Remember the interns?

Today we worked with private contractors hired by the City of Seattle to help finish the slope we started with EarthCorps. We committed our entire day to planting. All in all we got 81 plants and trees in the ground: 25 hazelnut, 8 Oregon ash, 15 salal, 6 Douglas fir, 4 vine maple, 6 lady ferns, 2 goats' beard, 2 Indian plum, 1 Oregon crabapple, 1 red elderberry, 1 lodgepole pine, 1 red currant, 1 bigleaf maple, 2 quaking aspen, 2 white snowberry, 2 sitka spruce, and 2 western red cedars.




It is important that we make sure our plants are put the ground correctly. To check ourselves we look for these things: make sure that the root crown was above ground (that's where gas exchange occurs), perform 'tug testing' (making sure the plant is snugly in the ground), check for air pockets in the soil by the roots, and make sure that the plants were at ground level. We always value quality over quantity because one well-planted tree produces more oxygen than 1,000 incorrectly planted trees. Then, of course, we each double-checked each other for mistakes.

January 24, 2009

We started the day with invasive removal, and we were able to remove 600 sq ft of invasive Himalayan blackberry. While we were working, we listened to Marc Smason on the trumpet. After the blackberry removal, we moved on to sheet mulching. We were able to sheet mulch 300 sq ft.

Once we finished mulching, we began planting. We planted 18 Hazelnut, 26 Lady ferns , 4 Salal, 1 Nordman fir, and 3 Ferns. Thanks everyone for coming out!

MLK Day -- A day of Service

It started out as a foggy day, but by then end of it the sun shone through just like our efforts. We had a whopping 122 people out at our MLK day event. People were really in the spirit of service and came prepared to volunteer. Thank you again to everyone who participated and made our event a success. As people showed up, we roped them into the greenbelt with a brief history and orientation. Then we had all kinds of activities going on. We split our groups up into cutting, digging, mulching, and planting. Everyone had the chance to move around all day and try everything out. We even had a bucket brigade going with the mulching. Thank you Ben Yarges for coming and playing your shakuhachi (also thank you Amy Denio and Jim Knodle). Here's what we accomplished:

We planted 150 Doug firs and 225 salal.

We placed down 60 mulch rings, removed 1,000 sq ft of Scotch broom on the west side of the trail, cut and grubbed 5,400 sq ft of first growth blackberry, maintained 3,620 sq ft of blackberry, and mulched 4,491 sq ft.

Cardboard below is used to keep Himalayan blackberry and other invasive plants from resurfacing.

Volunteers cut away a thicket of Himalayan blackberry surrounding a group of trees.

By the end of the day, the blackberry here was all gone, revealing the trees behind it.

Saturday January 17, 2009

Today was a nice day for restoration. We removed 600 sq.ft. of virgin Himalayan blackberry continuing the work on the slope we had done with EarthCorps. Along the hillside, there were 30 little ferns that we took out of the ground and placed in pots. Our plan is to re-plant them after the rest of the hill is covered in jute fabric. We only planted 1 salal, but there's plenty more planting to be done this season!

Collaborating in restoration

We had a big last couple of weeks. We were selected to receive a Watershed Climate Action Grant from Seattle Public Utilities because of our hard work restoring Seattle’s forests as well as our efforts towards environmental restoration. The grant awarded us one week of Earth Corps crew time and today was their last day. While we had their help, we focused our efforts on a large slope on the Lower Soundway property at our 14th and Holly site. We cut, raked, grubbed, and textured the slope with cardboard and jute fabric. In doing this, we can prevent landslides and erosion.

Today, Laura's House came and worked alongside our interns, our EarthCorps volunteers, and Jake. All in all, we managed to plant 5 fir trees and 14 salal, removed 1700 sq.ft. of first growth invasives, and 800 sq.ft. of second and third growth blackberry.

Saturday January 10, 2009

Today there was a small but productive group. We managed to sheet mulch this area that may look small, but it is actually 196 sq.ft. As the day pressed on, we completed 700 sq.ft. of blackberry maintenance and planted 7 salal and 7 grand firs. Thank you for a successful day!

Happy new year!

Today was our first work party back from break and it was a cold one. Thankfully, things managed to warm up a bit once we started with our sheet mulching. It was a small group, but a good one: we mulched 567 sq. ft. After taking a frigid 15 minute break, we got right back into it with initial invasive removal. We removed 1 cu.yd. of hard-to-dig blackberry, and everybody was worn out by the end of the day. Now that's a good day of work!