Calendar of Events
Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.
Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.
Register for our Cuba Agroecology Tour!
April 4-13, 2023Want to learn from farmers and food activists about Cuba’s transition to agroecological farming practices and its national policies that prioritize sustainable farming and hunger remediation?
This is your opportunity to join our 9-day tour of Cuba’s sustainable farms! On our tour, we visit with farmers, NGOs, policymakers, and experts to learn about the history of Cuba, their transition to organic agriculture, and ongoing initiatives to support farmers and expand agroecological practices.
For the past 30 years, the Organic Growers School Spring Conference has served as a gathering place for growers in Appalachia to connect, learn from one another, and deepen connections to land and community. The Spring Conference began as an entirely volunteer-run and free event and has expanded to support an organization of ten staff with year-round programming. As we have grown, we have experimented with different approaches to keeping the event affordable and accessible while also working on compensation for our speakers and supporting our growing staff. We encourage you to check out our recent blog post exploring this in more depth. This year, we are excited to be experimenting with sliding scale ticket pricing for the first time, and we wanted to take some time to explain how this works and why we decided to implement it this year.
Looking beyond scholarships
Over the past several years, we have started implementing different scholarship options. We have set aside around $3000 in our internal budget for scholarships, and we have increased our outreach to other groups in the area who have funding to support individuals to attend conferences. We also offer work-trade opportunities for people who are interested in helping out with our event in exchange for attendance. We have around 100 work-traders access the conference each year through these opportunities, but we have never used up our entire scholarship fund for the event. We know that there are many individuals in our community that we are not reaching through our scholarship opportunities. We began to wonder if scholarship applications were creating a barrier to participation and started researching other options, landing eventually on sliding scale as our preferred model.
How alternative pricing models address accessibility
The sliding scale model, which offers the opportunity for participants to select a price to pay for their ticket, meets several of the parameters we were looking for in an accessible pricing model. Most importantly, it is a seamless way for attendees to access the price that meets their needs. So many things are means-tested in our society, and it can be exhausting to justify why one needs a more affordable price point. While many of our community members need financial support, there are also members of this community who have more than enough to share and are excited about supporting their fellow co-learners. These attendees can select the higher end of the sliding scale, which will be set at a price to offset the lower price paid by other attendees. We trust our attendees to select the option that best works for them while also considering how their selection would affect the ability of other participants to access a lower price point.
Accessibility is a priority for OGS, and implementing it is a risk for us as a small non-profit, given that we rely on our large events like the Spring Conference to support our year-round programming and staff salaries. This will certainly be an experimental year, and if we are not able to secure enough income through sliding-scale registrations, we will have to rethink our approach to pricing. We trust that our community will be thoughtful in thinking about the value that this conference has to them and about what they are able to pay for at this time. Thank you for being on this journey of discovery with us!
FREE Virtual Event
Presenter: Craig Mauney, Extension Area Specialized Agent, Fruit and Vegetables
Fruit trees are a home garden favorite, and it’s challenging to grow good fruit in our WNC environment. It helps to carefully select smaller, more disease-resistant varieties and consider more unusual fruit like Asian pears, sour cherries, mulberries and pawpaws. Our Presenter,Craig Mauney, is an Extension Area Specialized Agent for fruit production in our Western counties. He has years of experience growing small fruits in his own home landscape, and you’re sure to learn something new to help you grow those little gems of flavor.
Registration: The talk is free but registration is required. Please click on the link below to register. If you encounter problems registering or if you have questions, call 828-255-5522.
Zoom seminar access: After registration, you will receive an email with instructions and a link to join this online live broadcast via Zoom. The ability to access Zoom through a computer, tablet or smartphone with a reliable internet connection is necessary to attend.
Gardening in the Mountains presents:
Fruit Trees for Home Gardens
Virtual attendance via Zoom video and audio internet connection
Presenter: Craig Mauney – NC Cooperative Extension Agent
Fruit trees are a home garden favorite, and it’s challenging to grow good fruit in our WNC environment. It helps to carefully select smaller, more disease-resistant varieties and consider more unusual fruit like Asian pears, sour cherries, mulberries, and pawpaws.
