October 20, 2015
Our Marion Ohio Sustainable Food group have been planning a permaculture fruit tree garden at Sawyer Ludwig Park. Today was a work day to plant in a 100 assorted fruit trees & fruit bearing bushes. We hand dug most of the holes in the hardest rock solid clay “concrete” it was a long long tedious job today. We started at 8:30 am and finished around 2:30pm. The goal was to plant apple, cherry, pear & persimmon trees along with several nut trees and fruit bearing bushes on large mounds. Five of us hand dug the holes while the city workers used a tractor to bring us some bucket loads of organic matter to mix into the clay soil to soften the dirt up for the roots to spread and take hold. We all took turns carrying numerous 5 gallon buckets of water to water the trees & bushes in. By noon we were all getting pretty wore out. After we dug the first 25 holes for the trees the city was able to bring an auger in to dig down a bit deeper and break the soil up. We had a beautiful sunny day and wonderful breeze to keep us pretty cool while working. Here are some pics of our work day.
Here’s the article from the local newspaper http://www.marionstar.com/story/news/2015/10/20/park-land-transformed-food-space/74279594/?hootPostID=10289c1a49d378543508e75bda97d225
Carousel Watergardens Farm 