June 23 and 24, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Spring Garden at Doe Bay
By Sue Lewis
The Orcas Island Garden Club has raised the bar for this year’s garden tour by including lectures on island history and horticultural “how-to.”
At George Orser’s Orcas Farm, homesteaded in 1882 and still a working farm, island historian Tom Welch will speak on Doe Bay history. A half-mile down the road, tour goers can learn about composting and seed-saving from staff at The Doe Bay Garden, which supplies the Doe Bay Café with food that never sees the inside of a truck.
And in Olga, at Cherry Hill Farm, where owner Marilyn Eisner has waged a 30-year battle on invasive plants, staff from the San Juan County Noxious Weed Board will teach tour goers how to identify and safely eliminate noxious weeds.\
Homestead Tour tickets are $20 at Driftwood Nursery and Darvill’s Bookstore in Eastsound and online at BrownPaperTickets. Tour-goers may preorder box lunches from Café Olga and Doe Bay Café with online tickets. Watch for a future article which will provide details about some of the other farms on this outstanding tour. For further information, go to www.orcasislandgardenclub.org.
