March Chapter Meeting: Edible Plants

Expert Advice About Flowering and Fruiting Landscape Plants You Can Grow- a fruitful talk by Michael McConkey

Michael McConkey, with over 30 years of gardening experience and owner of Edible Landscaping, Afton, VA will give a presentation describing his nursery, its programs, and his longstanding commitment to raising native plants that can be eaten. Please attend, Williamsburg Regional Library Auditorium, Thursday March 17th at 6:45 PM for what will be a very interesting and informative talk by a nationally known organic gardener.

Michael has distinguished himself in a number of ways. Primarily as the name “Edible Landscaping” indicates, in raising and developing landscape plants that are not only edible, but also with an emphasis on “less care” fruiting plants and trees, often native, well before the buzz-words “organic and native” became popular. Most of these plants are less challenging to grow than those fruits found in grocery stores, and contribute to self-sufficiency and healthy living: vitamin-rich fruits from plants such as pomegranate, paw paw, hearty kiwi, persimmon, fig, Juneberry, and pecan. For the vegetable gardener, there is also a large selection of unique potted asparagus and strawberries that will interest the most avid eaters among us.

His nursery employs organic production methods such as using ducks that eat slugs and Japanese beetles larvae on the ground, as well as sprays of kaolin clay on grapevines and rosaceous fruit trees to repel insects above the ground.

Please plan to attend his talk to learn what each of us can do to develop and enhance our ability to landscape and grow food in a more sustainable way.