Our presenter, Craig Mauney, is an Extension Area Specialized Agent for commercial vegetable and fruit production in our western counties. He has years of experience growing small fruits in his own home landscape, and you’re sure to learn something new to help you grow those little gems of flavor.
Registration: The talk is free but registration is required. Please click on the link below to register. If you encounter problems registering or if you have questions, call 828-255-5522.
Zoom seminar access: After registration, you will receive an email with instructions and a link to join this online live broadcast via Zoom. The ability to access Zoom through a computer, tablet or smartphone with a reliable internet connection is necessary to attend.
Included with admission
Back by popular demand, The Vanderbilts at Home and Abroad exhibition offers guests:
- An opportunity to view rarely-seen treasures from the Biltmore collection
- A first-hand look at the Vanderbilts’ lifestyle
- Deeper insights into George, Edith, and Cornelia’s personalities, both at home and on their extensive travels
Access to exhibitions at The Biltmore Legacy is included with Biltmore daytime admission.
LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS
Join us for our winter class series with Steve Pettis, Henderson County Commercial and Consumer Horticulture Agent, host of the Gardening in the Mountains radio show, and your guide to the plants of our unique mountain landscape. Friends of Bullington take 25% off the regular course fee!
In this class Steve will introduce you to the many short-lived springtime flowers as well as several mosses and ferns that grow in the forests of Western North Carolina. He will discuss the plants’ biology, their pollinators, and some of the interesting history of these special plants.
LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS
Join us for our winter class series with Steve Pettis, Henderson County Commercial and Consumer Horticulture Agent, host of the Gardening in the Mountains radio show, and your guide to the plants of our unique mountain landscape. Friends of Bullington take 25% off the regular course fee!
In this class Steve will introduce you to the many short-lived springtime flowers as well as several mosses and ferns that grow in the forests of Western North Carolina. He will discuss the plants’ biology, their pollinators, and some of the interesting history of these special plants.
The Extension Gardener Training classes are open to anyone wanting to learn more about good gardening practices in Zone 7 based on research-based information. A new topic will be discussed each week during the series. You may join us for each of the six topics or you can choose which topics interest you.
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Presenter: Bruce Appeldoorn – Appeldoorn Landscape Nursery
Bruce Appeldoorn, a life-long nurseryman and the owner of Appeldoorn Landscape Nursery, will share with us some of the best conifers for Western North Carolina gardens. You will see his favorite low-maintenance, long-lived choices based on his 45 years of nursery experience.
Register for our Cuba Agroecology Tour!
April 4-13, 2023Want to learn from farmers and food activists about Cuba’s transition to agroecological farming practices and its national policies that prioritize sustainable farming and hunger remediation?
This is your opportunity to join our 9-day tour of Cuba’s sustainable farms! On our tour, we visit with farmers, NGOs, policymakers, and experts to learn about the history of Cuba, their transition to organic agriculture, and ongoing initiatives to support farmers and expand agroecological practices.
For the past 30 years, the Organic Growers School Spring Conference has served as a gathering place for growers in Appalachia to connect, learn from one another, and deepen connections to land and community. The Spring Conference began as an entirely volunteer-run and free event and has expanded to support an organization of ten staff with year-round programming. As we have grown, we have experimented with different approaches to keeping the event affordable and accessible while also working on compensation for our speakers and supporting our growing staff. We encourage you to check out our recent blog post exploring this in more depth. This year, we are excited to be experimenting with sliding scale ticket pricing for the first time, and we wanted to take some time to explain how this works and why we decided to implement it this year.
Looking beyond scholarships
Over the past several years, we have started implementing different scholarship options. We have set aside around $3000 in our internal budget for scholarships, and we have increased our outreach to other groups in the area who have funding to support individuals to attend conferences. We also offer work-trade opportunities for people who are interested in helping out with our event in exchange for attendance. We have around 100 work-traders access the conference each year through these opportunities, but we have never used up our entire scholarship fund for the event. We know that there are many individuals in our community that we are not reaching through our scholarship opportunities. We began to wonder if scholarship applications were creating a barrier to participation and started researching other options, landing eventually on sliding scale as our preferred model.
