ocean friendly garden update- 10/29/10
Sarah Damron
Hello garden friends,
Happy Halloween! I am emailing with some garden updates to let you know about the latest developments.
Seeds have arrived! We ordered three big bags of native coastal flower seed from S&S seed company. They are now at the Green Spot! That means we need to finish tearing out the rest of the grass so we can get these sown and mulched.
Water Quality Monitoring: As part of the project, we are planning to grab some runoff samples from the Green Spot to be analyzed for pollutants. Tony has kindly agreed to grab samples if it rains today, and Lauren has graciously offered to run the tests. We hope that this will help give us a before-and-after picture to have a more concrete example of the eventual benefits from our improved ocean-friendly landscape.
Open Gardening: I want to let you know about the Open Gardening option we have recently setup so that people can help with the garden when it is convenient for them. Attached is our open gardening how-to sheet which explains the garden zones, work that needs done in each area, where tools are, helpful hints, etc. A copy of this sheet is on the chapter’s OFG webpage and a link to it was sent out in a recent email blast. We also plan to have a laminated copy up at the Green Spot for people to reference. If anyone has garden tools they care to loan out and leave at the tool location at the Green Spot (marked with your name), please feel free to bring them. I imagine we really only need them for the next week or so, and then you can take them back until we begin Phase II.
Organized Demo Day: We have not made much progress in the last couple weeks due to schedules and weather, but I am hopeful that between open gardening and an organized demo day we can get complete this first phase by the end of next weekend. From the extended forecast it looks like we might have sun all next week. Woohoo! Which days/times would be good for people next week? I could lead a Friday or possibly Sunday demo day…if someone else wants to lead, that would be great, too.
That’s all for now! Please feel free to share any updates from your end and, of course, please feel free to share this email with friends you think would be interested in the project.
Thanks!
Sarah