KEEPER OF THE LEAVES – NOVEMBER 8, 2016 Garland Community Garden

At the Monday meeting when talking with one of Loving Garland Green members, I was reminded of the famous words from poet John Lydgate, later adapted by President Lincoln – and appearing in various permutations:

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

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One of our members received a text from an “unknown” sender voicing superstitious fears about the “evil spirit” we had down at the garden.  Since our “Leaf Keeper” is the only statue we have down there at the moment, I could only assume the author of the text message was expressing disapproval of the two by four pole with the green eco-fabric we had draped over it, and the glow-in-the-dark skull we had put on for a face along with potato vines for hair and twigs for hands and fingers.

On Tuesday we modified the figure by adding the happy face of a snow person and we do have an identifying sign “Leaf Keeper” that we’ll add today so there will be no mistake. This figure is no “evil” thing.  It represents a protector of our environment.  Of course, perhaps there will be someone who will step up and claim that we have desecrated Frosty.  In that event I have Pumpkin Harvest Man waiting in the wings. 

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Expanding the Leaf Awareness Project

26 bags of leaves added this morning for a total of 117 bags--Garland Community Garden Nov 9, 2016

Leaf Awareness in Garland will likely expand from November 2016 through November 2017 and beyond as a continuing community education project.

By the end of November 2016 we hope to have approximately 1000 bags of leaves down at the Garland Community Garden.  We plan to empty the bags into a large mountain that will then be given a nitrogen boost to enhance the decomposition process and covered with green eco cloth.

We estimate that two bags of leaves will equal about 15 pounds of compost.  Thus we expect to end up with 500, 15-pound bags of compost.  Pricing these bags at $5.00 each, which is the current average retail value, those leaves we collect will have a total market value of $7,500. Our little exercise is predicted to rescue only 15 tons from an estimated 12,000 tons that are sent to the Hinton Landfill each year.

However the opportunity for profit is small compared to the ecological damage we are doing to the potential for growing plants in our urban area.  We are literally shipping the future soil out of our yards and to a landfill where no one can use it.

With our friendly leaf keeper now properly identified we are hoping that no one will mistake him for an "evil" spirit.