Friday, July 30, 2010

The faucet crisis (!)

Last week we faced some complications at the garden. During one of the member's shifts, the faucet that is used to water the plants broke off the wall in an accident. The situation was temporarily dealt with within a couple of hours when the school head engineer came to the rescue and shut the flow of the water from inside the building. However, since it wasn't clear when the faucet would be replaced by a new one by the VSB, we were left worried about the fate of our plants for the rest of the summer. On Tuesday of this week, I went to the school to see if I could talk to any of the engineers about the problem. I was directed to John, who told me that thankfully, a plumber was going to install a new faucet on the very same day. The key to the new tap was left for me at the office the next day and thereby, the faucet crisis happily came to an end and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

On a separate note, today is the last day of July and for the past month, our Garden Committee members have really dedicated themselves to taking care of the garden. I'd like to mention that the August schedule for watering shifts is now posted and many thanks are sent to Paloma Brioschi, Claire He, Jordan Chiu, Allie Peloquin, Michelle Chan, Danielle Mayo, Heather Ross, Sheida Naderi, Emma Gosselin, Swetha Yatham, Mike Zhai and Kavya Yatham for all their efforts in the past four weeks.

Monday, July 19, 2010

So far so good

We are now in our fourth week of successfully tending the PW Garden after the school year ended. This process includes the watering, harvesting, thinning and planting seeds/plants by a number of student volunteers. As a proud member of the group, I'm glad to say that our garden looks more alive and thriving than ever. Shout outs to all the enthusiastic and committed members who are making this project run smoothly. Jordan Chiu, Allie Peloquin, Michelle Chan, Sheida Naderi, Emma Gosselin, Swetha Yatham, Claire He, Mike Zhai, Kavya Yatham, Danielle Mayo and Heather Ross, thank you for doing your shifts for the past three weeks. Here's the current look of the garden:







On of the ways in which the garden has progressed since June, is the work that has been done on the further development of its layout. Initially, the PW garden consisted of four adjacent beds, a compost bin and a water tank (temporary irrigation system). As of June 25, a box for storing the garden equipment has been built and installed; thanks to the work of Ms. Palejko, Ms. Chung, Sheida Naderi-Azad and Sasha Mills. (The wheelbarrows are kept beside the box and locked to the fence). Also, the extra amount of soil which was leftover after the filling of the four beds was moved to three future bed locations and the rest was covered and stored in the former place until future use. This time-consuming task was completed with the help of Ms. Phillips, Ms. Chung, Michelle Chan, Emma Gosselin, Swetha Yatham, Sheida Naderi-Azad, myself, and a number of other students. In addition, signs where put up to inform the passers-by of the context of our community garden.