How alternative pricing models address accessibility
The sliding scale model, which offers the opportunity for participants to select a price to pay for their ticket, meets several of the parameters we were looking for in an accessible pricing model. Most importantly, it is a seamless way for attendees to access the price that meets their needs. So many things are means-tested in our society, and it can be exhausting to justify why one needs a more affordable price point. While many of our community members need financial support, there are also members of this community who have more than enough to share and are excited about supporting their fellow co-learners. These attendees can select the higher end of the sliding scale, which will be set at a price to offset the lower price paid by other attendees. We trust our attendees to select the option that best works for them while also considering how their selection would affect the ability of other participants to access a lower price point.
Accessibility is a priority for OGS, and implementing it is a risk for us as a small non-profit, given that we rely on our large events like the Spring Conference to support our year-round programming and staff salaries. This will certainly be an experimental year, and if we are not able to secure enough income through sliding-scale registrations, we will have to rethink our approach to pricing. We trust that our community will be thoughtful in thinking about the value that this conference has to them and about what they are able to pay for at this time. Thank you for being on this journey of discovery with us!
After six years of hard work, the dream of using The Learning Garden as a hub for public gardening education is finally a reality. The Learning Garden, located at the Extension Office, 49 Mt. Carmel Road, is offering the public the opportunity to Visit and Learn in the garden on selected 2nd and 4th Thursdays, February – October. The Thursday in-person programs will consist of five garden-specific series. Visitors can walk around before or after the program and soak in our lovely gardens. Our gardens will open at 9:00 a.m. and all the demonstration programs run between 10-11:30 a.m. To ensure a good learning experience, attendance will be limited and registration will be required.
Dahlia Series
February 23 – Getting Your Dahlias Ready for Planting
August 3 – Disbudding Dahlias for Better Blooms
October 26 – Dividing and Storing Dahlias
Dye Garden Series
May 4 – Planning Your Dye Garden
June 22 – Introduction to Natural Dyeing
July 27 – Fresh Indigo
August 24 – Botanical Printing: Printing with Leaves and Flowers
September 28 – Dyeing with Hopi Black Sunflower
November 9 – The Magic of Indigo
Rose Garden Series
March 9 – Pruning Roses
April 6 – Climbing Roses
April 13 – Rose Pests and Pathogens
May 20 – Growing Beautiful Roses (Saturday Seminar)
Sun & Shade Garden Series
May 11 – Planting a Native Butterfly Host Plant Garden
June 29 – Foodscaping Edible Plants in Flower Beds
August 31 – Dealing with “the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” Plants
Sept 14 – Native Butterfly Life Cycles in the Fall Garden
Vegetable Garden Series
March 23 – Building an ADA Compliant Raised Garden
April 26 – Planting Root Crops: Leeks, Onions, Carrots, Parsnips
May 25 – Planting a Seed Saving Garden
June 8 – Common Vegetable Garden Pests
July 13 – Kid Friendly Gardening
August 10 – Preserving Your Vegetable Harvest
In addition to the Thursday programs listed above, The Learning Garden will present a series of ninety minute (+/-) hands-on seminars covering various gardening topics. These in-person programs will be held at The Learning Garden on selected Saturday mornings, February – September.
Saturday Seminars
February 18 – Tool Selection and Sharpening
March 18 – Pruning Trees and Shrubs
April 22 – Gardening for the Birds
May 20 – Growing Beautiful Roses
June 17 – Pollinator Plants in The Learning Garden
September 16 – Bulbs for All Seasons
Each of the programs in The Learning Garden will be announced individually through this blog and on our website two weeks before each program. Each announcement will include instructions on how to register. Mark your calendar and register to attend as many as you can.
Need to unwind after a long, stressful work week? Then join us in the Museum’s atrium on Saturday mornings for Yoga for All Bodies | Yoga for Mental Health, followed by social time with free coffee, tea, and a fresh-baked pastry at the rooftop Perspective Café.
This class features gentle stretching and strengthening aimed to restore the body and mind—focusing on breathing, body awareness, and mindset care. All levels are welcome. Please bring your own mat. Reserve your spot soon; there’s only capacity for 20 per class.
Saturdays, March 4–April 8 (six sessions)
9–10am Yoga for All Bodies | Yoga for Mental Health
10–10:30am Social time in the rooftop Perspective Café
Purchase a six session package and receive a 10 percent discount.
