The garden's manager, Ms. Kathleen discussed with us her plan about planting different categories of trees in the garden, the foudation about this would be changing soil to the ground. Later, she assigned the first task for us, which was paving cardboards as the first lay on the ground to keep humidity for the new lay of soil and prevent new soil erosion, then paving soil of the top of the cardboards.
We are responsible to gather ripe fruits this time; also add new soil layers for the soy sprouts.
We visited the Niemes Elementary Natural Garden at Cerritos on July 10th, 2021, and brought back an exciting news. The vice president at our ABC School District, Ms. Sophia Tse, encourages me and my friends to take care of fruit and vegetable trees at the Niemes Elementary Natural Garden! I am incredibly grateful that Ms. Sophia has offered us a piece of land to exploit and manage.
I believe there are many ways to help manage and take care of this land. I hope we may come up with many environmentally friendly concepts that can build and develop this land. We can help conserve water to save water for California. We may use animal waste in the garden to give its soils nutrition. We can also turn this land into a nature's seminar center, then we can learn and share how we can protect the natural world.
We are currently brainstorming an idea, but I hope for whoever has an idea, please email me and we may figure it out and work on it together. I hope we can establish a nice land for the Niemes Elementary Natural Garden.
- Melissa
July 12, 2021
I appreciate the idea of using fish's waste to grow organic vegetables!
As you may see, Niemes Nature Garden is an interesting and a very big space, some of the areas still have room to be developed further.
Proposal for Further Development for Niemes Elementary Natural Garden
Melissa Meng
Niemes Elementary Natural Garden is a natural ecological botanical center within the Niemes Elementary School that covers one acre. The garden contains a variety of California native plants, fruit trees and vegetables. In addition there is a water circulation system which uses fish waste to fertilize organic vegetables. This garden facilitates several environmental friendly educational programs related to the Natural Garden that are open to the public. Niemes Elementary Natural Garden is a role model of environmental friendly concepts for the school district as well as the residents in our community. According to our investigation and observation, we found that there are still places within that area which are not fully developed. They are covered with weeds. Therefore, we would like to propose a volunteer project for the Niemes Natural Garden in order to develop this garden further.
So far, we have four families from our church, Concordia Lutheran Church, who wish to participate in this project. In addition, the environmental club, Green Prosperity Club, will participate in the project as well. As the project commences we anticipate more volunteers joining the project.
We propose a long-term volunteer service over the next five to ten years which will be beneficial to promoting this eco-friendly environment within our city and school district; this project will also help students practice what they have learned in books about contributing, learning, sharing and growing together.
The contents below are what we are proposing to contribute to this land:
Environmental Friendly Projects
Trees always help to reduce pollution in the air, and contribute to an eco-friendly garden. When harvest comes, we may sell the fruits to our community to fund raise for the school’s program; or, we may send fruits to the local senior center as a gift.
2. To Plant More Xerophilous Plants on the Grounds to Help California Reduce Water Usage
Planting Xerophilous plants, slow-growing, drought tolerant and native plants, conserve water and reduce the necessity for trimming.
3. Compost Green and Animals’ Waste to Add Nutrients to the Soil
Recycling the green waste and the animals’ waste from the garden by composting can reduce the need for chemical fertilizers. This will accomplish both recycling and enhancing the soil to make the plants grow.
4. Create Habitat
We saw that the Niemes Garden already has bird houses made by gourd shells. We would like to set up bird’s baths and small animal’s wooden houses which are not only add beauty to the garden view but also attractive to wildlife.
5. Say No to Herbicides and Pesticides
We would like to apply beneficial insects like Ladybugs, Green Lacewings and Praying Mantises to get rid of pests that may occur on any of the fruit and vegetable plants, instead of using herbicides. The insects and their life cycles can then be observed by the school children, contributing to opportunities for learning.
Routine Activities
We have passion to volunteer with regular weeding and mulching monthly or weekly. We will discuss the regular schedule further according to Niemes School’s direction and need.
1. Weeding
Weeding is important because weeds are typically invasive, aggressive plants that destroy the environment they live in. So we believe doing weeding on a routine schedule is necessary, we propose to help weeding weekly, but we will also follow the school’s direction and arrangement to execute this work. The cut weeds can then be used as green waste in the composting project mentioned above.
2. Mulching
We propose to apply 3 to 4 inches of mulch on top of soil surrounding plants. Keep mulch at least 1 foot away from tree trunks. We will also replace periodically as organic mulch decomposes over time.
3. Soil Preparation
We mentioned in a previous point about composting, we will prepare soil by using compost and other organic materials to cultivate the plants.
Educational Activities
We believe that education and communication are crucial to deliver eco-friendly messages, and reach goal of creating a better environment for our world:
We propose to put Introduction labels for various plants, including a description of the plant’s type, habitats, preferred climate and water amount and the other special characteristics. This will be educational information to let students and visitors to know more about plants. These labels will be translated into several languages so as to reach more people.
2. Practicing
We may organize planting skills classes once every two months, including inviting experts to demonstrate how to take good care of the different plants in the Natural Garden; also doing a demo of digging holes for trees, watering different amount of water for different type of trees, and helping trees to do artificial pollination of fruit, and so on.
The experts who we invite will also teach students about what we should pay attention to when we are executing the jobs, and how we should do them. For example, when we are cleaning up waste in the wild, we should protect ourselves well including using trash reacher tools to pick up trash instead of just picking up trash with bare hands.
3. Lecturing
Theory and concept learning is also important to lead the community to understand the right manner and technique to perfect our environment. We may invite different experts to give environmental friendly lectures from their different professional study areas.
4. Discussing
We hope to have seminars and discussions with the Niemes Environmental Student Council in a regular schedule, in order to learn and share experiences and opinions about how we can protect the natural world together.
5. Building for lecturing and discussing
The Natural Garden already has an amphitheater. We will clean up this place for students to have classes and seminars. Also, Ms. Sophia Tse showed us another area which was not developed. It is land facing the Niemes Elementary School. It is a good place to give announcements and lectures for groups of students. We propose to build up a garden pavilion here. It will not only enhance the landscape in the garden, but also provide a place for speakers when they give public speech in the garden which can also be heard in the school.
6. Wall painting
Some walls already have garden themed murals. We consider the wall paintings to be one important part to deliver eco-friendly concepts and knowledge, so we would like to paint the other walls with eco-friendly stories, or images to show details of the process of planting, watering or growing.
7. Harvest Celebration
We propose to host Harvest Celebration Fair and Party once per year around Fall. The purpose is to spread our environmental friendly concept to our community, attracting new people to participate in the work of the Natural Garden, raising financial funding for the Niemes school.
In order to reach the financial goals at the harvest celebration, we may sell green products that grow in our garden; and also sell eco-friendly products and introduce concepts of environmentally friendly production at the same time. The profit we receive from any selling, we will donate to Niemes Natural Garden; we may also host mini lecture and demo for people to plant their own plants in the Garden.
Conclusion
The contents above are what we are proposing to contribute to the Niemes Natural Garden. We hope we may build up a long-term volunteer relationship with a regular schedule to work in the Natural Garden. About the routine schedule, we will follow the school’s expectation and needs.
The Niemes Natural Garden already provides a wonderful place for our community, especially for children’s learning, practicing and sharing. We would love to contribute our passion and creativity to continue developing this Garden further, to support this charming landscape with eco-friendly concepts.