Posted on March 7, 2016 The ICIS Urban Garden team spent a wonderful, sunny February morning working to prepare for the upcoming gardening season. In order to embrace the beauty of our surroundings, old pallets were used to build a bench that will allow team members to take a step back and enjoy the garden and the Jekerdal. And of course to rest during the spring and summer gardening work sessions! Over the past few years, weather events such as rain, frost and sunlight, in combination with a ground-level storage damaged the garden tools. For this reason, the team built a tool storage box by recycling old pallets and waterproof materials, as you can see below. Further, the Urban Gardeners were working to build a stable base for the many new members of the garden team: a vermicomposting box including lots and lots of worms! Vermicomposting is a technique to transform organic matter into high-quality compost: with the great help of red worms (Eisenia Fetida) the Urban Garden team members are able to transform the organic waste they produce (mainly fruit peels, coffee grounds and other rests materials of vegetables) into a nutrient-rich humus, reducing the environmental impact and avoiding the use of industrial fertilizers. Although very resistant, worms stop transforming organic matter into hummus under extreme temperature conditions (under 5ºC or over 30ºC) and when humidity is too high. For that reason, we installed two new closings for the wooded top to prevent water to come in. The new stable base will protect the bottom wooden part of the vermicomposting box from the extreme humidity of the soil. Last but not least, team members worked on a new hugel (our third one!) in the garden. Hugels are a good example of permaculture techniques: the objective of these techniques is enriching the soil in the long term by building an organic bed with leaves, grass, small branches and stones, that is then covered with soil. Both cultivated plants and wild plants live together in the hugel, ensuring the fixation of nutrients. Hugels are also a great ally in plant watering: during wet seasons, the slope allows the hugel soil not to be saturated of water. At the same time, the organic bed of the hugel acts as a reservoir of water during dry seasons, providing all water needs for the plants during weeks. We would like to thank all the team members for their hard work, and ICIS, CNME and Natuurtuinen Jekerdal for their support to this project.
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