June 23 and 24, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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.
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