This week we were able to accomplish a lot at the park. The main thing I did with park maintenance was transplanting our luffa plants. They are growing more successfully than we expected, which means that we would either have to thin them out or move them to another area in order to keep them from overcrowding. Now that the plants have grown “true leaves,” an indicator of genuine growth, we could indicate which plants were thriving, which at this point is all of them. In order to create a better environment for these plants to thrive, we weeded the other side of the bed the plants are in, and moved half of them over. Pea plants used to occupy this side, but now that they are out of season, we can use this space for luffas. 

I also took apart a rotting wood pallet by removing all the nails from it that we could with the back of a hammer. While we were able to fully take it apart, some of these nails are deeply embedded in the wood and most likely cannot be removed unless the surrounding wood further rots. We may place the rotting wood in the hugelkultur in order to re-integrate it into our system. 

On the theme of park accessibility and function, I also moved a honey locust tree from inside the annual bed to the heart garden. Honey locust trees have very sharp thorns, but they are nitrogen-fixing plants, meaning that they help repair soil. One of these trees was left in a pot in the annual bed, but we transplanted it to the heart garden. The heart garden does not have anything growing in it and is in a somewhat inconspicuous location, so moving this tree to the heart garden means that we can still use it to create healthy soil, but people do not have to come into contact with its sharp thorns. Given that we are focusing a lot on park accessibility and function, moving this tree to the heart garden was a decision that improves accessibility while maintaining ecosystem health. 

We are continuing literature review as per usual. However, this week, we also went down to the Community Action Development Bethlehem office to make copies of different sources they have on the history of community gardens in Southside Bethlehem. These sources included garden ordinances and agreements, and we will use them in our literature review to inform our research paper and the park’s ability to benefit the Southside Bethlehem community.

I also spoke to a few different people about room for collaboration between the SSPP and local organizations in the Lehigh Valley music and art community. A past permaculture fellow informed us of an event at the Ice House that the Sierra Club is sponsoring that combines live music with native plant education. Doug, who works at the Ice House, also contacted me about potentially doing an event between the SSPP and Lehigh Valley Girls Rock, an organization I have worked with in the past multiple times outside of this project. I plan to meet with Doug next week to discuss both of these opportunities and what exactly he has in mind. 

I am currently out of town, so on Friday I attended two press conferences via Zoom and answered questions through the chat. I also used this time to continue literature review and work on editing different pages for the website. On Monday, I also met with Haidan to talk about my experiences with Creative Inquiry and the MTSE as a first-year.