Parks & People Annual Greening Celebration!

On October 21, 2009 Shari' and Essence represented Unity Urban Garden at the Parks & People Foundation's Annual Greening Celebration. The Garden was one of four gardens nominated for the 2009 Best neighborhood Greening Grant project award. The nominees where chosen from local gardens who were awarded a Parks and People Greening
Grant. This grant will allow Unity Urban Garden to create permanent signage, add a shaded seating area, rain barrels and native plants.

During the celebration Unity Urban Garden was also awarded a signature "open spaces" two person bench from the TKF Foundation and a "Certification of Special recognition" from U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin. This was a lovely evening allowing Essence and Shari' to meet and exchange ideas with other community gardens. We also presented a poster presentation of the garden since its inception in April 2009 to the present.

Give thanks! :-)

Winner of the Bench!

*GRIN

Unity Urban Garden was the winner of the lovely wooden bench we discussed in an earlier post. It was found that our garden is the most open and the bench will allow more energy around the garden. This is great and we are very thankful to the
Parks & People Foundation! We will post a picture of the bench as soon as it is delivered. :-)

Updates!

There is much going on at Unity Urban Garden. We have currently entered a contest with several other community gardens in Baltimore for a beautiful wooden bench, which we need very much in our garden! We had to send in answers to three questions explaining what the bench will be used for, how the community will benefit, and where it will be located.

We are also preparing a few of the herb raised beds for cover cropping, which we received the seeds from a fee give-away here in Baltimore City. Our resident horticulturist and Shari', went to Herring Run's Plant Day to get more plants. We got four berry bushes including blueberry, a hyacinth tree, hydrangeas, and more understory/shade plants for the shade garden. What it looks like in the garden now is little seedlings planted in seemingly random areas but they were planted in the best places for optimum growth/support, and beautification.

A neighbor was giving away two very pretty plants (one is a holly and the other one we are not sure of just yet but it is pretty and we can cut it back if need be as it grows or until we find out what it is). So, we dug up these two plants and have replanted them in the garden.

We also had more leaf mold and wood chips delivered thanks to the city!

As you can see from the picture we have a bit of an aphid invasion and will be using soap wash on them. Companion planting will definitely be in place even more so in the future to cut down on those pesky critters!

If we win the bench we will let you know!

The mimosa seedling is still available!

As it gets colder we will be putting the garden to rest as best we can. We will allow Mother Nature to do what she does. The garden is looking great and we are excited for next spring as we will have more experience and be prepared for what may or may not come!