Finishing Touches

The Edible Peace Patch at Lakewood Elementary has finally become operational. After many hours of hard work by many ambitious volunteers, the Garden is ready for production.

Aesthetically, there is no comparison

And the same goes agriculturally.

These new beds will hopefully contain far more nutrient rich soil and will promote healthy growth among the various crops.

Even the sunflowers will have better soil, proper organization, and greater protection.

As we can see, they are taking it very well.

With all of the beds finished, sand sloped appropriately, and mulch spread, we were finally able to start planting.

This involved some careful note-taking in order to know what was where and the notes were then organized into a whiteboard chart for ease of use.

(left of bottom half nearest school and top following to the right)

Some of the crops, such as the tomatoes and some sunflowers, were left planted from the previous garden:

Others were transplanted in fresh new beds:

Collards,

Peppers (left), Parsley (right top), Broccoli (middle), Cilantro (right bottom),

Eggplant (left), Romaine Lettuce (right),

A few mystery greens (likely a form of Collards),

And yet others received drastic upgrades to their pre-existing homes:

Pineapples,

lets not forget about those Sunflowers.

Even the compost, mulch, and soil starter piles reaped the benefits of the renovation.

Some plants from the old garden were even able to be harvested in order to provide for future generations of superior crops.

The Edible Peace Patch here at Lakewood has sure come a long way, but the real exciting part is still to come.

Everything Coming Together

Even after lots of progress on the beds over the previous week, things were looking a little barren around the Peace Patch. In fact, the Garden almost resembled a mine for a while. Recently, however, things have been brightening up.

More renovation meant more supplies and we got a lot of it.

Some of the materials came from local businesses: shrimp, wood, topsoil, coffee grinds, etc.

And some of the materials came straight from the ground

After all the beds were caught up to speed with layers up through fish, mulch and topsoil, they were ready for shrimp.

On top of this were more coffee grinds, some good compost, seaweed, more mulch and topsoil, all stacked like lasagna with good topsoil from the old beds mixed between each layer.

We also spread/sloped the sand and spread mulch over it.

The pineapples were happy to have their home cleaned up

And a long trough was created in which to hopefully grow a wall of giant sunflowers.

We even moved the compost off of the fence to the far side of the Garden and built new frames for seven of the beds.

Luckily, on Wednesday and Thursday this week we had some extra help around the Garden.
A whole class of Eckerd College students volunteered at the Peace Patch and made a big impact in the volume of work we were able to complete.

Slowly but surely, the Peace Patch is coming together.

Transformation!

It is hard to believe it has been only a week since we started working on the Peace Patch Garden! This is what we walked into a week ago...

And this is what it looks like now...

It may not be as green as before but, the Garden is undergoing great transformations and we are all anxious to see the results! 

Here is a step by step of what we are doing to the garden beds. 

After digging out all of the beds to a depth of about inches 30 inches, they have all been lined with a thick plastic material to keep the water in the beds. 

Next, a layer of mulch was added and it was followed by a layer of logs. 

The logs were then covered by another layer of mulch

Next a layers of leftover fish parts! 

This layer of fish is also covered by mulch...

Next, all is covered by top quality, topsoil. But wait, it is not ready yet, there is more! Tune in next week and see what is happening in this transforming and happening garden. 

Holes

Today was a busy day in the garden for the peace patch will be getting a subterranean makeover. over the next few weeks we will be creating some new additions to the peace patch.  Though the majority of the changes will not be noticeable above ground we hope that the changes will be evident when the plants start growing.  Today we began the process of digging out the beds, we will be digging out the beds about two feet below the frames in order place cut down tree branches and trunks, mulch, coffee grounds, fish bones, and shrimp shells below the topsoil.  We completely excavated one bed and are almost done digging out two of the other beds.  Today we also harvested the collard greens much to the delight of the ladies at the front desk, harvested the spectacular sweet potatoes, and cleared off some of the other beds.  A solid start to the long list of things to do to get the garden ready for planting.

Andrew Porter
1-5-12