Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho…It’s Off to Work We Go!

June 7th, 2010, 2:39 am

Wildflower Group Cleaning up the Land

Not unlike Disney’s ‘Seven Dwarfs’ who like to ‘dig dig dig dig dig dig dig from early morn till night’, the Wildflower Garden Group donned their gardening clothes and eagerly dug into the next step of the Wildflower Garden plans—preparing the soil.  A few hours were spent with some help from the Urban Agriculture group (who also aided in the purchase of a permanent tool collection for the Eco-House garden) sorting through the tilled lot removing garbage, large rocks, and other debris that could hinder the growing of plants as well as digging up the grass the till had missed.  The soil was found to be incredibly hard and so it was only the biggest rocks and clay that were removed in the hopes that the flowers and rain would be able to break up the smaller mounds of dirt.  Slowly, the land is improving, and though we don’t have any Disney magic to instantly transform the lot into supple soil, we’re not far off with the generous donation of minerals from Noel Harding which will shortly be sprinkled over the land to aid growth.   It was difficult work, and I think we all left with a greater respect for those working outdoors–those seven miners included.
Wildflower and Urban Agriculture Working Together to Clean the Land

Minerals to be Sprinkled Over the Land

Canadian Tire Eh!

June 2nd, 2010, 7:22 pm

Today we purchased items to assist the Wildflower garden group to begin cultivating the land. Staying within the Green Corridor we went to the Canadian Tire on Huron Church. We purchased 2 large shovels a large pack of gloves and a nozzle to attach to the hose. The products were not difficult to find but we were faced with a difficult decision on whether to sacrifice price over quality. In the end we went with quality. An update on another part of our project is establishing a volunteer base to maintain the garden after we have gone. Manjot contacted “A Place of our own”. They gave us some promising news that the possibility of them assisting with volunteers is high. We also called a number of other community organizations where we left detailed voicemail messages explaining who we are and what we are aiming to do. The signs for both the eco house and wildflower garden are well on their way. All they require is approval from Rod and Justin and a little editing in Photoshop. After class with tools in hand we headed down to the Ecohouse to assist the wildflower group in cultivating the land. There were number of areas on the land that have ingrown weeds. We assisted them in removing the weeds. Today was a far cry from the complete project but a productive day overall.

Working hard or hardly working?

We're not scared of getting dirty!