Adaptive Gardening – The Salem Garden

Bass River is Green for Earth Day and Every Day!

Yesterday we took photos of some of that ways that my employer, Bass River, Inc, works to be environmentally friendly. I haven’t read the mission statement recently but I’m quite sure that green initiatives must be mentioned because taking care of the earth and treading lightly seems to be a focus. It really is a unique place to work . Enjoy these photos and words shared by the men and women whom I’m privileged to work with. Happy Earth Day! Michele

Bass River Gardens

We do lots of things in a “green” way here at Bass River, Inc.

One of Bass River’s cars is clean and running on electricity. We use plug in power and its fast!

We pack this lawn seed and send it to customers for the company. It uses less water and no chemicals.

We plant seeds.

We recycle yogurt cups!

We use Energy Star appliances.

We recycle coffee cans and water bottles.

Recycling cans!

We recycle paper.

We put apple peels and banana skins in our compost bin and turn it.

We also make compost using worms.

We collect the sun to make electricity for our building.

Earth Day is a day to keep the world a better place!

Happy Earth Day!

Photos by Tanya, John P and John M.

Text by Nathan, Ellie, Danielle, Tanya, Jason, Laurie, Bill and Barbara

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here’s a fun Valentine’s Day activity that we did at Bass River yesterday. If you haven’t made valentines yet you can dig out your old seed packets and get to work! Happy Valentine’s Day from Bass River Gardens and The Salem Garden! xo Michele

Bass River Gardens

From the Bass River Gardeners!

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What’s This?

Here’s a little project that we’ve worked on at Bass River for the past few days. I was able to engage a number of different people at each step along the way from figuring out what we were working with to creating the blog post. Now I’m hoping it leafs out and starts growing!

Bass River Gardens

We wondered…

We thought it could be

sticks,

or antlers

or maybe a cactus…

Then John smelled it and knew right away that it was ginger!

So we soaked it overnight..

filled the bottom of a flowerpot with stones…

and added a soil mixture of half potting soil and half vermicompost.

We dug a little hole and plunked it in!

It’s ready to grow on a bed of rocks for extra humidity and we have fresh ginger to look forward to!

Post by Michele, with John C, Andrew A, Tanya, Ellie, Jay, Mike and Miguel

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Overflowing

Here’s a post from our blog at my workplace this morning. Yes, we had over five inches of rain here in Salem over the past few days! It’s tapering off now and the wind has finally died down. Time to get back out in the garden! Michele

Bass River Gardens

When we checked our range gauge this morning it was overflowing! We’ve received over five inches of rain on our roof in the past two days. That’s a lot of rain!

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Rooting Coleus

Here’s what we were up to at Bass River last week! Michele

Bass River Gardens

The coleus plants were so pretty that we wanted to save some for next year.

This one is nice!

We cut some off of the plants and trimmed off the leaves.

We put one in a clay pot with water.

Some of the cuttings are in a clear glass jar with water.

We put some in a mix of half perlite and half potting soil.

We even put one in a bottle!

Now their all sitting together in the sun in our kitchen.

We’re looking forward to learning about which coleus cuttings grow roots first!

Photos and text by Barbara, Laurie and Michele

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Making Pots From Newspaper

Here’s an activity that we worked on at Bass River today. For my adaptive gardening/horticultural therapy friends and followers, I found that as simple as this was to do, it was full of good opportunities to talk about recycling, work on fine motor and social skills and to start thinking about spring. The post just before this one on Bass River Gardens features a seed tape project that we’ve been doing, which has similar benefits. Most importantly, it was all fun! Michele

Bass River Gardens

Here’s another fun activity that we did this week to help us get ready for spring.

We made seedling pots from newspaper!

We used a sheet of newspaper, a soup can and a little bit of tape.

First we folded the newspaper in half lengthwise…

then we rolled it tightly over the soup can.

We folded it in, creating the bottom of the pot and used a piece of tape to hold it together.

Then we slid the can out and we had a pot shape!

We folded in the top edge to give it stability.

And we had created a nice pot, ready for some seed starting soil and seeds. When the seedlings are ready, we’ll be able to plant them right into the ground because newspaper is highly biodegradable and a good source of carbon, and the inks are made with natural earth pigments and soy.

Now we…

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Winter Isn’t So Bad at Bass River

Check out the blog post that we photographed and wrote today at Bass River, Inc. These gardener/bloggers are awesome!! We’re growing things and staying warm! Michele

Bass River Gardens

Vinca is flowering

More blooms

Seeds sorted by Jesse and Steven

Tropical plants by the sun

Chocolate Mint planted by Nathan

Will the bean sprouts push the pennies up?

Repotted houseplants in the sun

Succulents

Herbs

Pansy seedlings planted by room 3.

and mesclun greens that the Dayhab program is growing!

It’s 10 degrees outside but it’s warm and green at Bass River!

photos by Mike C and Bill D.

text by Laurie K and Michele

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Winter Lettuce and Spinach On the Rooftop!

I’d like to introduce the “other blog” in my life! Bass River Gardens is the blog that I’ve created with the individuals who I work with in my position as an adaptive gardening specialist. Last week we planted an experiment in our new “cold frame” and I thought it might be a good time to share Bass River here on The Salem Garden. This is a really cool project and so easy to do! Check it out, and while your there please look at some of the other posts that we’ve created and follow us! We’re having a good time in the Bass River Gardens, even in the cold weather! Michele

Bass River Gardens

We made a cold frame for our rooftop garden a few weeks ago. A cold frame is like a little greenhouse and it’s used to extend the growing season by keeping in the heat and keeping out the cold, snow and wind. We made ours very inexpensively using window well covers, metal clips and bungie cords. You can watch the video that showed us how to do it here.

We decided to try to grow different kinds of lettuce and spinach to see what varieties would grow best in the cold frame.