Sunday, November 1, 2009

Compost and Woodchips and Fencing, Oh My!

It's been about a month since I started working full time at the Camden Children's Garden. Basically my job is to work with community groups to start gardens and then act as a resource to them to help maintain those gardens. Sometimes this means building a garden and handing it off to a capable group of people, sending them loads of compost or mulch when they request it and visiting to see the progress every now and then. And sometimes it means building a garden and handing it off to someone who doesn't quite know what they are getting themselves into, then checking up on it at the end of the season and finding a jungle. And in both cases, learning is happening. I really enjoy what I am doing right now.

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Here's one of our newest gardens in Camden, on the corner of 3rd and Beckett Streets on the waterfront. There's a cocoa bean storage facility across the street, and the smell of bitter chocolate is often in the air.



In the picture above you can see the pile of soil, rocks, and debris that was created when we scraped the top layer of soil off of the empty lot. We do this for every garden to level the surface and to cut down on the amount of weeds we will tackle later in the year.



Here you can see the fence we build around all of our gardens. We pound metal posts into the ground and attach wire fencing, leaving a door that's large enough for a dump truck to drive in and dump a load of compost or mulch.



We build raised beds with mushroom compost from PA, and cover the paths with woodchips. The woodchips come from all over the city and include lots of different trees, which create a rainbow effect when they are all piled together.



The pile also makes a great chair.



This garden is growing larger every day and we have big plans for it. I'll share more as the plans unfold!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's cool!