Meeting

April 23, 2009, 6-8 p.m.

During this meeting we talked mainly about the design of the garden. We briefly discussed grants/fundraising, how to haul the rest of the concrete to an area of the plot where it will not be in the way of the tillers, a tentative appointment scheduled to have the plot tilled next week, and recognizing our volunteers that helped us tremendously during Clean-up Day. We discussed what type of natural walk-ways we would like to use in the garden, how to position the raised beds, the use of different types of raised beds, and other logistics about design. We discussed a lot more!

Then we proceeded to check out the starter plants Shari' began and let me tell you, they are looking goooood! We gave ourselves a deadline of the end of May to have the lot prepped to begin Construction Day and I (Shel) will be ordering herb and companion seeds this weekend.

~ Trees

These are trees Civic Works came to mark that are either dead or not thriving. The trees will be taken down and we will hopefully be able to use some of the wood chips in the design of the garden.

~ Clean-up Day Pictures

Mr. Berger, the previous owner's lawn mower. He used to live in a house on the plot that was torn down years ago and is still quite attached to it. Surprisingly, the lawn mower stays outside and has never been stolen.

Mr. Berger used to have feral and house cats that he stills comes to feed and the feeding spot is located on the plot. We cleaned this area up and left some of the feeding containers for Mr. Berger. We did not want him to come and see the stuff gone.

What is the city without a beer can? Not good quality I might add. :-)

We dug up some dandelion. Hey, we love dandelion but it is a highly invasive weed. We definitely will not be growing the mighty dandelion. Sorry dandelion, we still love you though!

Supplies delivered by the city. Woo hoo!

A pretty plant, but probably invasive.

That is Shari'. She dug up some lovely rose bushes so they would not be destroyed. We plan to replant them.

Yucca; it looks lovely full grown. We plant o replant this as well.

Brian, a volunteer. He worked it out!

This little boy was so happy to help. He wanted to jump right in!

Another young volunteer that helped us immensely.

Work it out Spoon! We are so grateful! Spoon headed up the hardest of the labor. He had not eaten either until later that afternoon. Shame shame Spoon!

We were originally supposed to get a dumpster but the city ran out. This is what they delivered.

We took it, of course! Beggars cannot be choosers. :-)

Essence to the left, and a volunteer. Ok, do not sleep on the other little lady to the right here. She was hauling heavy concrete. We are MIGHTY in numbers! Essence was on the phone initially giving it all she had to get some sort of dumpster delivered. Those cell phones are good for something.

Kevin, who helped us tremendously as well. Thanks Brothah! I told him I would go and get him something to eat if he needed it and he said, "Oh, I already ate. I knew was we were in for." Go ahead Kevin, because we surely did not know.

Before picture of a sidewalk located on the plot. It must have ran alongside the house when it was up.

A beautiful after picture.

One of our young elders that had a lot to say about life in general.

Lisa, Shari's partner. Thanks Lisa! She womanned the table, sign-in sheet, and basically helped out wherever she could.

~ Clean-up Day

April 18, 9-2 p.m.

We got a lot done on this day. We had quite a few people from the neighborhood show up to help and stop by just to check us out. The great thing about building this garden in the community is we receive valuable information from them about the history of the land and the neighborhood in general. The people were very helpful and we are very appreciative.

We had no idea it would take so much man power to get the plot cleaned in preparation for tilling. We were most pleased that more men showed up than women, as there was concrete that had to be broken and hauled to the dumpster. We had to rent a jack hammer for 4 hours and had a sledge hammer and some other tools to assist the men. Wow, it was hard work and we were not even breaking up the concrete for the most part. Essence was brave enough to try but I (Shel) was not interested in that aspect. A lot of people that showed up were families and our young elders. We went longer than we thought and planned. Now we have to decide what to do with the rest of the broken up concrete that we were too pooped to haul onto the truck. We are thinking we may use it as walk ways on and within the plot. Cool, right?! :-)

The Beginning, Oh Joy!

5,000 sq ft of endless possibilities.

There is definitely something to be said for folks that delve into the unknown, or rather, that allow oneself to relearn what they knew before. We are super excited to embark upon this adventure in creating a community garden. All things are in alignment and they are steadily getting done. We wanted to begin a blog of our journey for several reasons: to allow those that want to donate gardening supplies or money, including individuals and businesses, to be able to see exactly what we are doing with Unity Urban Garden. We also decided to blog for others of like mind with any sort of interest in what we are doing to allow them to check us out, make comments, give advice, etc.

Below is an updated list of all our meetings, and we will be posting them daily or at least, once a week:

2009
Saturday, March 28, 6-8 p.m.
Thursday, March 5, 6:30-7:15 p.m.

Thursday, March 12, 6:30-7:30 p.m., two of us were able to attend a class entitled, Transforming Urban Spaces with Ben Nathanson as the teacher. The class was very inspiring and was mainly about transforming alleys in urban settings into gardens, while still allowing the space to be available to the community.

Saturday, March 21, 4-7:30 p.m., we met with Roy Skeen, who has several community gardens in the Baltimore area, and he surveyed the plot and gave much needed and appreciated feedback about design and others things we needed to do. We enjoyed having him and loved the information he shared with us! After meeting him, we had a general meeting.

Wednesday, March 25, 7:30-8:45 p.m., two of us were able to attend the Moravia Community Association Meeting where we introduced ourselves, made our intentions clear about beginning the garden, and made contact with people in the neighborhood. They were quite welcoming and happy about our venture. :-)

Friday, March 27, 6:30 p.m., we met at the lot to meet someone that would give us the same feedback Roy gave, hopefully from a different perspective. We had an appointment with a young lady who did not show then we set up another appointment with another young lady that next Saturday, April 4th at 2 -3 p.m., and she was able to make it. We received very useful information from her as well.

Baltimore was scheduled to have Clean-up Day on April 18, so we discussed having our own Clean-up Day at the plot as the city would drop off supplies such as brooms, rakes, trash bags, and disperse dumpster trucks. On Sunday, April 5, 9-10:30 a.m. we distributed flyers in the neighborhood where the plot is located.

Thursday, April 9, 6-8:20 p.m.
Saturday, April 11, 4-5:30 p.m., we distributed flyers again.
Wednesday, April 15, 6-8 p.m.

All meetings that do not have a comment were meetings in which, initially, we talked about if we were prepared to commit to this endeavor, the work involved, our dream and ideas of who in the community we wanted to reach and work with, and what we wanted to use the garden for. After these initial meetings, we began to discuss how to tell the community about our journey/advertising. Later, we discussed exactly what we would possibly plant, where to buy the seeds, etc. Presently we are in discussion about fund raising, applying for grants, and design. We are always talking about design! :-)