Today we had our first Mini-Cleanup/Gardening of 2011 at the Cahuenga Branch Library, with seven volunteers pitching in this morning.
I was joined by Monthly Mini-Cleanup veterans Damon and Guia Wood, along with local resident Amanda who first joined us last month, and her friend Amy, from nearby Silver Lake. Later on Eric Moore and J.D. Brown from the EHNC joined in to help me finish my gardening tasks.
Damon, Amy and Amanda, hard at work removing trash.
There wasn’t a huge amount of trash this month, perhaps due to the rains and the holidays, but we did uncover some discarded pots, a metal pipe, a couple small unbroken panes of glass (which went in the recycling bin), a couple syringes (all covered, fortunately) and a pile of crap (literally). No bulky items to call in, but there was a homeless encampment wedged behind the bushes which consisted of a tarp, a backpack and other belongings. Damon asked if we should clean it up, I decided to leave it alone and instead contact Rudy Salinas from People Assisting The Homeless (PATH); hopefully his outreach team can get there when it’s occupied and have him get assistance instead.
Gardeningwise, I spent nearly the entire time removing weeds, which had exploded due to the rains. Much of my time was spent removing ragweed and common mallow, the latter of which had grown a virtual jungle next to the sages in the front. I spent a lot of time hacking at them with a hoe (so much that a small patch of skin in the web of my left thumb had peeled off from the friction). I discovered that pulling them out of the ground was much easier and cleaner.
After the jungle of weeds had been removed, this is what it the front sage section looked like.
After the lengthy weed removal, and after Eric and J.D. had joined in (after the others had already left), we spread the two remaining bags of mulch across the area where the weed jungle once stood to hopefully inhibit future jungle growth. We planted the last remaining potted plant from November – a yucca – in the extreme northwestern corner of the Library property. We also seeded the perimeter of the area with mixed color poppies, since we had so many bags of seeds left.
The poppies are evolving! Poppymon - gotta grow them all!
Speaking of poppies, only a week after I last examined them, the “Y”-shaped Golden Poppy sprouts had now grown extra clover-like stems…this is exciting stuff!
The next Cahuenga Library Mini-Cleanup/Gardening event will be on Saturday, February 5. If you’re interested in helping out, email me!
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