more november

Yesterday I went to the Sawmill/Wells Park "visioning" workshop for the 1 acre community garden, led by a UNM CRP studio. And I met a neighbor, Justin, who, along with his partner, is interested in learning about our 15th St. activities.

here is a summary of what I know about the community garden and part of what happened at the meeting yesterday.

A UNM Community and Regional Planning studio approached the Sawmill Land Trust inquiring about a possible design project that they could take on for their semester (this Fall). SCLT said yes, our community garden. Their semester-end product will be a summary of recommendations to the Land Trust on our garden that the Land Trust will then adopt, adapt, research and implement in some form.

So last month's meeting was a summary of their research into community gardens that they had been conducting for the first half of the semester. They had only talked to about 15 residents of the represented neighborhoods (Sawmill and Wells Park) via a written survey.

Sunday was a workshop focussed on engaging the community residents and their ideas for what our garden should and could be.

tour of site (I did not attend.)
discussion
1. what is the purpose of a community garden
what are historical purposes for community gardens (attached)
2. who will use the garden?
who will grow there?
what are ways to be involved in the garden?
how does it fit into/connect to the the community?
what is the meaning of the garden?
3. what are our preferred purposes for the garden?
4. mission statement exercise (I left at this point. so I do not know what the mission statement is)
then they did some kind of drawing exercise.



From: Loralucero@aol.com
I watered by hand the two beds on the right side yesterday afternoon. I'll connect the soaker hose today and see how it works!!


Hi All,

Yesterday Lora and I worked on the new linear bed on the right side.

We finished weeding and digging in compost. Laid out the soaker hose on the front section. And planted garlic, beet seeds (will these grow? let's see), and hairy vetch cover in the front. We also seeded the back with hairy vetch and then covered both sections with leaf mulch.

So the lettuce and snow pea seeds and the spinach starts need to be planted. I have no idea what will make it! but we should find out.
they could be planted in the back section and another soaker laid there. if the peas make a go of it in the spring, we can use string to bring them to the fence for climbing or build another kind of structure then.

we can finish weeding and shaping the left side and also we need to either build a new compost area or buy a composter, for left front area in front of stakes.
and get rid of our weedy compost pile.