Thursday, May 29, 2014

Green Tip of the Week

This week's green tip of the week is focusing on garden trellises and different ideas for making them. The following are pictures of what can be done with a link for more information:
*Bike-Wheel Trellis 
 


*Gourd arch at entrance to walled kitchen garden


*Japanese Ibo Knot for trellis 




*PVC Pipe and Ropes



*Basic Trellis 



*Bean Teepee



*More Trellis Ideas on Gardenweb Forum!


Friday, May 23, 2014

New Recycling Bins Comming Soon!

More coming soon!
I'm happy to announce that your Associated Student Government voted this week to fund the purchasing of 26 new recycling bins for the SCC campus! These 26 new recycling bins will more than double the number of bins at SCC! The new bins should be in for the Fall quarter!

Picture of the Week - May 23rd, 2014

Family of deer out on the Columbia
I spotted these three deer hanging out on the Columbia River. Looks like they are enjoying the water!

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Green Tip of the Week

Watering system being put to use! The top covers of the two pipes are removable
We just remove the top covers and use a hose to fill the pipes with water
This week's green tip is focusing on how to build a water efficient raised garden bed. Raised beds can be a bit of a challenge in terms of keeping your plants watered. Raised beds tend to be warmer and drier than a garden bed that is not raised. The new student garden only uses raised beds. Because of this and our reliance on volunteers we decided to put in a system that would be as water efficient as possible.

Woody debris in the bottom of the garden bed
Our first step to make a water efficient raised bed was to put large woody debris in the bottom of the beds. These provide an increase in the organic material and essentially function as water sinks. The debris will absorb water when the beds are wet and slowly release it as the beds dry out.

Next we wanted to be able to reduce evaporation from watering. Traditional methods of watering from the surface result in water losses due to the sun's heat evaporating a portion of the exposed water. To avoid this we built pipes that run length wise along the beds and than turn upward at 90 degrees at one end making the whole setup look like a "L". The other end of the pipe is capped.

The bottom of the long part of the pipe has wholes drilled in the bottom. The long part was then covered by a permeable material to keep dirt out of the pipes. This will allow water to drain out along the bottom of the pipe.

Once the pipes were completed we then placed them two per bed about six inches or so below the surface. With the watering system in place and the woody debris in the bottom of each bed it is our hope that our garden beds will be far more water efficient than a standard raised garden bed. Future improvements could include a mulch over the surface of each bed to further retain moisture.

Pictures of us working on the watering system:

Drilling holes in the pipes
Wrapping the pipes in permeable cloth


Adding the system to a garden bed
Watering systems all installed!



Sunday, May 18, 2014

Picture of the Week - May 18th, 2014

Wildflowers and the sunset!
This picture was taken about a week ago up on the south hill from a great little trail that has some amazing views.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Green Tip of the Week

Finishing up the last couple tires!
Today we had an awesome event put on by Andrew! He got a bunch of tires donated that we then had a blast painting :) We used some cardboard stencils to get the designs. The only real prep work was to clean the tiers and put the tarp down.

All the tires are now at our garden site. We are filling them with soil and will be planting herbs and other plants in them over the next few days.

The green tip of the week this week is to do what we just did! Get any old tires, paint them and have fun planting your new colorful beds!