Registration is required.
Presenters: Alan Wagner and James Wade, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers
Gardening tools are key to successful pruning. You need the right tool for the right job,
and you need to correctly maintain those tools. Are you sure, for example, when to use your anvil pruners or your bypass pruners instead? This workshop will cover the different kinds of pruning tools, their uses, and their care as well as gardening tools like shovels and hoes. Ergonomic pruners and other tools will also be covered.
Bring your pruners, loppers and shovels to learn how to clean and sharpen them.
Included with admission
Back by popular demand, The Vanderbilts at Home and Abroad exhibition offers guests:
- An opportunity to view rarely-seen treasures from the Biltmore collection
- A first-hand look at the Vanderbilts’ lifestyle
- Deeper insights into George, Edith, and Cornelia’s personalities, both at home and on their extensive travels
Access to exhibitions at The Biltmore Legacy is included with Biltmore daytime admission.
Join us for a relaxing ride through quiet countryside on your way to small town life in western North Carolina on the Tuckasegee River Excursion. Departing from Bryson City, this 4 hour excursion travels 32 miles round-trip to Dillsboro and back to the Bryson City Depot. Pass by the famous movie set of The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford!
- About This Trip
- Things To Do
- Itinerary
- Classes of Service and Pricing
- Class Comparison
- How to Purchase
- Schedule
- The Tuckasegee (tuck-uh-SEE-jee) River Excursion includes an 1 hour and 20 minute layover in the historic town of Dillsboro, where you’ll find more than 50 shops, restaurants, a brewery, and country inns. There is time to shop, snack, and visit the many unique shops before returning to Bryson City.
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Presenter: Bruce Appeldoorn – Appeldoorn Landscape Nursery
Bruce Appeldoorn, a life-long nurseryman and the owner of Appeldoorn Landscape Nursery, will share with us some of the best conifers for Western North Carolina gardens. You will see his favorite low-maintenance, long-lived choices based on his 45 years of nursery experience.
The upcoming Journeyperson course is now available AT NO COST! Due to some timely grant funding, we can offer this in-depth farmer training for farmers in years 3-7 with no associated tuition fee! The course consists of monthly cohort meet-ups and 2-3 in-depth workshops, plus mentorship!
In addition, a select number of participants will also receive matched FUNDS for your farm savings account (Savings Incentive Program) and money to spend on a professional development opportunity of your choosing! Want to attend a workshop on livestock management? OGS will contribute towards that fee! Are you saving money for a farm asset? OGS will contribute up to a certain amount to that investment.
The Journeyperson Program is for farmers who have been independently farming for three or more years and are serious about operating farm businesses in the Southern Appalachian region.
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Register for our Cuba Agroecology Tour!
April 4-13, 2023Want to learn from farmers and food activists about Cuba’s transition to agroecological farming practices and its national policies that prioritize sustainable farming and hunger remediation?
This is your opportunity to join our 9-day tour of Cuba’s sustainable farms! On our tour, we visit with farmers, NGOs, policymakers, and experts to learn about the history of Cuba, their transition to organic agriculture, and ongoing initiatives to support farmers and expand agroecological practices.
For the past 30 years, the Organic Growers School Spring Conference has served as a gathering place for growers in Appalachia to connect, learn from one another, and deepen connections to land and community. The Spring Conference began as an entirely volunteer-run and free event and has expanded to support an organization of ten staff with year-round programming. As we have grown, we have experimented with different approaches to keeping the event affordable and accessible while also working on compensation for our speakers and supporting our growing staff. We encourage you to check out our recent blog post exploring this in more depth. This year, we are excited to be experimenting with sliding scale ticket pricing for the first time, and we wanted to take some time to explain how this works and why we decided to implement it this year.
Looking beyond scholarships
Over the past several years, we have started implementing different scholarship options. We have set aside around $3000 in our internal budget for scholarships, and we have increased our outreach to other groups in the area who have funding to support individuals to attend conferences. We also offer work-trade opportunities for people who are interested in helping out with our event in exchange for attendance. We have around 100 work-traders access the conference each year through these opportunities, but we have never used up our entire scholarship fund for the event. We know that there are many individuals in our community that we are not reaching through our scholarship opportunities. We began to wonder if scholarship applications were creating a barrier to participation and started researching other options, landing eventually on sliding scale as our preferred model.
