With hard work, funding from Blue Moon, help from Historic Green, help from LA Green Corps, help from LSU Landscape Architecture Students, and countless volunteers, the CSED is close to completing its Dreams Of An Orchard Project at 4817/19 Dauphine Street. Task remaining; installation of landscape fabric, completion of fence, completion of permanent rain catchment, completion of brick pathways, additional plantings and DIY Handbook.
BEFORE
AFTER
We would like to extend great gratitude to the Rochester Mission Group from Rochester, New York which included hard-working volunteers from Webster, Greece & Ogden Baptist Churches. Just look at what they helped us to accomplish at our 4819 Dauphine Street Community Orchard in just TWO DAYS!!
Donated ginger was planted along the perimeter French drain which they dug & filled with broken brick pieces unearthed from the soil. The French drain will redirect runoff into the soon-to-be-built rain garden. Along with general debris & trash removal, the first entrance pathway was created using broken brick, cement, & recycled roofing slate.
Holes were dug & measured & nine fruit trees were planted, watered, & mulched. Neighbors will be able to enjoy the harvest from 2 Satsumas, 2 Ruby Red Grapefruit, 2 Blood Orange, 2 Meyers Lemon, & 1 Persian Lime! Dreams do come true.
The efforts of many continue to bear fruit as countless volunteers
generously keep coming to help us rebuild & grow our community.
Thanks to a generous donation of a truckload of plants by Mr. Harold Applewhite of Harold's Indoor & Outdoor Plants (at Press & St Claude) http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/harolds-indoor-outdoor-plants/Content?oid=1672363, our blight beautification project at 4819 Dauphine Street has received a major enhancement! We've planted camelias at the entrance, red tipped photinias along the future pathway and we've outlined the space for a rain garden. A nod to the historical streetface has been given by the creation of a dual entry to the garden reminiscent of the original 4817-19 Dauphine Street double shotgun that existed on this lot.
Additional beds for the fruits trees have been staked and double dug http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPeAvYrfKkU in an effort to improve the aeration of the soil and to facilitate root penetration. Our dream for a community orchard continues to unfold :)
Our Dreams of an Orchard Project at 4819 Dauphine Street is coming true. Acquisition, design, implementation, & resource foraging continues to be driven & accomplished with great enthusiasm by CSED staff Kathy Muse, Vincent Fedeli, Charles Reddick, & John Taylor aided by significant input & assistance from surrounding neighbors. This blight beautification effort was made possible through Louis Lauricella's donation of this vacant lot to the CSED. We are grateful to Mr. Lauricella & to Stephanie Bruno who acted as liason.
Check out our recent progress. Before the bobcat work began, trees cleared from the overgrown lot were chipped to provide mulch. Excellent bobcat services were provided by Troy Moore who lives right around the corner! He was assisted by CSED staff members Vincent & Kathy. The never-ending debris was unearthed, a neighbor's damaged fence was removed along with a very tough & extensive poison ivy vine (ouch!), and a neighbor's clothesline pole was righted for future use:
Community members stopped by to help out:
Wood chips were relocated, grass was removed, soil was graded with a slight downward slope to the left for drainage into a future french drain. Troy surveys his work thus far:
River sand was delivered, dumped & graded to cap the lead soil where the planter boxes will be built. Two trailer loads of debris were hauled away. Kudos to neighbor & friend Troy Moore for a job well done!
Congratulations to Kathy Muse, CSED Program
Coordinator, who recently received a certificate from LSU AgCenter for
successfully completing the required hours of classroom and field
instruction in their Master Gardener Program! Topics in this course of
instruction included palms & cyads, botany & plant propagation,
basic entomology & plant pathology, weed science, soils, pesticides
& the environment, vegetable, herb & organic gardening, home
fruit & nut production, lawn care, ornamental horticulture,
diagnostic keys to urban plant problems, and pest detection. The Master
Gardener Handbook which is a research-based resource for this class is
available at the CSED office for use by the community.
