[Community_garden] Re. tires and biosolids

[Don Boekelheide]

Very good points raised by Mike, David, Doreen and all.

Here, too, the tire mulch really really stinks in the summer time. And it's a 'toxic' smell, even if it isn't 'really' toxic.

I wouldn't personally recommend tires as edging, even if it is some sort of remanufactured product. In my experience, most edgings tend to create more costs and problems than they are worth. Edging is a classic case of a design element that can't learn. 

However, I do like your idea of 40x40 gardening areas (modules?) subdivided into plots, and have seen a very nice use of that at the huge (15 acre!) community garden on Hilton Head, in SC, actually theirs are 50x50 subdivided into 4 square blocks of 25x25.

So, how do you separate? We use a growing path cover (has to be mowed, but is better in many ways) or organic (wood chip) mulch for paths, and let the gardens be gardens. That's the easiest thing, and most flexible. At the Reedy Creek CG in Charlotte, we mark the corners of each of our plots with green painted conduit stakes that are 'sacred', only used for that purpose. If gardeners stray into the paths (and there are always a few who do), all the other gardeners gently but persistently nudge them back. If you really want a clearer border, use the cheapest stone you can find, like riprap. Or plant something, down here monkeygrass works. Or even better a tidy annual like marigolds.

Within gardens, I like paths to separate plots, but at Hilton Head they leave it up to the gardeners. Lots of community gardens have pretty crowded-together plots, but land can be scarce, non-poisoned urban land especially.

About biosolids, as long as we, as a society, intermingle industrial wastes (heavy metals) with humanure, the humanure isn't safe. Separate the two, and we can talk about it. Resolving this problem is like refusing to go metric, people with a vested interest in being and staying rich refuse to do something sensible that demands nothing from us but ingenuity, discipline, and a bit less short-term greed (long term, nobody can dispute the payoff). We'll get there, but we're still a very young culture and like most adolescents (at least American ones) pretty darn stubborn. (Forgive the rant, please.)

I do worry about what we can do with tires, since we generate zillions of them. Untended, they become tiger mosquito breeding farms. I've heard of using them for construction, by filling them with soil or concrete to form piers and walls? Garden swings are nice, but I don't know that we have enough trees for that. We all drive and use tires, so since we benefit we ought to help solve the problem. But not, I think, in our food gardens. But where, then? I like Felder Rushing's idea of making planters, though the planters themselves aren't my favorite garden art (in contrast to bottle trees, which I really like).

Unrelated note: How about Davidson!?! Davidson College is on the northern edge of my county, and host to the best annual horticultural symposium in the area. I hear some students there are spearheading a community garden for that community.

Don
http://urbanministrygarden.wordpress.com

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