How alternative pricing models address accessibility
The sliding scale model, which offers the opportunity for participants to select a price to pay for their ticket, meets several of the parameters we were looking for in an accessible pricing model. Most importantly, it is a seamless way for attendees to access the price that meets their needs. So many things are means-tested in our society, and it can be exhausting to justify why one needs a more affordable price point. While many of our community members need financial support, there are also members of this community who have more than enough to share and are excited about supporting their fellow co-learners. These attendees can select the higher end of the sliding scale, which will be set at a price to offset the lower price paid by other attendees. We trust our attendees to select the option that best works for them while also considering how their selection would affect the ability of other participants to access a lower price point.
Accessibility is a priority for OGS, and implementing it is a risk for us as a small non-profit, given that we rely on our large events like the Spring Conference to support our year-round programming and staff salaries. This will certainly be an experimental year, and if we are not able to secure enough income through sliding-scale registrations, we will have to rethink our approach to pricing. We trust that our community will be thoughtful in thinking about the value that this conference has to them and about what they are able to pay for at this time. Thank you for being on this journey of discovery with us!
L
Listen to the regenerative story straight from the man who, together with his wife Amy in the year 2000, started the modern day version of Hickory Nut Gap. Jamie is filled to the brim with stories about the history of the land and, of course, four generations of farming wisdom. We’re excited to offer this tour to the public for a chance to share Jamie’s vision of regenerative agriculture with all.
Included with admission
Back by popular demand, The Vanderbilts at Home and Abroad exhibition offers guests:
- An opportunity to view rarely-seen treasures from the Biltmore collection
- A first-hand look at the Vanderbilts’ lifestyle
- Deeper insights into George, Edith, and Cornelia’s personalities, both at home and on their extensive travels
Access to exhibitions at The Biltmore Legacy is included with Biltmore daytime admission.
Join us for a relaxing ride through quiet countryside on your way to small town life in western North Carolina on the Tuckasegee River Excursion. Departing from Bryson City, this 4 hour excursion travels 32 miles round-trip to Dillsboro and back to the Bryson City Depot. Pass by the famous movie set of The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford!
- About This Trip
- Things To Do
- Itinerary
- Classes of Service and Pricing
- Class Comparison
- How to Purchase
- Schedule
- The Tuckasegee (tuck-uh-SEE-jee) River Excursion includes an 1 hour and 20 minute layover in the historic town of Dillsboro, where you’ll find more than 50 shops, restaurants, a brewery, and country inns. There is time to shop, snack, and visit the many unique shops before returning to Bryson City.
|
Presenter: Bruce Appeldoorn – Appeldoorn Landscape Nursery
Bruce Appeldoorn, a life-long nurseryman and the owner of Appeldoorn Landscape Nursery, will share with us some of the best conifers for Western North Carolina gardens. You will see his favorite low-maintenance, long-lived choices based on his 45 years of nursery experience.
The upcoming Journeyperson course is now available AT NO COST! Due to some timely grant funding, we can offer this in-depth farmer training for farmers in years 3-7 with no associated tuition fee! The course consists of monthly cohort meet-ups and 2-3 in-depth workshops, plus mentorship!
In addition, a select number of participants will also receive matched FUNDS for your farm savings account (Savings Incentive Program) and money to spend on a professional development opportunity of your choosing! Want to attend a workshop on livestock management? OGS will contribute towards that fee! Are you saving money for a farm asset? OGS will contribute up to a certain amount to that investment.
The Journeyperson Program is for farmers who have been independently farming for three or more years and are serious about operating farm businesses in the Southern Appalachian region.
|
|
Register for our Cuba Agroecology Tour!
April 4-13, 2023Want to learn from farmers and food activists about Cuba’s transition to agroecological farming practices and its national policies that prioritize sustainable farming and hunger remediation?
This is your opportunity to join our 9-day tour of Cuba’s sustainable farms! On our tour, we visit with farmers, NGOs, policymakers, and experts to learn about the history of Cuba, their transition to organic agriculture, and ongoing initiatives to support farmers and expand agroecological practices.