(3.16) A single hen can lay about five eggs per week. Learn about urban chicken farming at the first Plant Providence workshop of the 2013 growing season next Saturday.

Join Dan Sheehan, one of SCLT’s community gardeners, and his hens to learn about what it takes to keep chickens in an urban setting. Dan will be covering everything beginners need to know–from choosing your chickens and the responsibilities involved in maintaining a healthy flock to different coop designs!

The Southside Community Land Trust has a very useful Urban Chicken Farming page,

According to the ordinance passed by the City Council last fall, Providence residents may keep up to six hens (one hen per 800 square feet) on their lot. They must be housed outside in a coop with a fenced outdoor area. If you’re thinking of getting chickens, click here to learn more about the rules of the ordinance by downloading our handy summary.

The workshop is free for SCLT members, $5-$10 sliding scale for non-members; they ask that you pre-register (24 hours ahead if possible). Pictured here is an Araucana chick belonging to Providence resident, writer Christine Chitnis, who got started last year.

Workshop, 10am to 11:30am, Saturday, March 16, 136 Ontario Street, (directions)

(3.2) The Southside Community Land Trust invites the public to its 4th Annual Urban Agriculture Spring Kickoff on Saturday. This will be a food-growing event that gets community members geared up for the coming growing season. It will be hosted at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center where attendees can celebrate urban agriculture with fellow food-growers.

The event will feature light refreshments, showcasing ingredients that can be grown in the garden, and tables with tips from experts on composting, seed starting, water conservation with rain barrels, seed saving, urban bee and chicken keeping, maple syrup tapping and mushrooming. SCLT will also raffle off some fabulous prizes, including a gift certificate to the Plant Sale and SCLT membership combo, and a tree start, courtesy of Groundwork Providence.

There will be a kids-corner with crafts, games and other activities.

$5, 1pm to 4pm, Saturday, March 2, RW Park Botanical Center, Elmwood Avenue, (directions)

(7.7) From Farm Fresh Rhode Island: The Broad Street Market celebrates its 10th year in Providence’s South Side.

Join us for opening day at the “Elmwood Neighborhood Festival and Play Street.” We’re blocking off the street next to the market for a day of music, games, art, and other awesome activities! Celebrate the market opening and the neighborhood with kids’ art, local musicians, the Childrens’ Museum’s Imagination Playground. Event is free and open to the public.

Performances 10am to 1:30pm/Children’s Events 10:30am to 1:30pm

Festival/Farmers’ Market, free, 8:30am to 1:30pm, Saturday, July 7, Algonquin House, 807 Broad Street

(6.9) Check out the fifth annual Urban Pond Procession. This year the festivities include performances by Gorham Crazed Robotic Divers of Mashapaug Pond, Big Nazo, Vessel Hat Brigade and students from Nathan Bishop Middle School playing homemade instruments.

This year, the Procession will be held on held on Saturday, June 9th (rain date June 10th), starting at the Boat House on the southern tip of Mashapaug Pond behind the Job Lot parking lot off Reservoir Avenue at 9:45am. It will weave its way through Reservoir Triangle to Liberty Elm Diner (10:30am to 11am) where Big Nazo will join us, then on to Roger Williams Park’s Roosevelt Lake, which is fed by Mashapaug Brook. After proceeding by the park’s Carousel we will end at the Temple to Music where food, music and environmental health updates will be shared. We welcome other interested organizations and individuals to join us in our celebration!

Music on tap at the Temple to Music includes the What Cheer? Brigade and the Extraordinary Rendition Band.

9:45am to 1pm, Saturday, June 9, Urban Pond Procession, (rain date June 10th)

(3.24) The second workshop of the 2012 season over at Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT) focuses on raising chickens at home.

SCLT Program Director (and savvy chicken keeper) Leo Pollock will go over all the chicken care basics and different kinds of coops one can use. Workshop cost is $5 and free for members of the Providence Community Growers Network. Space is limited, so be sure to register or call 401.273.9419 (ext. 29).

Payment can be made online or at the workshop.

10am to noon, Saturday, March 24, 4 Theresa Court (off of Willow Street between Parade and Sycamore)

(3.21) The famous Plant Providence workshops at the Southside Community Land Trust are starting up. Today learn about composting at the City Farm.

