The Orangewood Friendship Garden ....
News:
It has been an exciting winter, seeing the Orangewood Friendship Garden begin to take shape. Back in November, three compost bins were constructed, thanks in great part to Dirk Oosterwyk. Barbara Digges, a community member, helped get us started with composting dos’ and don’ts. Since then a steady stream of materials have arrived and Kevin Hagan has been working diligently to keep the heaps stirred and watered. Fred Norling arranged a donation of additional mulch materials from APS, and Peggy Hagan learned that a neighbor was removing soil from her yard and wanted to find a new home for it. Within two days, a large pile of “good dirt” was delivered to the church!
Meanwhile, Tom Zandler has been hard at work designing the garden area itself and overseeing grading and drainage work. Now there are three tiers of future garden plots and an area for a shade structure and picnic tables. Terry Frost ran a water line from Page Hall along the east wall to the garden, providing two hose bibs in addition to the irrigation pipes on each tier. Chris Kaup helped us with our garden guidelines and liability statements, and Peggy Hagan is contributing her administrative skills to keep the records straight!
We have been greatly aided in our start-up efforts by Sam Kelsall, a member of Valley Presbyterian who is also a Master Gardener and the manager of a garden at Broadway and 25th Street. Sam came to our recent garden workshops and offered great information and advice, as well as seedlings for our first planting!
Community interest in the garden has grown steadily. Jill Hicks, Community
Liaison for the Washington School District, introduced us to the cafeteria
manager at Mountainview Elementary who offered us the refuse from the cafeteria
salad bar for the compost heaps. Tully Fletcher and Bob Orf attend the monthly
meetings of the Sunnyslope Youth and Family Partnership, resulting in new garden
members. Friends and neighbors are joining in, including several from Orangewood
Avenue. To date, 18 of the garden plots have been rented, and more than half of
those are rented to community members!
Other activities are in the works. Mary Lynne Mitchell is contributing recipes for future produce, a new garden member is an expert on canning and freezing vegetables, and Sandy Snyder introduced us to her friend Mary Liz who is a Master Gardener willing to advise. The old Rocky Point trailer has been moved to the garden site for storage, and we’ve applied for a grant that would provide tools.
We give
thanks for all these new beginnings and eagerly anticipate the next
developments. We’ll keep you posted
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and if you have used gardening tools you’d like to donate, just let us know.
Let’s see what we can grow out there!