitos.com
Date: Saturday, September 25, 2010
Event: Orange County Master Gardener’s Annual Seminar
Subject of Talk: “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Spring-Flowering Bulbs”
Additional Information: Available at the Orange County Master Gardener’s website.
Date: Saturday, October 2, 2010
Event: San Diego County Master Gardener’s Fall Seminar
Subject of Talk: “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Spring-Flowering Bulbs”
Additional Information: Details to be announced
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Well I was not able to make your talk in Costa Mesa, as Spring is in full force and I’ve been a little busy… so I will just have to arrange another time to meet face to face, perhaps at a talk for you. Thanks for the list of the venues that you have spoken at in the past.
Also, I picked up your new edition of the S.C. Organic Gardening book at our local bookshop-Chaucer’s books and the man who rang me up was a fan of your work and a gardener too! how cool is this? I know I have been veraciously reading away and learning lots and answering many questions. thank you thank you I can’t tell you have grateful I am for this resource!
Just checking to be sure on the date at Roger’s Gardens in May.
Usually their seminars are on Saturdays rather than on Sundays. Would someone be sure to check on the date of Pat’s seminar at Roger’s Gardens? I would hate to miss it!!!
Many thanks!
Carolyn and I thought you gave a marvelous talk on Monday night! We loved
your useful tips and we’ll be trying several of them. I’m ordering a solar green cone from Solarcone, and I’m glad to learn finally that I shouldn’t be using potting soil in my Earth Boxes but rather I should use top soil! And I’m looking forward to using your boiling water technique for carrot seeds. I got numerous other good ideas (epsom salt, blood meal, etc.). You really gave us lots
of useful hints!
Normally I would already have started my annual vegetable garden but we’re going to be out of town during the last half of March, so I’m waiting until we return. I left town to go to the local desert to look at flowers by day and stars by night. Several of us do this almost every month, usually near the new moon, and I just now returned from this month’s outing.
Thanks again for your book and for your fine talk!
Don:
So glad you liked the talk and enjoyed the helpful tips. Planting later than March should work fine. The weather will be warmer and crops like tomatoes and corn will get going quicker.
A word of warning about the carrot seed germination trick. It doesn’t work in potting soil. I tried it with seeds planted in a pot filled with potting soil and I’m not totally sure why it didn’t work, but I think it has something to do with heat escaping too rapidly. I’ve used this trick many times when seeds are planted on the ground and covered with a little potting soil above the seeds. (This easy way to sprout seeds of members of the carrot family is on pages 332 and 361 of my book.)
Regarding desert wildflowers, did you see many and if so where? I’m looking forward to going there soon myself.
Mrs Welsh,
Much enjoyed your lecture last night at the Hort meeting. I believe you mentioned a related handout that would be available on your website. I can not seem to find the link, however. Can you e-mail me a copy? Thank you.
Anne Fletcher
Hi, Anne:
Thanks for coming to the talk. I’m so glad you enjoyed it. There are many ways to access the chart on generic fertilizers I mentioned last night. Easiest way is to click on this link: generic-fertilizers-soil-amendments – which takes you straight to the chart. Or Google “Generic Fertilizers and Soil Amendments Chart“. Then click on the first link that comes up. Either way, you can download it.
If you still have problems, please send me your address so that I can mail the chart to you.
All the best,
Pat
Pat,
I enjoyed your presentation tonight at the SDHort Society… just wonderful and thank you so very much!!!!!
nadia
Dear Nadia:
Thank you so much for your kind comment. It’s a delight to have such a large, happy, and enthusiastic audience. Such warmth makes it easy for a speaker to pour out the information. The San Diego Horticultural Society is an amazing group. The people who attend are eager to learn, share, and make friends. Many are great plant people and the array of plants and materials for sale and show at every meeting is simply mind boggling. I urge all people who love plants and gardening to attend at least once and see for themselves. Meetings are the second Tuesday of the month upstairs in the Offtrack betting facility on the north end of the Del Mar Fairgrounds. The building is open at 6:00 p.m and the speaker is at 7:00 p.m. Meetings last until 9:00 p.m.. Plants and books and other items can be purchased before the speaker and during intermission. Almost 2,000 people belong to this organization. Three or four hundred show up for meetings yet it never seems crowded. Meetings for non-members are $10.00. Annual membership is $35.00.
