The Daily Dirt: Day 3 - Trees, Bees, and lots of Heat!

UBC Botanical Garden

This morning, Amanda and James took us on a tour around the UBC Botanical Garden. We started our tour by visiting the Physic Garden where we learned about several varieties of medicinal plants and the history of each one. In the centre of the Physic Garden, we also found a sundial that looked really neat and was pretty accurate to the time. After visiting the Physic Garden, we spent some time exploring other areas of the Botanical Garden like the Carolinian Garden, the BC Rainforest Garden, and the Roseline Sturdy Amphitheatre. We all had an amazing time appreciating the nature surrounding us and would definitely visit again!

        

At the botanical garden, one particular medicinal plant that caught our attention was the Viper’s Bugloss (also known as the Echium Vulgare.) This plant is the cure to sadness. It comforts the heart and drives away melancholy. Viper’s Bugloss is native to Europe. It has long leaves, spikes and is covered in rough hairs. They are mostly found in disturbed areas such as roadsides and waste areas. This plant is well known for its ability to attract pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies. It is also used as a remedy for snake bites.

Afternoon Work Party in the Garden

In the afternoon, James taught us how to transplant some sprouted plants into the soil. These sprouted plants included mustard, green onion, beets, and gai lan, and were originally stored in the greenhouse to initially germinate/mature. We transplanted the green onions and learned how to water them properly to prevent them from burning in the sun. As usual, we spent some time removing weeds like stinging nettle and red clovers.

Daily Dirt Day 2- Cats, Hats but no Matts

We were missing Matt today; His absence was felt keenly by all. But we pressed on: Day 2 at the Orchard Garden found us connecting with our surroundings. We found quiet spots to sit in the grass and observe the sights and sounds around the Garden. Eagles, hummingbirds and butterflies all paid us a visit. After the scorching heat of Day 1, it was a nice way to start the day and get our creative juices flowing. We went on a bit of a field trip, reflecting at various places around campus and doing some ecopoetry writing. It was a very pleasant walk with the breeze keeping the heat at bay and we were able to really take in some areas of campus we may not have spent long thinking of in our day to day lives.

The first part of the afternoon was spent at the greenhouse, germinating beans, basil and romaine lettuce. The two resident cats welcomed us warmly.

Returning to the Orchard Garden, we ended our day by removing some red clover and rehanging the Orchard Garden sign. What a beautiful day! What a beautiful group of people! Looking forward to tomorrow!🙂

Jasper's Forest Poem: 

"Undeveloped" they call you "undeveloped" even as the spider's thread stitches back and forth across the hollow place in the wood "undeveloped" as if the axe were already here too entitled to knock "undeveloped" as if I don't stand here an adult where once a child hid "undeveloped" doesn't see the growing here the living which is beyond and without and within us that does not take us for granted "undeveloped" brims with light and scent and birdsong and tiny worlds "undeveloped" leaves room for growing and breathing and quiet so quiet as busyness thrums below the dirt like a thousand ants "undeveloped" makes you a cost benefit analysis not a mother not a teacher not a home "undeveloped" as if you could ever be completed like a book bound with your heartstrings dead and still

[I wanted to have my poem be like one long uninterrupted sentence, the way nature carried on before us and will carry on afterwards, and I incorporated aspects of my own memories of the place and experiences being there today]

James's "Starting Small" Poem:

Seeds and seedlings find

Small spots to plot

Their growth

Tiny signs of life

Push through the soil and toil

For light

Their leaves extended 

Their roots embedded

Absorbing nutrients day and night

James's Princess Tree Painting

[James got a lot more fantastic nature pictures, which can be provided upon request! :) ]

The Daily Dirt: Day 1

Figure 1- Your authors; Matt Beaver (right) and Zoë Muckle (left)

MATT BEAVER is an English and Drama teacher (in the making). He spends a lot of time in Black Box theaters and editing word files on his computer. He is thrilled to be in the UBC Orchard Gardens learning to touch wood and go for green. Matt grew up surrounded by forest and gardens, and is happy to be back in the trees. 

