Mapping Voices

Check out two videos made by residents of one of DNDA's properties. Members of the Delridge and White Center communities were invited to attend a workshop on creating Digital Stories, sharing their personal stories related to healthy eating and active living. The creators of these videos are both extremely active in the gardens at their property. One video is about how the garden space has benefited their small community, and the second is about how community youth sports changed her life and the lives of her children. Enjoy! Hopefully the links work. Once on the Mapping Voices site, check out some other videos from the community and take a look at what MOVE (Mapping Our Voices for Equality) is doing to promote social justice and healthy communities.

Vivian View Gardens

Finding Affordable Sports

Mapping Our Voices for Equality

Centerwood Gets a Garden!

Yesterday was a big day for the gardens. A resident at Croft Place came to me on Tuesday wanting to build an herb garden outside her living room window so she could have fresh herbs for cooking and maybe some easy veggies. She and another resident arranged planter boxes in a rectangle using her external wall as one of the sides, outlining a small space for a garden. The soil in the area is extremely hard clay and rock so she asked me to help her get some good soil. With limited resources available, we came up with a plan. We took about half of the soil from one of the 10 beds that has not yet been planted in and transferred it to the newly designed space outside her apartment. After filling the area with good soil, we transplanted some oregano and lemon thyme and planted some cilantro, chive, and green onion seeds.

Then it was on to phase two. The Centerwood garden build has been on hiatus for a while due to some coordination issues with a key resident. Without a garden at Centerwood, we have been running out of things to do at Centerwood Garden Club. With half of the soil removed from one of the beds at Croft Place, I took the boards apart and raked the remaining soil smooth, leaving a shallow, non-container garden bed. I took the boards to Centerwood (after a stop at Home Depot to make some necessary cuts) and had the kids at Garden Club help me put together an L-shaped container bed. Next week, Garden Club will transplant our indoor tomato and pepper starts, as well as plant many herbs such as oregano, cilantro, thyme, and rosemary. We will also plant flowers (as per the kids' request) and the soon-to-come second garden bed will be predominantly flowers as well.

It felt great to creatively address two needs in one day. The residents of Centerwood have their first container bed and the resident at Croft has a kitchen garden right outside her living room window. All the while, the bed that was dismantled will still be functional as a garden, simply without a wooden exterior. The next step is to prevent the landscaping company from doing anything in the new garden space, but that's a story for another time.

Thanks for reading!

And More Pics

I spent some time today over at Vivian McLean Place, chatting with a few of the residents and perusing their gardens to see the progress. The gardens are looking beautiful, and everyone is hopeful that the weather will perk up and we'll have a very productive late spring and summer. I wanted to share with you all some of the pics I managed to take with my phone while I was wandering around the patio. Above is a picture of a small section of the garden with flowers, some fruit trees, and various vegetable seedlings that are difficult to see in the photo. Enjoy the pics!


Raspberries running up the side of a tall container box.



Lettuce, broccoli, radishes and more planted and tended by a resident attempting to maximize her container space.



Another shot of the same garden showing her beautiful flowers as well.



Tomatoes and peppers planted in cages among red plastic mulch to trap in what little heat we have been getting.



A broccoli plant stands out.



Hot & Spicy Oregano (Yum!)

Thanks for reading/looking. I hope to continue to update with each property in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for some photos/updates on Delridge Heights and Santa Teresita.

Pics

Some flowers just starting to sprout in an old shoe of mine that the kids planted at OCC Garden Club.



Lettuce seedlings at OCC are finally starting to flourish.



A spinach seedling, one of many that the kids at Croft planted during Garden Club.



Bibb lettuce at Croft Place growing like crazy.

What's In A Name?

As I said in my last post I worked with a resident at Croft Place last Wednesday, transplanting strawberries and training some roses up brand new trellises. For part of that project I had two young kids, a brother and sister, eagerly helping me. The boy occasionally comes to Garden Club, which is every Tuesday. But whenever he sees me he excitedly says "It's Gardening Club!" and asks what we are going to do. He's only 5, so in the past I've just assumed that he doesn't quite grasp that the Club is only on Tuesdays. He sees me there and automatically assumes it must be Garden Club. Makes sense. I simply remind him that Garden Club is on Tuesdays and tell him I'm glad he's so excited for the next one.

After he helped me work the soil in the strawberry patch last Wednesday he had to leave with his family. As he was getting into their car, he waved to me and shouted "Goodbye Gardening Club!" As I waved back and thanked him for his help, it hit me. All this time I thought he just connected my presence at his apartments with having Garden Club, and thus would excitedly and mistakenly proclaim that Gardening Club was happening. However, I now realize that this whole time he has actually been referring to me as Gardening Club. Looking back, it makes so much sense. He calls me Gardening Club because he's too young to remember my name. And you know, I'm kind of okay with that.

One of the residents at Croft Place and I have established a standing work date on Wednesday afternoons. Last week we took out some herbs and ornamentals from an underutilized space a bit separated from the main garden area. We transplanted some of the herbs to the container beds, some others to pots on her porch, and some of the ornamentals to the area lining the driveway. We then churned up the dirt (which was predominantly clay) and added some good topsoil. This week, we completed the project by transplanting strawberry plants into the newly renovated plot, creating a strawberry patch out of an underutilized area of overgrown herbs.







We also added two trellises to the area near the garden entrance. We then moved two container rose bushes that had been sitting in a less visible, less sunny area to behind the trellises and started training the vines up. In the summertime it should make a beautiful entrance to the gardens.



Despite the cold weather of the past few months, some of our produce is actually beginning to grow and possible even flourish. The spinach, chard, bibb lettuce, and salad mix are all coming up, and some broccoli sprouts are starting to show themselves as well. Somebody seems to be munching of some of the young leafage so that's definitely something I'll have to take care of.