July 18, 2007

Building Gardens in Chicago

This week has been extremely busy. On Monday we went to Christopher School, a school for children with disabilities to build some raised beds. The raised beds are wheelchair accessible so that the children can learn the cycle of a plant from seed to bloom.

This was a very tedious project and it began with our trip to Home Depot. We called into Home Depot the week before and asked if there were 50 landscape timbers that could be set aside for us and they said "no problem." Well, we got there and they didn't have anything set aside and there were only 50 timbers in the store and they were in terrible condition.

Building the beds was hard work, but it was very rewarding. We had to pre-drill the holes before we drove the nails into the wood, so that the wood did not split. The project turned out very appealing and the school could not say enough about our work.

Yesterday was one of the greatest experiences that I have had with the University of Illinois Extension. We went downtown to a daycare for Northwestern University. We brought peat moss, annuals, perennials, and soil to improve their landscaping. The fun part of the project was having the children help us with all the planting and work. Their ages ranged from 4 to 12 and they were a blast. I've never seen so many kids eager to help in yard work like they were. The energy from the kids made you forget that you were even working. A 6 year old girl summed up the experience perfectly with the comment that "this is both the finest day of my life and the grossest."

Posted by Ron Wolford at 11:57 PM |