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Pixxe’s new garden

Aug 012012
 
Pixxe Garden - Public Entrance

Pixxe Garden - Public Entrance

Pixxe has a new garden! It has been given the most original name: PIXXE GARDEN. It’s located in Rakowiec on the border of Szczęśliwice in Ochota, Warsaw, Poland.  GPS 52.198990, 20.967910, to be precise. We still have the Railroad Garden, but the main activities will now take place at the Pixxe Garden.

It will be open to the public for the upcoming SOIL GARDEN PROJECT, but there is an awful lot of work to do to make it ready for more ambitious activities. I’m hoping that with this new, more accessible, and less primitive garden (for example, it has water), we will be able to open up on a more regular basis by next spring. As such, Allotment Sunday / Niedziele na działce won’t be happening for awhile — it will be more like Codzienne na działce — everyday at the garden! So if you want to stop by, please let me know. Everyone is always welcome and there is always something to do.

Though the Pixxe Garden is not squatted, it also sort-of is. I thought I was beginning to understand how the allotment gardens work here, but now I have discovered a whole new in-between type of garden, called tymczasowy, or temporary. The Pixxe Garden is tymczasowy.

As I have written about before, there are “official” gardens (the Rodzinny Ogród Działkowy or ROD / Family Garden Allotments) and then there are “unofficial” gardens, like the Railroad Garden, which is basically a squat. ROD are gated communities. You must be a member and have a key to gain access. What is interested about temporary gardens like the Pixxe Garden is that sometimes they are located WITHIN an ROD, but are legally “unofficial”. This particular stretch of land abuts an “official” ROD and was taken by people in 1980. They have been temporary for 32 years! So the Pixxe Garden has one “Public” entrance, on Racławicka, and one “Private” entrance from within the ROD Zelmot. This dual status suits me well. I like being in between. And afterall, the city owns the land in any case!

Our Car Has Eight Wheels

Jul 162012
 
Bike cart with 120 l of dirt

Bike cart with 120 l of dirt

Got a bike cart. I’m happy. I have the urge to just drive around and pick up stuff. It was advertised as a “quality model” from Germany. Anything imported from Germany is supposed to be “quality”. But I think this one was probably imported TO Germany first. From China. But hey, it will do. So I can’t barrel over the curbs at 3 mph, but it can very slowly carry 120 liters (30 gal) of dirt without a problem. Maybe even 180 (50 gal) liters. I like how our bikes take up the space of a car. GO AWAY CARS!

Our Car Has Eight Wheels

Our Car Has Eight Wheels

 

Compost House

Jul 142012
 
Yard clippings, yarrow, clover

Yard clippings, yarrow, clover

This morning I woke up early to go and collect the grass clippings from the housing complex near my allotment garden, which was mowed in its entirety yesterday. I just dug in and started to load the clippings into my wheelbarrow. The pile was so hot it was smoking; it steamed up me glasses! Isn’t it beautiful how life has, in itself, a perfect design to take care of itself, to give itself usefully back to the great pool of matter?

This stuff had a lot of plantain, clover, and  yarrow, a great compost accelerator I read somewhere. It also had a lot of dried grass and old leaves. Perfect.

I built two piles, adding straw here and there. They look like little straw houses for little hobbits. Or maybe more like my friend Zeek Sheck‘s beepers….

Compost House

Compost House

Collecting Water from the Old Ones

Jul 132012
 
Collecting jurassic water

Collecting Water from the Old Ones

In Warsaw, there are public water wells called Woda oligoceńska. Oligocene water. The Oligocene Period, I’ve learned since, occurred about 30 million years ago. Basically these are very deep wells, running more than 200m (650 ft) deep. They are housed in cute little buildings, and because it took me two years to be able to say oligoceńska, I always called them Dom wody, Water House. (But when I said Water House, not one person had any idea what I was talking about.) One can take the water all year. In the winter, you go into the house. In the summer, you tap the faucets on the outside of the house, as seen above.

In my neighborhood there are three such wells, though sadly, one of them has been closed for several months. We do not buy water. We go to the well. It tastes delicious. Someone else told me that her grandmother warned, “You must boil the water from the well before you drink it.” This never occurred to me. Two years and I’m still living, so I guess it’s O.K….

Because there is no water at the Railroad Garden, and no structure to catch it from, I haul it from the well. It’s about 2 or 3 blocks.  I used to use my bike, on which I could carry eight 5-liter bottles: three on the front, three on the back, and two on each handlebar. Now, I have a wheelbarrow and can carry 60 l (15 gallons). My arms are bulging. Soon I should have a bike cart and I’ll be able to carry 90 l (24 gallons). One liter of water weighs one kilogram. Brilliant, that.

One time an old lady came in and asked me, “Is it yellow or white?” White meant the water was good. It was white.

