Garden Workday

Saturday, March 3rd

9:00am – 2:00pm

We have several projects for Saturday:
*  lay more cardboard
*  build, position and level eleven 4×20-ft vegetable beds
*  install water meter
*  mulch garden paths
*  plant blackberries and grapes
*  child-friendly activity TBD – If you have suggestions, please let me know.
*  serve lunch – If you would like to help with lunch, please contact Julie.
*  meeting of the gardeners (maybe?)

We had originally planned to have the beds ready for soil this weekend, but the rains and other conflicts put us off schedule.  If we can get all of the beds done this weekend, we will order the soil next week.  Weather for Saturday looks OK right now.  Bring your mulch forks, wheelbarrows, mallets, gloves, hats and insect spray.

Friday morning I ventured inside the beltway to visit another community garden.  Braes Interfaith Ministries is a ministry of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish congregations.  They’ve been around for more than 25 years and provide clothing, food and financial assistance to over 16,000 people annually in southwest Houston.

The Braes Interfaith Ministries Community Garden is sited on a CenterPoint easement, which makes it particularly interesting to us.  I was fortunate to meet with Eloy Montez, the Executive Director.  He talked about the garden and shared some advice about working with CenterPoint.  Their garden was established over 20 years ago, when Houston Lighting & Power first gave them permission to garden on the easement.  They have had to make concessions now that CenterPoint owns the easement, but their donation garden is still providing nutritious food for the poor in their community.

There are a couple of significant differences in their arrangement and ours.  (1)  CenterPoint is the fee owner of the property where the Braes Interfaith garden is located.  In our case, BAUUC is the fee owner of the property, but CenterPoint has easement rights for the transmission lines.  (2)  The Braes garden is built up very near to the tower structures, but none of the garden elements are directly under the lines.  The BAUUC garden maintains a requisite clearance from the tower and guyline structures, but our garden beds are under the lines.

We’ll be talking more about this soon.  For now, enjoy the photos…

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Well the garden now looks a good bit different than it did last Friday.  All of the 4×10 beds have been constructed (including the two extra-deep beds), nesting boxes for wrens have been built and hung around the property, and more seeds were started.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!  There’s still more to do, but it was a good weekend.

Details and photos after the break.

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We decided not to do much work in this morning’s storm, so we’re going to try again tomorrow. Meet in the garden (or Fellowship Hall) after 12:30pm on Sunday, February 19th for our next try to get the beds built.

Thank you to all who came out today, and thank you to all who wanted to come but chose to stay safe.
See you Sunday.
-Patrick

Garden Workday

Saturday, February 18th

9:00 am – 2:00 pm

LUNCH PROVIDED!

Workday begins Saturday, February 18th at 9am followed by a FREE LUNCH.  Please let me know if you will be participating so that we can plan accordingly.

This coming Saturday is a BIG DAY in the garden – we’ll need a good turnout to complete the tasks.  By the end of the day we should have over 20 vegetable beds constructed waiting for soil, the paths should be mulched and some indoor tasks completed as well.  We will be serving lunch to the volunteers.  Please bring gloves, shovels, wheelbarrows, cordless drills, power saws, long measurement tapes, hammers and mallets.

Here’s the primary task-list
(1)  Lay cardboard down over all the beds and paths
(2)  Construct lumber-framed raised beds
(3)  Position & level the beds
(4)  Cut and install plywood “shims” to close gaps caused by uneven grade
(5)  Mulch pathways

Other Projects (some are indoor, most are kid-friendly)
(a)  Start more seeds
(b)  Paint bed markers
(c)  Assemble birdhouses
(d)  Install water meter
(e)  Plant blackberries & grapes

Thank you all for your continued support of the BAUUC Community Garden.

-Patrick Ferrell
Project Coordinator
BAUUC Community Garden
info@bauucgarden.org
(720) 987-8500

Green Thumb Lecture Series

Texas Master Gardener Louis Mickler (who taught our vegetable seed starting class) will be giving a talk on “Growing Spring Vegetables” next Tuesday, February 14th from 6:30 to 9:00pm.  The class will be held in the Civic Room at Clear Lake Park, 5001 NASA Parkway, on the lake side (park map [PDF]).

Careful what you wish for – you might get it.

Although today’s rain forced a postponement of the neighborhood canvasing effort, we still had over 17 volunteers stop in to help with garden projects this morning.  We weren’t able to work on the deep beds today, but we kept busy with other activities.

Photos and details after the break…

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This past week I had to go inside the beltway to get some gardening supplies, and since I was in the area, I stopped at the Westbury Community Garden near Hillcroft and Hwy 90.  You can read up on their garden in the Houston Chronicle, or on their extensive garden website.  This is a pretty big allotment garden – and it looks like they have plenty of room to grow.

Slideshow after the break…

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We are planning to meet this coming Saturday (February 4th) for another busy, fun-filled workday at the garden.  Here’s what’s on the schedule for Saturday starting at 9am:

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