“Gardening Organizations attend Birchwood Neighborhood Meeting and Present gardening potential in Birchwood lots”

"Birchwood Residents attend Neigborhood Meeting and learn more about the importance of gardening"

A cafeteria full of Birchwood neighborhood residents attended the last neighborhood meeting before summer begins. The meeting was held May 25 at Birchwood Elementary at 6:30 p.m. in the school’s cafeteria; the meeting was focusing on gardening education and activities in the Neighborhood. A few people that came to speak at the event included Bellingham Food Bank Gleaning Project, Bellingham Urban Garden Syndicate, Homestead Habitats, Whatcom County Collectives, and Backyard Beans and Grains Project Director Krista Rome came and spoke at the meeting.

Meeting focus “Gardening”

Facilitator and Board member John Walsh opened up the meeting informing residents that tonight’s meeting was going to be “Garden Themed.

The main focus of the meeting was to inform and educate residents about the importance of gardening and how vital it is to the environment and how Birchwood is an ideal place for garden life because of the rich soil and large lots in the neighborhood.

Bellingham Gardening Syndicates’ Nick Spring and Chris Elder touched on this specifically during their presentation. Gardening Syndicate focuses primarily on gardening and producing produce in garden lots. They currently have 30 to 40 active members which tend to seven garden plots that are owned by homeowners.

What the organization does is it tends to and educates homeowners about the importance of gardening and producing produce. The produce that is grown on these lots are distributed to the volunteers and homeowners, the largest lot they have currently is right across the street from Birchwood elementary. Nick spring said, “Birchwood is truly blessed with space for gardening”.

Birchwood Ideal Area for Gardening

Bellingham Gardening Syndicate was not the only organization that acknowledged the space and
open lots Birchwood has to offer. Homestead Habitats co-owners Dyana Fiediga, Seth June and Paul Kearsley also touched on the subject of how Birchwood has so much potential for great gardening life in area. Homestead Habitat is a landscape and design build organization that is fully operational; there organization provides consultation, garden services and education.
They currently however want to focus right now on helping people grow their own produce. This is essentially why they choose to speak with Birchwood, Paul Kearsley pointed out that residents have large lots and have room to essentially grow their own produce. Homstead Habitat has been working in the Birchwood neighborhood with two projects so far, with Shuksan Middle School and Birchwood Elementary on their designs for their current gardening projects. They have seen the potential that Birchwood lots have for expanding garden life.

Backyard Bean and Grains Highlight Gardening Importance

Krista Rome with Backyard Beans and Grains project also agreed with the other presenters and recognized that Birchwood is an ideal area for garden life. Rome who is the Director of (BBGP), wanted to spread the awareness of growing beans and grains in local gardens. Rome said, “The organization I founded is based on the premise that crop diversification is vital for long-term sustainability of local food systems.” Rome chose Beans and Grains as her main focus because they can be grown on marginal soil and are common staple foods that provide protein in combination.

Each presenter at the meeting kept circulating around the importance of garden life and the need for people as a whole to become active and produce their own produce.
Birchwood is known for its lot space and large open areas and now gardening organizations have seen a potential in this to create functional gardens that contribute to producing produce and essentially making the environment healthier.