Pat
March 8th speech
Never been there before.
About where is “surfside Race Place”
Can’t wait to hear you!!!!!!
Hi, Andy:
Take 1-5 north or south to Del Mar. Exit at Via de La Vallee and turn West on Via del La Vallee. Get into the left hand lane, and turn left onto Jimmy Durante Drive. Turn right into the Del Mar Fairgrounds at the second or third entrance. (Both will be open and
parking is free.) Park on the North end of parking lot. You will see many other cars parked there. Follow the other folks into the building called the Surfside Race Place and take stairs or elevator to the second floor. We have a large plant sale, book sale, and several information tables.
This is a lively and fun meeting with many enthusiastic plant people and fascinating plant displays for you to enjoy. Arrive by 6:30 p.m. to enjoy all this before the meeting and again during the intermission.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Expect to be harrassed!
You are making me REALLY laugh aloud! Sounds as if you will fit in perfectly with all the other wizzened and warpelled types you will encounter at this meeting of marvelously mulchy manure-manipulators and sometimes small and grungy or otherwise gargantuan, green-growing, gardeners.
Pat
I first met you in person at one of the annual spring garden events coming up soon, At USD.
I tried to steal one of your “Southwest” horticultural books and you caught me. And then you refused to give me a senior citizen discount!
Teasing aside, we did discuss that other additions of the “Southwest” book (for other regions) were not nearly as good as yours.
You may think you are a gardener extraordinaire; however, I recall you as beautiful, vivacious, and charming.
Dear Andy:
I now distinctly remember you! And you made me laugh then by pulling my leg about the Southwest book. You said you’d read it, and I felt you understood it (and what I went through to write it, both good and bad!) But you were kidding me then and you are still doing that now. How very nice. (I love people who make me laugh, as my late husband Lou used to do.)
I look forward to seeing you again (but watch out, I will keep my eagle eye on you in case you might try to steal the new book, too.) As for the senior citizen discount…well, if you really want to know the truth I thought you were lying about your age. I am seriously afraid you are a young person masquerading as an older one.
Pat
Theme of my small garden is tropical. Looking forward to harassing you personally!
I first put my foot on the USA soil on New Years Day 1939. My experience has been much like yours, but not entirely. In Yorshire last summer whence I came I saw no frogs in what remains of my grandfather’s old garden at Hoyle Court, Baildon, Yorkshire, where I grew up but though I saw no trout leaping in the River Wharfe, I’m told the trout fishing is still good there. I and my granddaughter (on summer vacation from University of Michigan—please note!—) drove miles with friends and relatives through North Yorkshire and it has been most wonderfully preserved and remains as it was centuries ago with sheep fields and 17th-century mossy stone walls. And as you say the desert wildflowers this year will soon beckon us to revel in them once again and Yosemite should be wonderful this year. (I was there in the snow just before Christmas a couple of months ago and it was magical.)
But humankind is rapidly destroying so much not sure I really want to come back here for another life. But here’s the rub what other planet to go to? This is the best one I know. Thus I am an avid organic gardener, promoter of the organic way of life, a recycler, eater of healthy food, doer of what I can do for dear Mother Earth. And like you laugh, live, and maybe await with interest the asteroid that will say to human kind “Sorry you guys with brains, you were a bad experiment. Dinosaurs were better since the Forces That Be didn’t give them brains so they lasted longer. You humans just kill and destroy everything including each other. Bye bye for now.” And then we will have to gather our humaness into some sort of cloud and float through vast space and see if we can try again somewhere, some other planet maybe, where we can learn to use brains better and not wreck everything as we are doing to this one.
It looks like you, too, are English. They are great people, IMHO.
To repeat myself, in all the years I’ve been in San Diego, I’ve never been to see the desert wildflowers. I’m determined to see them this year. This morning’s UT has a nice rundown on the wildflowers. Have you ever stayed in the desert for this event? If so, do you have a suggestion of where to stay?
I was at Costco yesterday (I always buy cheap) and guess what I saw! Your new book! I pondered. Shall I buy at Costco? Or, have Pat GIVE me one! So there!
