Bay View Hide House Community Garden

(From Nora) Just wanted to send out a quick update on our progress at the garden. Yesterday we created mounded beds out of the remaining soil at the back of the garden and started spreading wood chips in the area in front of the water tanks. Because the mounds are pretty tall, we plan to put down black landscape fabric to protect from wash-away, then we can plant. (There is one bed planted with potatoes & tomatoes already, that one won’t be covered.) We’ll plant on Saturday, June 19th as part of the gardening workshop. Bruce connected with Teri yesterday to go over his wish list from Home Depot, they will coordinate any necessary purchases.

The mounds on the west side are done, but we still have too much dirt on the east side (closest to Burrell). The ultimate goal is for a mound along the back fence to be filled with raspberries, then a gap large enough for a vehicle to drive through, then another mounded bed close to the preexisting beds that can be used for demos. Right now that space that we want to have open for vehicle access is full of dirt. Not ideal, but we can let it ride for a bit.

Bruce & I made note of all the plots that have not been planted yet. I am going to contact those people today and see if they want to forfeit their plots. Then I can offer them to the few people who are on the wait list, with any leftover plots being absorbed as community plots. I’ve already taken over #86 as a community plot, we had some plants that needed to get into the ground. [...]

My goal is to bring that final map to the garden on Saturday, June 19th to post. This will make it easier for volunteers to help with the community plots.

Thanks all, and please let me know if you have any questions.

-Nora

I just found this video. Most of it is of our truly great leader Melissa Tashjian describing what’s going to go on with the big community garden that we built on Saturday. It’s all true, and relevant.The first twelve seconds of the video show the garden during our May Day Work Day, at a point when many of the beds have been built, but people are still working on building beds and filling them. If more video turns up, we’ll post them here.

We got word today that our freshly built community garden will be the subject of a feature story on WUWM 89.9-FM’S “Lake Effect” radio show this week!

The segment is produced by WUWM’s environmental reporter Susan Bence, who’s covered the Milwaukee urban ag scene for some time now. (Urban ag stories by Ms. Bence abound!) It will air on the Wednesday 5 May 2010 “Lake Effect.”

All but a few of perhaps one hundred and five beds …

No, make that 112! One hundred and twelve raised garden beds, all built and filled with compost and topsoil in one day from 8am-4pm.

Here are some pictures already up on Flikr:

Photos by Gretchen Theisen for the Bay View Neighborhood Association, which is one of our sponsors. Thanks!

Tomorrow morning, the rain will stop, the clouds will part, and the people of the south side will come together for building the greatest community garden Bay View has ever seen! Here’s the low-down:

With the creation of our giant new community garden now just two weeks away, today was a prime opportunity for us to do initial plotting of where the avenues and plots in the garden will be. This has saved us from some potentially serious problems on May 1st. We now have a much better sense for how the beds will all fit together, and what needs realigning. You can’t really tell how things are going to be if you look at the plans and diagrams; being there at the actual lot is critical, especially for a project of this scope.

Our first load of composted leaves was delivered today. These will help make the base of many of our planting beds. If you have access to a lot of brown dirt, or better still, black dirt, please let us know. We need all we can get.

Good news! Out waiting list has been emptied, the garden is full, and those awaiting a plot are no longer waiting. In less than six months, this garden has gone from being a product of our collective imagination to something wonderful that’s coming together in nothing we’ve seen before.

In late January, when we had twice the expected turnout to our first public meeting  (thanks, Transfer!), it was clear that this project had a great chance of success. We built on that excitement through this blog, leafleting the houses around the Hide House, as well as our article in the Bay View Compass and appearing with the Bay View Garden And Yard Society at the Winter Blast festival.

And with the unwavering help of the Hide House owners General Capital Group, and especially that of our volunteers, we stand on the cusp of bringing life and activity to a dormant part of Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood.

Thank you everyone, and see you at the April 17th and May 1st Work Days!