WEEK 2: ALL OVER THE MAP

Journalist, Liandro Gamez, and photographer, Jaylah Johnson, recount their second week on Groundwork’s Green Team.

We Got This GIS Thing Down - Tuesday, July 7th, 2020

Jayson calculates the square footage of growing area as part of a garden inventory (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

The Green Team conducted an inventory of the Riverwest Garden School (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

Christian builds the base of the hoop house (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

The beginnings of the hoop house (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

Garden Leader Andre and his crew (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

Tuesday we went through various Groundwork gardens using a GIS app called Collector to record data that could potentially be used in future efforts to repair our gardens and maintain them. We also used an app called Mapillary that is similar to Google Street View (see below example). It allows anyone to view the gardens we work on virtually. Next, we went to a garden called We Got This, where we helped the community build the foundations of a new greenhouse. This garden has been well kept and taken care of by many of the locals as they continue to innovate and show love to their neighborhood.

It’s a Hot Day to be a Gardener - Wednesday, July 8th, 2020

Everybody working hard at Grow & Play (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

Groundwork staff members Aryana and Nate working at Grow and Play (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

On Wednesday, we were able to begin completely revamping the garden, Grow & Play. We worked on weeding and repairing the crumbling garden beds. Weed wacking the area surrounding the garden beds, and trimming the bushes opened the garden back up. Our supervisor sure did give us a lot of breaks as it was sweltering hot! During some of these breaks we did some fun activities such as having a friendly race. The victor of the race was Christian. In 2nd place was Todd, and in 3rd place was Jaylah. It sure was hot, but we got the work done together as a team.

Working Closer to the Community - Thursday, July 9th, 2020

Christian weed wacking a killer path (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

A view of Walnut Hill and Green Team members (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

Grubbing on the pizza provided for us by Walnut Hill (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

Todd digging up those deeper weed roots (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

Thursday, we went to an amazing garden called Walnut hill. It is an extraordinary garden with a great backstory. Walnut Hill was opened 7 years ago by local community members in order to provide young kids and families with healthy free food. They believed that everyone should be able to have easy access to healthy fresh food. They continue to follow their beliefs while adding and growing new things in their garden. They have recently installed a water system that collects rainwater, increasing the locals access to free water for their garden beds.

A Cool Day at Cold Spring Park - Friday, July 10th, 2020

Aryana with a hand full of weeds (Photo by Jaylah Johson).

Jhamar CHOP CHIPPING those big weeds (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

Cold Spring Parks landscaping after thorough weeding (Photo by Jaylah Johnson).

This Friday, we went to Cold Spring Park. Cold Spring Park used to be a spring with a horse track in the mid 1900s. They even held the Wisconsin State Fair here at one point. There was a fire in the area that destroyed much of the surrounding infrastructure, so the community decided to do something with the damaged area. It was turned into a neighborhood with a small community park. Today we came to clean up the area by removing many of the weeds that built up over time. Ensuring to leave the precious plants so they can continue to grow. We also placed mulch around the plants to prevent weeds from taking their resources.