Week 3 at Mountaintop was very productive and I am excited to see where the project evolves from here. The main components of what we accomplished this week were physical park maintenance, community engagement, and beginning to plan a research paper.

Starting with physical park elements, we planted our lavender hedge which helps with park aesthetics and deer repellent. We also planted marigolds as a secondary plant, as these also repel deer and provide aesthetic value. Additionally, we also planted luffas and harvested different plants such as cherries, peas, and herbs. There were also several minor tasks, such as removing an old tree, adding a few more plants to the annual bed, weeding the three sisters garden, and building sod terraces so that plants on a slope can get an optimal water supply.

We also began to restructure the petal beds, which is part of our larger park redesign. The current issue with the petal beds is that they do not have a lot of surface area and the rocks around the perimeter are above ground and an unsafe tripping hazard. We are merging them together, setting the rocks deeper in the ground, and we will also be using the petal beds as a wildflower garden. We have concerns about the safety of the soil for yielding food, and we have enough other above-ground areas in the garden that we can use for yielding food that we can afford to use the petal beds as an aesthetic space. This will also transform the aesthetic value of the park and we are excited to see the results. 

As for community engagement, what stood out to me the most this week was the Southside’s Tomorrow Public and Greenspace Committee Meeting followed by the presentation I gave for Future For Her.  While I have been attending these meetings since February as a way to learn about other projects similar to ours in Southside Bethlehem, today’s meeting was exceptionally productive in that there were great conversations about the progress with trash in Southside Bethlehem and the current development of community gardening policies. 

The presentation for Future for Her was also a great way for me to practice presenting and also educate a younger generation about permaculture and community health at an age-appropriate level. Because community health is such a developing field and permaculture is not very well-known, it was wonderful to be able to introduce passionate young girls in elementary and middle school to these topics. They had lots of questions about the park and community health, and it was a great exercise in explaining these topics in an easy-to-comprehend way. 

We also met with Dr. Jackson to discuss our interest in writing a research paper, and she helped us with the idea of doing a case study about how we have had to shift our project’s missions and plans several times as we continue to better understand the issues Southside Bethlehem residents face and how we can use the space we have to help alleviate these issues. We are also planning on using this paper to discuss certain aspects of permaculture design philosophy, and potentially how it connects to Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach. I myself am also very interested in the permaculture principle “Integrate Rather Than Segregate,” which emphasizes the need for multiple connections and purposes. I am interested in how this principle applies to both ecological networks and social networks, and I want to work this into the paper  somehow when discussing permaculture design philosophy. 

The greenspace meeting additionally helped us find direction in the case study we are planning on writing because we now also plan to conduct a literature review on the history of community gardens in Southside Bethlehem, after hearing that there is interest in uncovering this history. We are still figuring out the general direction of this paper, but we know that our connection with Community Action Development Bethlehem and their committee will help us use this paper towards making genuine progress with our project and helping Southside Bethlehem’s community gardening scene. While we are only just starting out with this paper, it was great to receive more insight as to how we could use it to benefit Southside Bethlehem. Our initial steps with this paper are to continue writing these blogs and reflecting on our park’s progress, as well as conducting literature reviews in both permaculture and the history of community gardens in Southside Bethlehem. 

This week, we worked on all sorts of different tasks, but we made a lot of progress. Sometimes I find that it is difficult to find a specific area to focus on, because we are working on several different components at once, but when I find the best task to concentrate on that day, I am able to accomplish a lot. I am excited to explore what we worked on this week much deeper and continue to make progress.