Saturday March 2

Lots of people at Riverview today! Around 50 or so total volunteers from various Lawrence fraternities and sororities showed up. Jaffna, Kate, and crew worked on organizing and cleaning and redesigning and installing sinks! Theoretically, a lot was accomplished.

'My' crew and I sloshed out to the greenhouses and worked on constructing beds. I've decided that bed construction should be given stages.

Stage 1: Sod removal- (sod cutters and flat-tip shovels are used to remove rectangular chunks of sod from ground. sod is rolled up or thrown carefully elsewhere for later use)

Stage 2: Excavation-dirt is shoveled from the trench to an adjacent spot, preferable onto an adjacent tarp. Finished trench should be bowl shaped with sloped sides and about one shovel head deep.

Stage 3: Refilling-Logs, branches, and wood in various stages of decay is packed into the trenches until they are about flush with the ground. Why? Good question! There's three main reasons. First, the wood, like most types of organic matter, holds in moisture.  Second, the air pockets between the branches provide aeration. Third, the wood becomes the habitat for fungi, bacteria, microbes, and many other living organisms that are decomposing the organic matter of the wood and returning lots of valuable nutrients to the soil.

Wood chips, hay, leaves, or other mulch components are then spread over the sticks and branches to make it smoother and more solid.

Stage 4: Unrolling the Sod-The sod, which is in rolls or draped on the ground somewhere, is now laid, grassy side down, over the wood chips.

Stage 5: Mounding the dirt-The dirt which is lying neatly on a tarp somewhere nearby is now heaped back onto the bed in a upside-down 'v' shape. Large clumps can be broken up by hand (called 'shaping' the bed.) the tarps and be upturned and shaken to get the last bits of dirt off.

Optional Stage 6: Worm castings-Especially for tiny plants, or perhaps seeds, worm castings are enormously beneficial. And they also look like coffee grounds, which is irrelevant.

So that's what was on for today! I'm looking forward to Monday when we can continue!