To learn more about the LSU AgCenter Master Gardener Program visit www.lsuagcenter.com
LSU Landscape Architecture students Brad Odom, Luke Love and Andrew Doyle have been helping me design 4819. Above is a model they created with the ideas we collaborated on. The design is a first draft. There are several details that are not in the design that we will update later.
The back of the lot (labeled Production Gardens), after further soil testing, will accommodate a small fruit orchard, while the middle of the lot, that most likely contains higher concentrations of lead, will be capped with soil and landscaping tarp. Recycled brick beds (labeled Community/Education Gardens) will be built in this area. The front of the lot (labeled Community Connections) will have seating and a rain garden. The rain garden is not pictured in the design.
The goal of this project is to use as much recycled material from the neighborhood as possible. For example:
Finally, any work that is done will be done by the CSED staff, LSU students, folks in the neighborhood and CSED volunteers. Contracted work will be done by people hired from within the neighborhood.
As we expected, soil test results revealed high concentrations of lead (Pb) in the soil at 4819 Dauphine. As many of you know, houses built before 1978 most likely had lead paint. New Orleans is an "old" city and if you perform a soil test around your house you will probably find lead.
After consulting a soil scientist, we have been advised to proceed with further soil testing to identify where the high concentrations of lead are on 4819 Dauphine.
We Will Test:
The goal for our Mini-Orchard Project is to plant dwarf fruit trees on the property where there is less than 400ppm of lead in the soil. (There are several barriers that limit heavy metal transfer into fruit: the "soil to root," "root to shoot" and "shoot to fruit" barriers). On the area with high concentrations of lead, we plan to cap the soil with sod and build raised planting beds.
Every attempt on the CSED's part will be made to create healthy garden conditions for the growing of nutritious fruit!
Attached is a doc. I received from The Cornell Waste Management Institute on: Soil Contaminants and Best Practices for Healthy Gardens. If your dealing with contaminated soil, like most of us in Orleans Parish, read to find out what steps you can take to grow a healthy garden.
Stay tuned for more information on our Mini-Orchard Project. Also, stay tuned as we gain more experience on how to turn brownfields into greenfieds, and follow our research on phytoextraction, phytostabilization, and phytoremediation (the use of plants to remediate contaminated soil) .
4819 Dauphine has been donated to CSED by FRANK LAURICELLA and the donation was facilitated by Stephanie Bruno! THANK YOU BOTH FOR YOUR HELP! The lot is 2850 square feet, south facing and sits not too far from the levee in Historic Holy Cross. With the help of some of our amazing volunteers, CSED cleared the blighted lot and hopes to turn it into a mini-fruit orchard / rest and relaxation spot for everyone in the neighborhood. Stay tuned for more information on the project!
BEFORE
AFTER
Founded in 2006, the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development (CSED) works to stimulate civic engagement, repopulate, sustain natural systems, assist community leadership and preserve resources in the Lower 9th Ward neighborhoods.
| Join Our Mailing List |
Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable
Engagement & Development
5130 Chartres Street
New Orleans, LA 70117
P: 504.324.9955
Executive Director
Arthur Johnson
Program Coordinator & Urban Farm Manager
Kathy Muse
Volunteer Coordinator
Warrenetta Banks
Energy Efficiency & Urban Farm Coordinator
Vincent Fedeli
Food Planning Coordinator
Jenga Mwendo
Wetland Specialist
John Taylor
Energy Efficiency Apprentice
Charles Reddick
Food Planning Organizer
Beverly Jackson
Austin Allen, Chair, Louisiana State University
Antoinette Ackerson, Lower Ninth Ward
Calvin Alexander, Lower Ninth Ward
William Becker, E3G, Natural Capitalism Solutions
M. David Lee, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Stull and Lee Inc.
Dave Macaulay, Green ArchiTEXT
Darryl Malek-Wiley, Sierra Club
Greer Mendy, Tekrema Center for Art and Culture
Earthea Nance, University of New Orleans
J.W. Tatum, Lower Ninth Ward
Bill Waiters, Holy Cross Neighborhood Association
