Zoom Talk: How To Help Your Chickens and Your Garden Thrive

In the absence of evenings out at the theater, opera and ballet, many area residents have taken up farming as a way to engage their hearts and minds and to express their creativity. 

The farming urge also springs from concerns about food availability during the pandemic and the quarantine; and the difficulties of getting restaurant food in a COVID-19 world of “take-out only.” 

As many have learned in the past month, growing and raising things isn’t always as easy as it looks — especially when the weather has mood swings that take it from hot to snow to hot again.

Advice is available at most farm markets and landscaping concerns in the region. But there are also experienced farmers who are willing to share their wisdom, as will be the case with two Zoom talks presented by the Scoville Memorial Library of Salisbury, Conn., on June 11 and 18.

Watercolorist Leslie Watkins will share knowledge acquired over many years of raising happy, healthy egg-laying chickens in  your backyard in her talk on  Thursday, June 11, at 7 p.m.

The following Thursday, also at 7 p.m., the library’s event coordinator, Lawrence Davis-Hollander, will talk about general vegetable farming. A trained botanist, Davis-Hollander was a founder of the heritage seed movement, with a specialty in tomatoes and corn. He also cares for gardens for private clients.

To sign up for these free presentations, go to www.scovillelibrary.org/events and then go to the June calendar and scroll down to June 11 and/or 18.