ZOË MUCKLE is a Social Studies teacher (also in the making) (nah, she’s there already - Matt). She has 61 indoor house-plants, so…yeah...you could say she’s into gardening. She grew up gardening with her mom and is very excited to get dirt under her fingernails. 

DARK ROOMS, BRIGHT GARDENS

So, we’ve spent ten weeks in the classroom: our hands are rough from paper cuts,

our eyes squinted against the incessant light of our computer screens.

Hunch backed, skin paled, we emerge from an academic hibernation into the bright

Spring light of the Orchard Gardens at UBC. All was clean and orderly in the classroom;

it’s time to get dirt under our fingernails.

So what’s the dirt? What are we getting up to?

How much is there to be done before we can throw in the trowel.

From heatwaves to heliotropes, it's time to dive in and follow the sun.

A PRINCESS IN A GATED FIELD

Getting our bearings on the location of the Orchard Garden was our first shared task of the day.

So many potential access points, but only one true entrance.

We all eventually were able to locate the meeting point, thanks to some loud and animated voices of the group.

We (like the teachers we are) began by a variety of icebreakers to get to know one another.

All of us having a different level of knowledge about gardening,

we began to learn about one another…and ourselves.

We were all mesmerized by what we were told was a “Princess Tree” as seen in Figure 2 below,

or (as later research from home tells me) the Paulownia tomentosa (tomentosa apparently meaning hairy?)..The internet tells me it is an “invasive” species.How can something so beautiful and called “Princess” be invasive?

Well apparently it is one of the fastest growing trees in the world.

Something that I am excited to learn about within my time at the Orchard Garden,

is the concept of “invasive species”. Collaborating with Indigenous knowledge and

Western knowledge together during our time in our CFE is something that I am excited to engage in. 

Figure 2

THE LIGHT THAT BURNS

I only got a small sunburn on my right shoulder where I unfortunately missed with  my four separate sunscreen applications. Oh well. I’ll have to ask one of my new CFE friends to help me in the coming weeks, because it looks like it will be HOT. According to Accuweather, we had a high of 29 degrees celsius today, which broke the previous record of 24 set in 1997. And it does not look like it will be getting any cooler for the rest of this week. 

BOIL THEM, MASH THEM, STICK THEM IN A STEW

Po-ta-to. Step one – hoe the pitch (much homophonic hilarity in this step).

Potatoes love level ground and our garden manager James has started us off with a freshly tilled mound

that needs to get flattened out. Once that’s done, we watch James stake the pitch with a fresh set of trowels

(one foot apart, to keep the rows neat and give the potatoes room to spread).

Our job is to dig trenches, fill them with manure, pop in taters every twelve inches, and cover them up

with a fresh layer of dirt. Easy enough work under the competent management of James.

We’re going with Russian Blues and [insufficient notes taken – something orange?].

We split the potatoes in half if they have more than a few eyes, the sprouting part of the potato.

Once they are buried, it’s a thirty minute break in the shade while James fights with the irrigation system.

Hard work? James is sweating – I’ve had a lovely cool drink of water and have my hat over my eyes.  

Figure 3

MORNING GLORY IN THE AFTERNOON SUN

2:00pm in the afternoon and the summer heat has struck early.

Straw hats are out of the shed and onto our heads as we sweat and hide in the shade.

One thing, however, is soaking it all up: Morning Glory (from the family Convolvulaceae),

a pernicious invasive species that grows unchecked in the flower beds.

For every twisting vine that you unroot, ten more twine around plants, trapping them in creeping vines.

It's an easy task pulling this stuff out… Until you realize that it's everywhere.

Snap the vine where it meets the ground? Its roots crawl unseen, ten meters into the dirt.

Yank it from the flowerbed? The rest of the plant is creeping in the verge.

One doesn’t expect to meet an adversary in the garden – at least not on the first day – but here one is.

Here’s to many days in pursuit of the uproot. As long as you don’t kick the bucket…

Figure 4