Mid-June through July, I researched and worked on my 20 Time (20%) Project. Initially, I had two ideas that were technology-based. But after realizing there should be an element of fun, and getting feedback from my professor, I chose a topic which was not about technology. My selected topic was: Rejuvenating a family garden, using recycled water.
Although my house came with a garden, it was in poor shape when I started this project. I call myself an aspiring gardener. I love to work in the front yard, use the electric hedge clippers, and pull weeds and stuff like that. But, I have not maintained a vegetable garden in quite some time. The more that I dug into gardening the more decisions I had to make: container garden or traditional, worm compost or regular compost, quick and expensive or do-it-yourself, and on and on. Finally, I had to do what was best for my situation. In addition to the project itself, I used technology tools to do research. Besides Google, social media like Twitter and Google Plus + helped me to connect with experienced gardeners. I used Diigo, for the first time, to keep and organize my online research. I highly recommend it for students and life-long learners. When I wanted to share what I learned I put it on Facebook, Weebly, and YouTube. Actually, getting comments from others helped guide my learning process. Finally, I played with Windows Movie Maker to show my other pictures. I even added a song to the movie. Final Conclusions: I have a tremendous respect for gardeners. It takes time and patience to successfully grow plants. This project was more time and labor intensive than I anticipated. I was glad to do something I had been neglecting and glad to be able to involve my children. The children and I had fun making YouTube videos and learning about worms together. We are looking forward to eating vegetables from our garden soon.
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Week 1: Research graywater. Although it took me away from my original idea of water conservation, it was not advisable to use gray water with edible plants. Instead, we used it on our front lawn and other plants. Saved, clean sink water is ok to water the garden.
Week 2: Shopping and research. After I made some decisions about what direction to go, I bought some supplies I needed – gloves, hand tools, potting soil, plant food, seeds, plants, etc. Week 3: Two trips to City Farmers Nursery in City Heights. The first trip, I accidently deleted my pictures, so I went a second time with my children. The staff was very friendly. They helped me decide to do worm composting, so I ordered the worms from Amazon. Week 4: All about worm composting. The Red Wriggler Worms arrived. My kids and I saw a YouTube video of two younger kids making a worm composter with their mom. We made a worm bed, got the supplies together and made/posted six of our own YouTube videos. (Davis Family Worm Composting) Week 5: Slide show of garden pictures. It shows a “before” and “after” picture. I’m proud of my progress. But, I know that this is just the beginning. * I’m experimenting with my bell peppers. One is in a pot and one is in the ground. I want to see which one grows better. Title: Rejuvenating a family garden, using recycled water. 1. What exactly is gray water? Actually, it's greywater or graywater. Graywater is water that has soap or detergent in it. 2. How can I collect gray water and use it in my garden? There are various methods. We scooped it out with a watering pail. But decided against using it on our vegetables. Instead, we used it on the front lawn. 3. Will I compost for this project? Yes, we did worm composting. 4. How labor intensive is composting? Not too bad. We needed two plastic containers, a drill, and paper products. See YouTube videos on Week 4. 5. Do I need special soil? No. 6. Will I need to fertilize? No, I will use worm tea (the liquid concentrate produced from the worm compost) for natural fertilizer. 7. Do I need to buy worms? Yes. 8. What will the cost be for supplies and equipment? Overall, I spent about $100. But, it could've easily been $500. 9. Do I need to buy or build containers? I bought one container. 10. What resources will I use - twitter, websites, books, people? Yes, all of the these resources. 11. Is there a possibility of failure? Yes, you can kill a garden without proper care. Please watch the short (under 5 min) video with some highlights of my 20 Time Project. My 20 Time project of rejuvenating my garden is coming to a close, and I would call this a success. But gardening requires maintenance. This is an ongoing project, which is really just beginning. Below is a slide show showing the garden's progress. I was glad to involve my kids. We learned a lot. Jana( [email protected] )
8/4/2015 15:13:00 Sheila what a wonderful project. Your own veggies and herbs sounds divine. I loved watching you incorporate your family in your 20 Time project. I think it allows us the viewer to really connect with your blog posts because we see you as a wife and mother also. Sheila( [email protected] ) 8/7/2015 22:55:56 Jana, it was a great project to involve my kids in. The younger kids got into the worms, planting, and digging. The older kids helped with filming, taking pictures, lifting and carrying. This is definitely not a 5 week project that just ends. Gardening is continual and, like most things in life, you get out of it what you put in. Thanks for your comments. DELETE |
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AuthorGraduate student, wife, mother, and aspiring gardener. Archives
August 2015
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