Sax in the Garden

On Thursday  Aug 27 at 1:00, we will be serenaded by a sax soloist while we relax in the garden.  We invite you to join us.  He will play for about 15 minutes (we might relax a little longer than that). Come if you can.  We might do a little planting/weeding before and after and of course you are always welcome to help with that too, but this all about the sax.

Ready for class

We have seating in the garden!  Check it out. I know you will see me out there with my students.  Also a great place to take a break. 

Work day

Come check out the garden and give us a hand on August 3 at noon.  We plan to assemble and place two benches,  do some planting and weeding, and maybe a little harvesting too.  The trail is delayed until we have a crew of eight volunteers and a bobcat.  Please let us know if you are willing and able and we will make a plan.

Permaculture in action 3

If you have viewed the garden lately you would see an area with what looks like unmaintained grass amongst the newly planted trees.  To us this is a beautiful thing.  It is the rye that we planted last fall as groundcover.  We thought the geese got most of it but I guess  there was enough to share.  The rye was cut long enough to still provide some ground cover but all that was cut is now mulch which is decomposing to make our soil.  As you may recall this area has very poor soil, so we are building it up.  We covered the area with cardboard which will decompose, slashed the ground cover for mulch, and our plantings will further improve the soil by adding nitrogen or sending a taproot deep into the ground.

Friday June 5 Work day

On Friday we are going to do some planting and general improvement of the area.  We will attempt a trail  at the end of summer or fall when more people are around to help, so we will not be working on Saturday.  We will also place a bench made by our very own welding student, Mark Cerney.  Thanks to Tom Baldwin and Mark for that.

Unveiling of the design drawing and other updates

On Monday April 13 at noon (sharp) in the Schibel conference room, the drawing of our design will be revealed.  It looks pretty cool.  Many thanks to permaculture landscape designer Kate Plachetka.  We will also be meeting with the water design team from IRE that same day at 11:00.  Seeds have been started.  Potting mix donations are being accepted in C168.  Materials have been gathered.  We have a tentative work day set for June 5/6.  Once it becomes official, I will post it here.  We are hoping for a crew of 7-15 with assigned jobs so that everyone's time is used efficiently.  The Earthfest presentation talks about permaculture in general and some of the specifics of our garden.  Please go if you can.  It is at 10:30 on April 18.  Thanks to Earthfest for inviting us and to Alex Crum for being the presenter.

PRESENTATION

We have been invited to speak at Earthfest on April 18 at 10:30. 

I am unavailable but we have a volunteer, Alexandra Crum, willing to represent the project.  She is a past Mesabi student who has been involved with the project since the beginning.  She will be on campus at noon on April 6 in the Schibel conference room to practice her presentation and receive input.  In her talk she will explain permaculture in general as well as what we are doing.  Please come if you can. 

Spring plans

Preparations have begun for the upcoming gardening season.  At the last meeting we decided to go light on planting since we are still working on a water system.  A student from IRE is leading a team to design us a system.  Also a student from the welding program is designing us some furniture.  It is very exciting to have student involvement.  This spring, the goals are to add a few raised beds, finish the trail, start some plants, get furniture, and plant some trees.  We are planning a work day as soon as the frost is out of the ground.  We are hoping for a crew of volunteers.  We will have a sign up sheet with specific jobs to make the day as efficient as possible.  Starting plants from seed will begin in March. We will be presenting at Earthfest in April.

Our next meeting is Thursday, Jan 29 at 2:00 in C156.  It's time to do our ordering and do some planning for spring. If you have any ideas or requests please bring them to the meeting, e-mail me (k.giermann@mesabirange.edu), or post to this blog.  That would actually be nice to see someone else post besides myself.  I do however know that our blog is being read and has influenced home gardeners.  I was very excited to hear that from a community member.  We have also been invited to present at Earthfest this April.  I will be unavailable due to my master herbalism studies but if someone else in our group would like to present, I could help with the preparation.  Since we have grant money that needs to be spent we are going to have to order some benches unless we suddenly get a welder or carpenter who came through the Mesabi program, or is currently in a program, who is willing and able to do it. I was really hoping to showcase a Mesabi student but we need to secure our benches by May.  If you know someone who may be interested, please connect them with me ASAP.