Last night when I came home there was a flat of seedlings - some sunflowers and squash (dark zucchini, yellow zucchini and two butternut). I planted the squash and some of the sunflowers today. I found out later that Annie Martin had dropped them by. Thanks Annie.
Today - although it was very wet we spent the day in the Boulevarden - lovely. I weeded - don't you just love weeding just after a rain fall - it is oooo satisfying - the grass just pulls up. I planted some seeds - Lettuce and Swiss Chard and moved around a few plants. I then gathered some volunteers - some Sedum, Phlox, Black Eyed Susans, Sunflowers, Chives, Lemon Balm and Chinese Lanterns - and put them out for others to take.
We will also have some seedlings for the second downtown guerrilla gardening project. I have not checked the Coyote Garden for a few days - I will visit it tomorrow.
Michelle and I were driving around downtown and found the perfect spot for a guerrilla community garden. It is a large lot, lots of sun, and not in the 'open' open...it is shielded from strong winds. Clue: it is behind a space that was filled with drink and song, some even lived there, and it is missed by many.
We need help from fellow guerrilla gardeners...we will need to prepare the soil and we will need plants and seeds...and some sort of rain collection bins/system...it is exciting though...I will keep posted for a first meeting when we can visit the site - plan and then get started!!! Even if we just do a small patch this year - we can then build more next year.
Oh and Shawna pointed out that there is a large wood planter in the downtown IGA parking lot...we thought that would make a great herb garden.
And...read this story http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/05/339335.html
Just a reminder of what the Boulevarden looked like last year...then the sod removed.
The Garden last week
The Garden today.
This is the perennial bed - as well as the rhubarb (we have four large plants...might have to remove a couple)...and squash side.
This is the vegetable side (we try to keep the veggie plants grouped as much as we can so that we don't have to water the whole garden - the flowers are pretty much all drought tolerant). We planted lots of tomatoes, cauliflower, walla walla onions, beans, cucumber, watermelon, zuke, carrots, grasses for texture, flowering kale for 'prettiness'... We also added the annual herbs (basil, flat leaf parsley, fennel (although we had some volunteers from last year) to the herb garden We still have some shifting around of plants and might plant some more in this weekend.
I went down this morning to see how the garden had faired over night. Not only was everything looking great - but it had been watered! Yea! I could tell it was not the nightly watering of the 'downtown park' grass that had watered the bed because the grass was still really dry...only the garden that was watered. It is funny how something so small (or not - depending how you look at it) can make your heart smile...well mine anyway...the fact that someone else has come along and contributed to the garden is just wonderful.
This morning I dug up some Brown Eyed Susans, Chives, Sedum, Catmint and gathered some seeds.
MIchelle brought some of her self grown tomatoes and alpine strawberries as as well as some sunflowers.
We sat on the deck and made a sign for the garden and some rock plant identifiers. We grabbed our tools and a big...I mean seriously big..jug of water (it was brutal) and headed down to the garden.
Just as we got there Shawna and Liam arrived. Shawna brought some Oregano and Lavender for the garden.
As Liam (at 6 months old our youngest Guerrilla Gardener to date) supervised, we got to planning and planting the garden.
We added four tomato plants (should 'tomato' and all the other names of the plants be capitalized?? I can't decide...), Swiss Chard, Chives, Alpine Strawberries, Lavender, large and small Sunflowers, Oregano, Cat Mint, Sedum and Brown Eyed Susans. Michelle has some potatoes that she is going to bring down.
Shawna also acted as our official documenter so she will be posting some other pics.
We named the garden 'Coyote Garden'.
Before (Picture by Michelle)
Before (Picture by Michelle)
Before (Picture by Michelle)
Above is on the left Glenn, then me, Loralee, and Michelle on the right.Yesterday Michelle and I went down town to scout out some spots that we thought could use some guerrilla force. We found a small bed in.... let's just say a 'downtown public park'...that we have been working on. Today we prepared the soil and added compost. We had two men that joined us in the work and two men (security) that spied on us.
Glenn was the name of the first fellow who helped - his nephew, whose name I didn't get was the other. They were both a great help and suggested that tomatoes and peas would be good vegetables to plant.
The security came over - NEVER asked us what we were doing - BUT asked us if Glenn was bothering us, MIchelle said no...a little while later the two security guys came over and told Glenn that his friends were waiting for him and that he should go join them at Studio 54...Glenn said he was just fine and would stay and work...I told them that he was helping us, he then said, "well...they were REALLY waiting for him", those security guys, they are sooo helpful!!
Anyway, like I said we got the soil worked and will be planting 'soon'. Michelle has some tomatoes she has grown from seed that we will plant, then we will add lettuce, peas, beans and some pretty perennial flowers as well as a few sunflowers for the peas and beans to grown up.
