Dig It - From The Beginning

May 17, 2008

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An organic, permaculture designed community garden for Jackson, Mississippi.

The garden is located on the campus of Tougaloo College and is a joint project of Tougaloo College and Rainbow Natural Grocery Cooperative.

After months (years) of planning, this is the day we actually start the garden.

(If you read through, near the end you will find out about a cosmic size near miracle that occurs)

At 8:00am gardeners began arriving to put tools and materials in place.

Luke Lundemo, Rainbow Co-op CEO and Michael Gentry, Garden Coordinator review the plan for the day.

The secluded, tree surrounded, garden has two sections to it:

This is the smaller eastern part of the garden

This is the larger western part of the garden

Gardeners begin gathering and making new friends. Steve Rozman, Director of the Tougaloo Civic Engagement Program, Johnnie Gilbert of Tougaloo and Rainbow board alternate Gen Barbour talk about what might lie ahead of us today.

Steve Rozman and Oseloka Osadebe, former director of Tougaloo's theatre department  ready for the day to get started.

Sandra Turay of Tougaloo and Johnnie Gilbert get ready to mark ant hills with red flag markers.

Todd Goode, Rainbow Produce Manager and Brad Hooey, High Noon Cafe Manager
put bamboo in place

At 9:00am we formed a circle and as we passed around some smoking sage, we shared out intentions for the community garden.

Michael and Sarah Gentry then talked about the plan for the day and we began to work on projects.

The Bamboo Screen and Compost Area Project:

Todd Goode, Rajendram Rajnarayanan from Tougaloo, Santanu Banerjee, Steve Rozman and Bob Kochtitzky, retired founder of the statewide environmental organization, Mississippi 2020 begin marking out post locations.

Todd Goode, Steve Rozman, Rajendram Rajnarayanan, and Santanu Banerjee begin placing the bamboo posts.

Todd Goode, Gen Barbour, alternate Rainbow board member, Michael Gentry and Steve Rozman begin adding grass clippings to the circular wire compost bin.

As Rainbow member, Jim McCaferty moves composted soil, Todd Goode and  Aaron  Adams assemble the bamboo wall cross-tie beams. Steve Rozman continues to add to the compost pile.

Michael Gentry and Steve Rozman take a break from moving dirt, while Joy Adams, Rainbow board member, Todd Goode, Rajendram Rajnarayanan, Jim McCaferty and his daughter, Sadie McCaferty discuss the next steps in building the wall.

Todd Goode and Bryan Adams, Fondren web designer, building the bottom cross-ties for the bamboo wall.

The structure is complete. And it's not even noon yet.

Gen Barbour, Joy Adams, Luke Lundemo and Patrick Jerome, Rainbow board alternate and part of the Rainbow produce team, begin assembling bamboo tops to the wall. The leaves will fall off after a few days. Soon we will plant beds for plants along the front side of the wall. Climbing plants will grow here and use the bamboo to climb. This will create an easy to harvest area for climbing plants as well as hide the compost area from view.

The Garden Arch and Signs Project:

Brad Hooey and Luke Lundemo open the kit. Some assembly required.

Taking shape...meanwhile...

Kaia Gentry and others were digging holes for the legs of the garden arch to go into.

Fitting nicely in the holes others had dug.

Li Vemulakonda, Rainbow member and massage therapist helps Brad Hooey anchor
the arch with small rocks.

The pavers get put in place and immediately become an art project.

Double Dig Raised Beds Project:

Actually you can see the finished product above. But how did it get there?

The double digging part involved digging into the Earth one spade deep and
turning it into a hole next to it of the same depth. Here young Skyler Gentry
handles one shovel, while Gen Barbour supervises. Bryan Adams digs into a
new garden bed while Oseloka Osadebe rakes grass clippings for the compost.

More digging. A second bed gets started with Michael Gentry digging and someone else is
using another tool to break up the soil and get it less compacted.
Li Vemulakonda digs on the other end of the new bed. John Mark Adams
and his dad, Bryan Adams work on the first bed.

Now after the Earth gets turned over and aerated, a layer of newspaper is put
down. While Oseloka Osadebe waits for a tape measure to get the
garden purpose sign mounted and level, a group of gardeners including
Jim McCaferty and his daughter Sadie, Bob Kochtitzky
puts down newspaper. A layer of grass clippings go on top of the newspaper
and then composted soil goes on top of all of that. Brad Hooey is
carrying totes full of soil to the bed. To the right Rajendram Rajnarayanan,
Aaron Adams and Santanu Banerjee continue preparing another
bed.

With the digging done and the newspaper down on the first bed, some
mulch grass clippings go down before the composted soil comes. Here
in the foreground Sadie McCaferty and her dad Jim McCaferty
get the mulch in place.

As the last of the mulch goes down, the soil is laid on top. Here Patrick Jerome,
Jim McCaferty, Gen Barbour and Mattie McCaferty are getting
the job done.

Kids Projects:

Sarah Gentry organized a nice shaded spot and boxes of materials for kids to enjoy.

Drawing...

Music...

Chalk art...

Rides...

Nature walks...

Those ants are amazing!

More chalk drawing...

More learning about the natural world with our head gardener, Michael Gentry

Our youngest gardener joins us

And something for kids of all ages - journaling and poetry on cardboard!

I think it's getting close to lunch time.

Lunch

Just before noon we took a break to eat lunch. High Noon Cafe delivered
a huge tote full of veggie wraps, and Todd Goode brought organic fruit from
Rainbow Natural Grocery.

First there were apples, then ice cold cantaloupe and then watermelon. The apple
cores, and rinds all went into the compost pile.

Rainbow Outreach Coordinator, Quincy Jackson hears about the morning events
from Joy Adams.

And then...

At about

10 minutes

before noon

someone

looked up

and this

is what

they saw!

There was a full circle rainbow around the sun!

Actually a second circle rainbow further out nearer the horizon.

Many commented that they had never seen one before and others that they had only seen this

once before.

Steve Rozman did some research later and found it is a rare event, caused by a particular kind

of ice crystals in the upper atmosphere.

One amazing time it happened was at the annual Rainbow Tribe gathering about 2002. Thousands

had gathered for the 4th of July weekend and had formed a huge circle and a circle rainbow formed.

Many people commented that this was a very good sign. The forces of nature really liked what

we were doing!

We gardened for another hour or so (this particular photographer - Charlotte Lundemo - had to leave for a while)

We planted the garden beds we had just made. Eatable flowers, watermelon and many other seeds were planted by young and old.

With a long run of donated hose we were able to give it all a good watering.

We picked up all the trash we could find in the area and removed it.

And finally, like our ancient ancestors use to do on the walls of their caves, we drew the story of our day