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!