STRATHCONA COMMUNITY GARDEN


  garden map  project description    herb garden originally...  


Some of the things that got done at the garden in the summer of 1997, by the gardeners, Environmental Youth Alliance and E-team

 garden house

  • built greywater system, got solar system and composting toilet functioning
  • learned how the systems work
  • made system signs and installed them
  • built gravel path to house and washroom
  • cleaned up building rubble, rocks
  • broke up large piece of concrete
  • finished drywall and woodpaneling
  • built window seats and drawers
  • painted non-wood exterior
  • began landscaping around the building
  • house committee worked out decisions about security, insurance, design, furnishing, landscaping, lighting
  • found cabinetmaker for the Beautiful Cupboard
  • house had its first use hosting women and children's No to APEC conference

berm

  • scythed grass on the street side
  • removed blackberries and dead broom
  • planted edible chestnut trees
  • cut grass on garden side
  • found a berm coordinator at last, worked out berm plan

funding, publicity, education and politics

  • MP, MLA and mayor came to open house,
  • people visited
  • funders, dignitaries and us folks, probably twenty people, cut ribbon to open garden house
  • honey sales
  • plant sales 1200.00
  • house fundraising by EYA (this spring alone)
  • fundraising committee set up
  • afternoon childrens' group did crafts and looked after orchard trees
  • raycam summer camp group took on a plot
  • vietnamese gardener Phuong Tu on nationwide broadcast of The Canadian Gardener
  • hosted small workshop for the international convention of Critical Geographers
  • usual abundant Sun coverage before open house
  • new newsletter editor
  • EYA publications about the house project
  • a lot of supervising and welcoming with e-team crews from abbotsford
  • made and set up name signpost at main entrance

wild area

  • planted saskatoons, hazelnuts, viburnum, salmonberry, cornus mas, hawthorne douglasii, highbush cranberry, caragana, thimbleberry, dove tree
  • cleared blackberry and thistles
  • cut back path edge and weeded path
  • cleared dead underbrush
  • mallards raised chicks to adulthood probably for first time
  • built up path and leveled it

orchard

  • woodpiles cleared to the bottom of the field, wood sorted into burnable and junk, burnable wood kept for sweatlodge group
  • all trees kept weeded and mulched with grass clippings
  • construction rubble cleared away from around green shed
  • smoothed out earth dumps from construction

espalier

  • set new section of posts and wires
  • removed strawberries and weeds in espalier, planted rubarb
  • rebuilt edgeboards on three sections of path next to espalier
  • pruned and manured extensively -- best crop ever

compost

  • planted dove tree beside the signboard
  • cleaned up massively for open house
  • turned and finished containers of compost

paths and water

  • paths got weeded for the open house that had never been weeded in eight years
  • water source on south path got investigated and rerouted
  • broken pipes fixed

fences and vinewalk

  • planted clematis on vinewalk post next to garden house
  • weeded bindweed on fence
  • repaired section of vinewalk edgeboard

 toolshed and tools

  • bought new handles and repaired spades and rakes

greenhouse and nursery area

  • brick paths rebuilt (edges need to be finished)
  • plants potted and tended for open house sale
  • greenhouse cleared out, potting table built
  • rose cuttings taken for berm planting
  • seedlings grown out for herb garden and plant sale
  • nursery area meticulously weeded for open house
  • fig tree managed to ripen a lot of figs

herb garden

  • planted fifty? kinds of seeds and raised them in greenhouse
  • major pruning and clearing among the pines
  • dug in water jar behind north side seats
  • collected twenty kinds of seeds
  • repotted selfseeded plants for plant sale
  • took rose cuttings
  • usual tank-cleaning, path weeding, manuring, weeding
  • hosted a wedding with bagpiper
  • new coordinator learned two hundred plant identities