I attended a recent re-orientation at the new space and learned about all of the currently unused green space at the new building. I’m a home gardener and would love to form a committee for this purpose. I’m confident we could reach out to local gardening centers and likely get some funding for raised beds at the new space. In my wildest dreams, this would expand to a include a greenhouse and could include classes and a sustainability/food education initiative.
Who’s with me?? I have little to no experience with flower gardening, but I’m open to this aspect, too. There’s a lot of useless lawn that needs to be converted to eco-friendly green space!
thank you. Honestly, it’s in my blood. My great grandmother taught me to care for plants and it just sort of happens. All she ever told me was to keep them in the sun and water them if they are dry lol
Trees could be a worthwhile addition to the garden. There is a horticulture club down here in haysville that grows trees from saplings. They give them to the city for beautification projects, etc. They also give them to people who need trees after storms or to meet hoa requirements. I know because my scout group planted most of them when they started up. In fact the scouts transplanted a lot of them to different parks in the city too.
They also sell plants saturdays at our Hometown Market during the warmer months.
Planting trees would be good but we need a layout before we do that. Nothing worse than planting trees without a plan. Would we want an orchard or just beautification. Cherry Blossoms are gorgeous when they bloom in the spring, but there is no fruit there. Incidentally, that makes them cheaper to maintain
All they did was plant about 5 to 7 rows of 10 or so trees. Each row had the same approx size trees. Row 1 had very small saplings and they increased in size to where row 7 had about 3 or 4 ft. Trees. That way, I think, they set themselves up to be able to cycle and keep from having them get too big.
Just thought I’d mention the idea. Totally up to you guys.
Just peeked out my window, benefits of living across the street. I don’t know that you can get 5-7 rows there and still leave ample space for the other groups and a greenhouse. Maybe a 2x4 grove of cherry blossoms in the Japanese style, then another grove of similar size of whatever else we decide. You could probably make three such groves and still leave room for outside projects like a picnic area, forge area, or anything else that requires a large outside space.
Awesome. Interested in this area of the Maker space, and particularly interested into expanding into greenhouse space and aquaponics if there is interest.
I have experience in as much, and even more theory from numerous books to apply.
Would have been pushing for this myself if someone hadn’t brought it up come closer to spring.
Thanks, can’t wait to see what happens!
I’m happy to see so much interest in this. I would like to start reaching out to local gardening centers to gauge interest in potential sponsorships. But I’ll check with our finance committee before doing so.
It’s definitely never too early to start planning for this. Spring will be here before we know it!
Here’s a preliminary budget. This includes materials for (5) 6x4 and (5) 8x4 raised beds. They would be two feet tall and made with 2" lumber. I’m getting quotes right now for top soil delivery. That could be a big cost. But overall, I think a rough budget of $3,000 isn’t too egregious.
There will obviously be costs outside of this. I would like to rent a skidsteer when the soil is delivered to save all of our backs. And then we’ll need some basic gardening supplies. But this is a good start.
The next aspect would be water access. I’m not sure what kind of outside access there is for water. Anyone who signs up would need to pay an annual water donation. Probably no more than $50 if we get enough people.
I’m currently doing some research on possible grant funding and I will reach out to some local businesses to see about sponsorships.
We would probably want some kind of irrigation, manual or automatic. You can use a rain barrel in Wichita and attach it to a hose network with soaker hoses on the end. I have used this setup very successfully in my own garden and in my experience, one barrel can feed two or three whole beds. That negates the need to use public water for the most part
