Arizona Daily Wildcat Article

"We aren't really a committee anymore, we're a community," Caleb Weaver

Check out the article in the Daily Wildcat about our garden.http://wildcat.arizona.edu/news/garden-grows-community-1.1855451

Garden work-weekend - preparation for the winter

Preparing for the Winter

The weekend of December 4^th and 5^th, 2010 we had one of our biggest garden work days at One Tree Garden, comparable to our first garden work day a little more than a year ago. Team members, Student for Sustainability members, friends, grad students, etc… all came out to help prepare One Tree Garden for the winter.

 

We had two full days of digging as we worked compost into our sunken beds, stabilized the western sunken beds, removed our hay bale raised bed, dug out and created waffle beds on the east side (a Zuni pueblo desert gardening technique), and harvested arugula, amaranth, and basil. All the soil that we removed was used to make passive rainwater harvesting berms surrounding the Udall Center.

The berms are a step forward in creating the Sonoran vegetation area up front. The berms will also help minimize the severe erosion that happens on the steep slope on the west side of the Udall Center and reduce the amount of flooding that happens on Euclid Ave. during heavy rains.

Although we will miss our hay bale bed we decided that after experimenting with a raised bed it is not the preferable technique in the Sonoron desert, we found that the bed dried out much quicker than the sunken beds and therefore required more water. After a year the hay bales were also starting to break down and didn’t look too good.

For this winter break, since most of the team members were not around, we decided to leave the garden fallow and let the soil sleep under a warm blanket of hay. We added compost, donated from Civano Nursery, to all of the beds so that they’ll be ready for planting when we return. The beds were covered in with hay from the old raised bed to retain moisture and keep weeds from growing.

 

I was silly in fearing that we would not finish in time to tidy up the garden and remove the piles of soil from the sidewalk before the Udall Center staff walked in Monday morning. Everyone worked so hard that we finished with no worries (because we are amazing!). I do admit though that I was sore afterward…for a week.

Looks like everyone enjoyed themselves, and there were even some visitors interested in our garden. It was a great weekend!

And now…

our One Tree Garden sleeps….

-andré luiz