Got cardboard? West Seattle’s future Community Orchard needs it

| Gardening | How to help | West Seattle news

The folks working to create the Community Orchard of West Seattle are hoping that stack of cardboard along the southwestern fence of the South Seattle Community College campus will grow a lot bigger with donations – got some? It’s on the south edge of the blackberry-covered acre that will soon be cleared to make way for the orchard – we chatted there this morning with orchard volunteer Bruce Falzarano and Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle‘s Aviva Furman:

They were at the site because of a different project reaching a milestone this morning – an experimental corn patch using biochar (we’ll have that as a separate story). In the meantime, if you have cardboard to donate to help mulch the orchard site, Aviva says, just take it there (it’s alongside the southernmost edge of the SSCC parking lot, 6000 16th SW – you have to walk past a small outbuilding and you’ll see it along the orchard-to-be site) and drop it off! (They’ve been getting coffee grounds donated by Starbucks, too, and hope to ring the site with it – coffee grounds can be a great soil amendment.)

coffee September 29, 2010 (6:01 pm)

I HAVE LOTS! Will be bringing it. Also, all coffee shops, here is your chance to help out….

Aviva September 29, 2010 (10:56 pm)

We also welcome other mulching materials. The plan is to sheet mulch the area, once blackberries are cut down, with 5 layers of cardboard and 1-2 feet of organic matter: straw, leaves, coffee grounds, compost, manure etc. Starbucks gives out these wonderful little sacks of coffee grounds. YOu can help out by picking some up and dropping them off at the orchard site – south end of South Seattle Community College – by the fence. Cardboard too! For donating other materials, contact info@gleanit.org.
Thanks!

Cathy in WS September 30, 2010 (10:32 am)

This is an incredible partnership! This is exemplary effort we should support! Kudos to South Seattle Community College for partnering with the Community Orchard of West Seattle and providing the space.

This orchard will be a real boon to the Landscape students there too, helping prepare them for working in bountiful Washington State.

Wantahelp October 4, 2010 (3:05 pm)

Please post better directions to drop-off site and hours that can be dropped off. We went Sunday with a huge load, drove around the campus entering at north entrance. Made it to south side but could’t get to site.
Tried again this afternoon, entering from south (gate is not open on weekends?). Got to the general area but I am not physically able to drag heap of cardboard cross-country – would be nice if there was a posted drop off location for those of us who are a bit challenged.
I left my pile to the nw of the outbuilding next to parking lot curb – sorry for any inconvenience!

WSB October 4, 2010 (3:33 pm)

It’s not an official dropoff site and there are no hours – it’s literally the pile against the fence that you see in the photo. Best I can describe it is, drive up the south entrance to SSCC off 16th SW, fork off to the right, keep driving east, on the south side of Olympic Hall, which is the last official big building on the south side of campus, turn south and go as far southward in that parking lot as you can, and then turn back eastward – it is the furthest southwest part of the SSCC campus that’s accessible, right against the fence that borders the West Duwamish Greenbelt forest. You have to look beyond what is some kind of small electrical? radio? or? outbuilding to see the spot along the fence.
.
Looking at this campus map (which is EAST on top) – see the lower right corner of the parking on the far right side – it’s right past there. You’d have to carry it a few yards.
http://www.southseattle.edu/campus/campmap.htm

Wantahelp October 5, 2010 (4:12 pm)

If someone could contact the school so we could get hours that the south entrance gate is open and then POST THE HOURS FOR ALL – would be helpful – instead of everyone trying to donate but finding the entrance closed . . .

WSB October 5, 2010 (4:17 pm)

Wow, sorry, I’ve been to SSCC most hours and days of the week – including meetings that ran as late as 9 at night – and never encountered the closed gate.

Sorry, comment time is over.