Actually, I want an autographed copy. Do you want to sell me one? Or, autograph my copy from Costco?
It appears that you may have the many varied interests, as do I.
I have been many times to the Borrego Desert to see the wildflowers in bloom and adore the experience. Sometimes the routes to and from the desert are as enjoyable as the valley itself. The Borrego desert is truly spectacular, and once you get away from town, much of it is unspoiled. My husband and I used to stay at Casa del Zorro and loved that place, but I recently heard it is closed. Friends of mine have stayed in motels and have been perfectly happy. Now I usually go for the day and don’t stay overnight. Some other friends stay in Julian and drive down for the day in the desert. I covered the wildflowers on my TV show every year for as long as I was on TV. Once I stayed overnight with my TV crew (photographer and producer and me) at Borrego Springs Golf Resort in a quite elegant house that the TV station rented overnight for us. It had a swimming pool but we had no time to use it. This maybe your best option. We went out for dinner and breakfast, worked dawn to dark and got some great footage.
I like going to the visitor center and then for a hike up Palm Canyon. Be prepared to get your boots wet crossing the stream at least twice before you reach the palm groves and waterfall. It’s a good idea to wear hiking boots and take camera, dark glasses, hat, and hiking stick. Most folks carry water too though it’s not a long hike. Three miles, I think, up and back to the first grove, but no sure (this is from memory.) Another idea since you are so athletic is to see the flowers in the valley from horse back. We showed that on TV and it made it all the more fun for me. Guides can go with you to show you the best displays. On my shows I had fun showing viewers many flower species, plus every conceivable way to view them, from hiking to horseback to jeep tours, or lying down flat on your tummy with a magnifying glass to see the “belly flowers” up close. (Those miniature masterpieces of nature too tiny to view while standing up.) These shows were picked up somehow by other stations across the country. Never found out how, and of course I never got a dime but maybe someone else did. One time my husband Lou and I were staying at a fishing and horseback riding ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and a nice guy with children in tow said to Lou. “My 10-year-old son says he knows your wife. We live in Florida but he swears he’s seen her on horseback looking at wildflowers.”
As far as wide ranging interests go, my current favorites are family and friends; keeping up on subjects I enjoy such as archeology, history, astronomy, & geology; painting in oils or watercolor, and travel.
Have fun in the desert and let me know how it goes!
I loved your talk at the Bookworks Bookstore in Del Mar last Sunday-you are so interesting! When you noticed there were not enough seats, you handed your 3 legged foldable cane/seat out to someone to sit on. I would love to know where to get one of those for my Mom. Thank you Pat, you are so motivating.
Thank you so much for your kind comment. So glad you enjoyed the talk and found it inspirational as well. You can obtain a three-legged cane and seat like mine through catalogues that also have online options. One is called Magellan and, as the name implies, it specializes in travel equipment and clothing. Another source is Support Plus, but if you simply Google “Handy Seat Portable Foldable Chair”, you will find many sources. Prices vary so don’t leap at the first option. This contraption is extremely helpful when waiting in line at the bank, while visiting museums, and even when going on garden tours, but one needs good balance in order to use it.
I just wanted to tell you how much you are appreciated. Everytime I see you on the television I am so impressed by your knowledge and dedication in trying to educate us backward gardeners. Your voice is mesmerizing, soft yet strong and extremely pleasing. I truly enjoy everytime I can hear or see you and look forward to utilizing this webpage in the future and purchasing some of your books. Keep up the good work as you are one of the best assets we San Diegans have.
Sorry you couldn’t make the talk but it’s great to be busy. I’m loving spring too and it’s keeping me hopping. I hope the fact you’re going gung ho means many folks are wanting to build raised beds or simply plant edible gardens. I hope this means much work for you. I’ll be speaking at Rogers Gardens in Newport next Sunday morning (May 2) at 9:00 am. Too far for you to go at such a busy season, so I won’t expect you.
Delighted to know I have a fan at Chaucer’s books, and so glad to know my book is answering many of your questions. It gladdens my heart when news of my month-by-month garden book gets out so folks can have the practical help they need.