Allotment Sunday – June

Jun 012012
 

In June, we’ll try to get back to a semi-regular schedule. I’ve been gone or busy so many Sundays, it’s been difficult to keep the Open Time. In June the Railroad Garden will be open the following hours, except as noted:

SUNDAYS 10am-2pm

Here is a plan of major activities:

June 2 – Build a batch compost pile; Cut, trim & sort branches & wood; Dig up concrete blocks & make new paths
June 10 – OFF. GONE BIKING.
June 17 – Remove remaining garbage; Cut, trim & sort branches & wood;
June 24 – TBD, Check back later in the month

 

DIY Table

May 202012
 
DIY Table

DIY Table

Here is a table I made from a big board I found in the dumpster. The Polish equivalent of Home Depot is called Castorama, which is actually a French company. I don’t understand why, but wood is very expensive in this store and most of the wood is really shitty–actually it’s not wood at all but rather plastic-covered particleboard, a sort of IKEA-type substance that offends me on both the aesthetic and ecological plains. One must go to a lumber yard to find real wood. It’s fun to go there and it’s cheap and that’s all great. What is not great is that the lumber yards are way out of town, requiring a car to get there, which I have not. However, I found this sort of “garden wood” at the good ‘ole Castorama. It’s about four times cheaper than untreated pine and is actually cut to standard and usable sizes.  A great guy named DAREK helped me saw the wood (and he also dug two big garden bed holes very fast and trimmed a giant apple tree). Thanks Darek!

Allotment Sunday – May

May 022012
 

Allotment Sundays / Niedziele na działce will now be starting later in the day. Instead of 11-3 it will now run from 2-6 in the afternoon. The reason is that it’s too hot in the middle of the day.

There will be a lot of planting going on this week plus still more trimming back of weeds and trees. I would also like to build a table on Sunday…

Today, I planted some Broccoli, Kale, and herb seedlings. First Seedlings

The Mystery of the Lock

May 012012
 

After six months, I finally did something about the lock. Something brilliant. If you didn’t know, last October someone cut the chain and put on their own lock.

I didn’t want to do anything destructive. For over a year, with the exception of cutting down some trees, most of what I’ve done here is constructive: fixing and building. So I was hesitant to break the lock or the chain. When I first arrived, there was a chain, but no lock. My gentlemanly neighbor told me the owner died fifteen years ago.

At first I thought that I would make two gates, but we thought of a better idea: two locks.

Two Locks

So now both of us can get in. The mystery man and I. As you can see, my lock is the weakling.

Allotment Sunday – March

Mar 242012
 

This will be the last Allotment Sunday until April 15. This week we should be able to finish trimming the fruit trees, double digging the garden beds, and planting the cold frame. If there is time, I’d like to build another compost bin.

Please join me anytime from 11am – 3pm.

SUNDAY MARCH 25
11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Pixxe – Railroad Garden

Map Wide:

Map to Railroad Garden

Map to Railroad Garden

Map Close:

Paths to Railroad Garden

Paths to Railroad Garden

Directions:
It’s between Żwirky i Wigury and Grójecka.

Via Public Transportation: Take Bus 175, 188, 504, 172, 228,136 to Rakowiec stop (Racławicka i Żwirky i Wigury). Walk west on Rakowiec until you get to Mołdowska. Turn Left (South) on Mołdowska. Follow map to the działka.

Via Public Transportation (Grójecka) Take Tram 7,9, or 15 to Korotyńskiego. Walk North to Racławicka. Turn Left (East) on Racławicka. Left on Sąchocka. Right on Gorlicka. Follow map to the działka.

Via Car from Grójecka: Turn East on Racławica. Left on Mołdawska. As you approach Gorlicka, look for parking. Follow the map to the działka.

Via Car from Żwirky i Wigury: Turn West on Racławica. Right on Mołdawska. As you approach Gorlicka, look for parking. Follow the map to the działka.

Apple Bark Dye

Mar 132012
 

Last week during Niedziele na działce (Allotment Sundays), in addition to burning a huge pile of vines and twigs, we used some of the trimmings from the apple tree to make some dye. We also took some cherry bark from the dead cherry tree. Look how beautiful this cherry bark looks:

Cherry Bark from old dead tree

Cherry Bark from old dead tree

For the apple, first we peeled off the bark. It was about 200 g of bark from young branches.

Peeling the apple bark

Peeling the apple bark

I poured boiling water over it and let it sit for five days. After that, I added 200g of mordanted wool (mordanted with Alum), brought to a simmer (80C) for an hour, and then let it cool overnight. Rinse and dry. Here is what it looks like. I think the color is very much like the inside of an apple pie, or like honey. Very nice color.

Apple Bark Dyed Wool

Apple Bark Dyed Wool

Claiming the reclaimed

Mar 122012
 

Sometime in early November of 2011, someone came and cut the chain on my lock and replaced it with this lock. As far as I can tell, this mysterious person has never been here since then.

Locked out

Locked out

 

The irony of the situation still makes me laugh. Before I came there was a huge gap in the fence — there was simply no fence over a stretch of about 15 meters facing the tracks. It looked sort of like this:

Gap in the fence

Gap in the fence

 

For a while I just piled branches in front of the gap. In May, we built a make-shift fence out of sticks. It was a lovely thing. But over the summer some jerk knocked it down, so we built a “real fence”. I made wattle fences over the remaining holes.

So it is very funny to me that, after I secured the spot, someone comes and locks me out. Ha ha! Remember that this allotment has been abandoned for YEARS. It was full of an enormous amount of GARBAGE.

There was one hole I didn’t fix, right next to the gate and this has been serving as my entrance. I used The Beekeeper‘s gate as inspiration.

The New 'Gate'

The New 'Gate'

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