Ecohouse

Ecohouse
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Tuesday, April 17, 2012

A New Year, New Adventures!

Hello Ecohouse Followers!

The Garden "Before" Transformation
After a hiatus from the blogging world, I am back to tell you all about what has been going on this year at the Ecohouse. I am living at the house for my second year with two new roommates, Hannah Simonetti and Torin Jacobs. We have been working hard to collaborate on new projects this year, the biggest one being to transform our garden into a community garden space to share with interested groups or individuals in Athens. We are excited about this project because it will be another way to involve, share, and grow with the local community in sustainable living for years to come.

Loved getting to know the community assistants!
Fall Quarter Community Work Day    
Torin happily participating at the Fall garden work day
We started brainstorming for the community garden project during fall quarter and have been making steady progress on the project this spring. In the fall, we had a tremendous amount of help preparing the garden for winter from the local group of community assistants. We were thankful to have such a wonderful group of enthusiastic volunteers helping us for a work day in the fall. With the help of so many volunteers, we were able to weed and apply a lasagna composting technique over the entire garden, consisting of layers of cardboard, compost, and mulch. I was amazed at how great our soil looked this spring after applying this technique. We were also able to plant garlic in the fall, which has already grown to an enormous size!


Building Raised Bed in the Spring
Side Profile of the New Garden Improvements
We were all really excited to get back in the garden and get our hands dirty after the long winter. We accomplished a lot during our first work day this spring. We put in four new raised beds for community plots, filled them with compost, and built a 3-bin compost bin. It was still a little cold and breezy during our first work day, but things warmed up for us last week as we continued with the work. The warmer weather has brought plenty of weeds with it, so we spent a few hours last week weeding, adding compost to the remaining bins, and preparing for a marigold pallet fence that we are going to build in front of the garden to help with animal control. I've never seen a pallet fence like the one we are going to build, but I am really excited because it will create a "secret garden" feel as you drive up to the space. It will not only be a great way to keep deer out of the garden, but also a way to attract visitors traveling our road.

Since I am graduating this quarter, I have mainly been stuck inside working on my thesis, so working on the community garden has been a wonderful way to relieve stress and enjoy the beautiful weather of spring. I look forward to sharing our next steps in this process with you!
Current Garden With New Raised Beds and Compost Bin!



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