The workshop will feature a classroom based lesson on composting basics from 5:30pm to 6:15pm at the SCLT office (109 Somerset) and from 6:20pm to 7pm will move into a hands-on composting demonstration at City Farm (corner of West Clifford and Dudley Streets). This workshop will be taught by SCLT Community Growers Coordinator (and certified Master Composter) Cindy Llamas Shea and City Farm Apprentice Kathleen Reid.

5:30pm to 7pm, Wednesday, March 21, SCLT, City Farm, 109 Somerset Street, 273.9419

Head over to the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center today and learn how to get started with compost. The Southside Community Land Trust will host.

Interested in compost but don’t know how or where to start? Southside Community Land Trust is hosting a free workshop “Composting 101.”

URI’s Master Composter coordinator Sejal Lanterman will be teaching a comprehensive lesson that will cover composting basics, the science behind it, the “recipe”, what not to compost, what to look for in a good bin and how to make your own bin. Composting is an easily accessible step almost everyone can take to help reduce the waste stream.

Parking is available in the “URI Education” lot.

Free, 2pm to 3:30pm, Saturday, October 22, Roger Williams Park Botanical Center, 1000 Elmwood Avenue

The Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular at the Roger Williams Park Zoo runs through October 31. What’s new this year?

The theme of this year’s show will be “A Journey Around the World.” It will include scenes from the Seven Wonders of the World (Taj Mahal, the pyramids and Sphinx, Mayan ruins, the Great Wall of China, and others) as well as representations of nations around the world, including a “European Vacation” and a trip through the Great White North complete with falling “snow”! And of course the famed centerpiece of the display, the “Laughing Tree,” will be back in all its spooky splendor. Visitors will be dazzled by hundreds of glowing jack-o-lanterns on the ground and in the branches, from tiny sugar pumpkins to gigantic gourds reaching up to 1600 pounds!

Open nightly rain or shine from 6pm to 10pm (trail closes at 11pm). Dates and times, pricing, directions and info on buffet click here.

The Nature Conservancy of Rhode Island will hold its third annual State Director Breakfast this Friday at City Farm in Providence, an opportunity to meet its recently appointed director, Terry Sullivan. Check out their page “Top Five Must-See Migrations in Rhode Island” including the awesome horseshoe crabs.

In late spring, adult Atlantic horseshoe crabs migrate from their wintering grounds on the edge of the continental shelf, 200 miles off the coast of Rhode Island and nearly a half-mile under the ocean, to Rhode Island’s beaches. Once in shallow waters they wait for the right combination of moon and tide and then come ashore to mate and lay eggs in the sand. Often referred to as “living fossils”, this annual ritual has been performed by Atlantic horseshoe crabs for 20 million years.

And city folk who never ever intend to explore the wild places still owe a debt to the Nature Conservancy and its volunteers for their shellfish restoration efforts. Hooray for clams.

Free, 9am, Friday, May 20, City Farm, Dudley and West Clifford Streets

This weekend is the 19th annual Southside Community Land Trust Rare and Unusual Plant Sale.

City Farm is home to the Rare and Unusual Plant Sale every year. One weekend in May, hundreds of varieties of annuals, perennials, and fruit and vegetable plant starts are available for purchase. Most of the 18,000 plants were carefully cultivated through the late winter and early spring on-site by the City Farm team, including dozens of volunteers. Hundreds of other perennials and annuals are donated by generous local gardeners.

10am to 2pm, Saturday and Sunday, May 14 and May 15, City Farm, Dudley at West Clifford Street (directions)

Learn how to become a responsible and successful egg wrangler. Last fall the Providence City Council passed a new ordinance allowing city residents to keep up to six hens (depending on the size of the lot). But how to get started? Head over to City Farm this Saturday where the Southside Community Land Trust is conducting a two-part workshop on urban chicken farming.

Part 1 (chicken care) will be from 10am to noon and is free to all. Part 2 (coop building) will be from 1pm to 3pm and costs $5 to cover demonstration materials.

Space is limited, for directions and to register go here, or call 401.273.9419 ext.29. According to the ProJo, there is a resident flock of egg-laying hens at City Farm. And also, if you are staying for both workshops, you may want to bring a lunch.

Urban Chickens Workshop, Saturday, March 12, City Farm, corner of West Clifford and Dudley Streets