Trail building begins 06/24/2009
Thanks to the generosity of our local school district, the outdoor classroom at Devon Middle School now features a set of benches (with more to be added by the school at a later date), to enable students to gather and work around the wetland. A neighbour also contributed a table as an outdoor work space.  While we work to raise more funds for our summer projects — such as an interpretive sign and more wetland plants at Devon Middle School — it is also time to begin work on our next project: establishing a nature trail at Garden Creek School. Work began last week on clearing a narrow path through the vegetation...  ...using hand tools as much as possible to limit potential impacts from noise and pollution.  Once a path had been cleared, a class of Grade 4 students from the school helped plant out a variety of seedlings of native New Brunswick tree species, donated by the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management at the University of New Brunswick.  These seedlings were planted along the sides of gullies to help protect them from further erosion caused by run-off water from the school grounds.  Due to shading from the tree canopy, a number of these gullies remain wet throughout the year, necessitating the installation of boardwalks where the trail crosses these areas.  Now that these boardwalks are in place, the next step is the formal establishment of the trail itself, using mulch and gravel generously donated by local businesses.  If you're in Fredericton and have some time during the day (9am–4pm) over the next 2–3 weeks, we'd love to have you join us and contribute to building the trail. If interested, please drop me a line — we have tools for up to 8 people at any time. It's a beautiful spot in which to work, and who never know what you might find...   Square foot gardening 06/08/2009
A busy week at the Devon Middle School outdoor classroom last week. To kick things off, Roger — one of our summer volunteers — and I worked with the students to help dig up and transplant two of the three nursery beds of trees (about 35 white spruce) into the berms around the edge of the wetland.  Once complete, the next step was to weed and double-dig the vacant beds in preparation for their conversion to a vegetable garden.  In order to make most use of our limited growing space, we adopted Mel Bartholomew's square foot gardening technique. An overview of the approach is provided in the video, below. As our beds are a little too large to allow one to comfortably reach into their centres, a wooden plank (along with some rocks) was positioned through the middle of each bed, allowing for easy access to either half.  We divided our planting area into squares and marked out a grid using jute twine. Then, following Mel's advice for planting density along with generally accepted guidelines for companion planting, we planned out our beds as shown in the diagram below.  [Numbers refer to plant density, i.e. the desired number of plants per square. Brown areas indicate the eventual location of trellises for climbing plants.]  Then, it was time to plant!  [All of our seed is from organically-grown sources, except for our onion and flower species.]  | About:This weblog exists as a tool for communication, teaching, and learning. Posts on these pages are collected under the following categories:
|
RSS Feed