Unofficial garden tour - 3 area gardens
V and I took a trip through 3 area gardens today. First we went to Rosy Burns park in Mechanicsville, where the community garden is run by Habesha - hence the name Habesha Gardens. They have intensive community support and have a variety of things including solar panels, multiple water tanks/barrels, several small greenhouses, and some very happy plants. They're also experimenting in biodiesel (not really certain why) and they have a very nicely constructed covered area/pavilion with fancy fans. They also have lots of mosquitoes. The most interesting thing that they're doing is growing mushrooms, something we're very interested in. It was the grand finale of the Park Pride garden tour I took previously; V hadn't seen the place. I had asked the leader of the garden (feat. in the video below) what they used to fertilize the beds with, he said they used Pachy Poo which is derived from elephant poo from Zoo Atlanta. It did wonders for their plants so I'm hoping look into that in the future.
Here's a 2010 video segment from CNN:
Next we visited the garden that V has designed and been working on for years. Obviously I'm kicking myself now for not taking any pictures, but the sunflowers were over 12' tall. It's on private land though, not open to the public.
Finally we visited Truly Living Well Farms, which I have ranted about previously (more political than anything else). V had been there before but I'd never seen it. They were closed and are privately owned, but whatever it's an urban farm in the Sweet Auburn district. The first thing I noticed, aside from lots and lots of plants, was the wildlife. The birds were going nuts. Then I noticed raised beds that were falling apart - the wood wasn't pressure treated and the corners were done poorly. Then I noticed the irrigation. Everywhere. Almost every single bed had irrigation. The plants were healthy and thriving. I couldn't even list for you everything they were growing. It was originally built on a parking lot; an endless quantity of mulch was trucked in. I can't even comprehend how much mulch they had. And funding. Serious funding. They had a pretty nice green house, aquaponics, swings, a summer camp, a pond (with a broken pump - but they had ELECTRICITY!!!), some very nice compost piles, a cute pizza garden constructed by children, a small children's dayglo painted concrete/rock labyrinth, birds and beds and amazingly healthy looking roses. I'd love to know how they have roses that look so nice. They also had bees and the requisite chickens. It was truly built for production, which was nice to see, so many gardens are more for education and show than to actually grow stuff, but they even had many beds dedicated to cut flowers. One great tip I picked up from them was to have multiple compost areas, so you're not dragging refuse all over the place.
I love visiting new gardens. It took me a couple of years to get to this point, I guess some experience helps so you understand what you're looking at, the plants, the labor involved, the funding involved. It also helps me to appreciate what we're doing, and how much we could potentially do in the future at our garden. I fundamentally can appreciate the fact that where we garden has a street down the middle, but the rest is clay and gravel infused with garbage - but it beats the hell out of concrete parking lots.
Here's a 2010 video segment from CNN:
Click to viewNext we visited the garden that V has designed and been working on for years. Obviously I'm kicking myself now for not taking any pictures, but the sunflowers were over 12' tall. It's on private land though, not open to the public.
Finally we visited Truly Living Well Farms, which I have ranted about previously (more political than anything else). V had been there before but I'd never seen it. They were closed and are privately owned, but whatever it's an urban farm in the Sweet Auburn district. The first thing I noticed, aside from lots and lots of plants, was the wildlife. The birds were going nuts. Then I noticed raised beds that were falling apart - the wood wasn't pressure treated and the corners were done poorly. Then I noticed the irrigation. Everywhere. Almost every single bed had irrigation. The plants were healthy and thriving. I couldn't even list for you everything they were growing. It was originally built on a parking lot; an endless quantity of mulch was trucked in. I can't even comprehend how much mulch they had. And funding. Serious funding. They had a pretty nice green house, aquaponics, swings, a summer camp, a pond (with a broken pump - but they had ELECTRICITY!!!), some very nice compost piles, a cute pizza garden constructed by children, a small children's dayglo painted concrete/rock labyrinth, birds and beds and amazingly healthy looking roses. I'd love to know how they have roses that look so nice. They also had bees and the requisite chickens. It was truly built for production, which was nice to see, so many gardens are more for education and show than to actually grow stuff, but they even had many beds dedicated to cut flowers. One great tip I picked up from them was to have multiple compost areas, so you're not dragging refuse all over the place.
I love visiting new gardens. It took me a couple of years to get to this point, I guess some experience helps so you understand what you're looking at, the plants, the labor involved, the funding involved. It also helps me to appreciate what we're doing, and how much we could potentially do in the future at our garden. I fundamentally can appreciate the fact that where we garden has a street down the middle, but the rest is clay and gravel infused with garbage - but it beats the hell out of concrete parking lots.