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City Matching Grant Transforms Community Orchard

February 15, 2016

It’s time to review 13 months of orchard infrastructure work, an extensive effort funded with a Seattle Department of Neighborhood (DON) Matching Grant. We are especially thankful to Allynn Ruth (DON) for securing a four-month extension of time to complete our work. Construction took longer because we did most of the work ourselves and also maximized use of recycled materials. Vale la pena! We all learned some cool new skills.

With Max’s help, we created a slide show to illustrate the steps for all five of our major projects: shed move, shed rebuild, cistern pad and cisterns, city water, path, garden beds and trellises.

Shed Move – We had to move the shed several feet in order to make room for cisterns. Ropes were threaded under the shed and tied to a long bar on each side. Five strong people per side pulled up on the bars, shuffled several feet and then set her down on new pavers. The cost was zero but 85 volunteer hours were needed for planning, leveling, cleaning out shed, tearing the old roof off and dismantling it to reuse the wood. We made eight new friends.

1 roof remove 1 sm WP_20141221_005 old roof coming down sm WP_20141221_016 3 pre move rope tie sm 15548923974_bad44bc6ef_k 4 shed move 1 ropes attached sm WP_20141221_042 part way thru move sm 16145485776_33ed270f31_k recycle old roof sm WP_20141221_034
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Shed Rebuild –  Volunteers rebuilt a previously-donated shed in order to catch roof water and to increase storage capacity. Once we chose the cistern size, the shed design followed; the lower edge of the roof needed to be ten feet from the ground. We made calculations, checked our calculations, made calculations and checked our calculations. Most of the hammering was done in a weekend. We spent $4,100, which included materials for build-out of the inside of the shed. Volunteer hours were roughly 816 and we made nine new friends.

1 pushing up the new pony wall crop sm WP_20150207_018 2 secure pony from inside sm WP_20150207_015 3 ken rafter sm WP_20150207_021 4 shed before fascia sm WP_20150208_002 5 guy putting fascia sm WP_20150208_001 6 nearly finished sm WP_20150217_011 screws on roof WP_20160127_004
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Cistern Pad and Cistern –  We were told we had the best pad the cistern installer had ever seen! We used cedar for the frame and we used a skill saw to make half-lap joints. The pad frame contains a layer of sand, then crushed rock. Total cost of the pad was $640 (think cedar). Two 1,500-gallon cisterns, plus install and other misc costs was $3,826. The effort took about 85 hours.

cistern pad half lap joint 07.dado cistern pad Justin & ruth level frame sm WP_20150118_005 cistern sand before gravel sm WP_20150121_002 150121 pad with grave sm l WP_20150121_003 150418 cistern connection to gutter  0957 cistern install overflo valve DSCN0931 150418 good of both & shed 0960
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City Water – We added city water as a backup to the cisterns. Pacific Landscaping dug a trench, laid 250 linear feet of plastic pipe, and installed valves, vertical pipes and spigots. We used recycled wood and dug posts into the ground to secure the pipes. The hard work came next: backfilling and replacing sod. Total cost was $9,700, including $8,700 to SPU for installing a meter and repairing a patch in the street.  120 Volunteer hours were logged in.

excavator water pipe trench sm WP_20150603_020 path water valves DSCN0924 PRV between shut off and drain WP_20150604_002 trench with pipe sm WP_20150603_015 backfill from chestnut drain sm WP_20150603_034 small file spigot WP_20150713_004
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Crushed rock path – Hurrah! You don’t need swamp boots to traverse the area in the winter, that is, unless you stray off the path. We spray painted the 577 linear foot path and designated areas for the dug up sod to be dumped. Pacific Landscaping came back and, with a front loader, they dug up the sod and dumped it into future garden bed sites. During our planning meeting, when the number of wheelbarrow runs of rock was estimated to be 230 trips, several handy volunteers jumped at the chance to try a mule and a walk-behind front loader. We laid down Geotec cloth in the muckiest part of the path and then spread 40 cubic yards of crushed rock and compacted it, all within a weekend.  The cost was $3,660. This includes $1,670 for crushed rock, $520 for tool rental, and $880 for excavating. It took 280 volunteer hours and we made six new friends.

lining out path and dirt areas sm WP_20150816_009 Michelle good excavation  20472227378_5a0420249a_o sm retaning wall path sm WP_20150820_008 082015 curves of excavated path sm  WP_20150820_002 fabric cloth under gravel path WP_20150819_001 150822 overall view DSCN1675 150822 max rc jeff w loader DSCN1678 sm 150823 compacting WP_20150823_013 sm 150823 Melton on path WP_20150823_003 sm
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Garden Beds and Trellises – After a much needed break, we started piecing together garden beds. About 50 tons of dirt needed to be pushed around and molded. Nine garden beds were made: five mounds, three Faswall framed beds and one rubble framed herb spiral. Surely we have the only Octagon in town; no one else would so be naive not to realize how laborious it would be to build one. Our herb spiral doubled as a drainage improvement project; we buried a couple of large logs under the spiral. We also made three grape trellises from old metal pipes and hose clamps. Concrete blocks were partially dug in the ground to house the trellis uprights. Rebar was then pounded into one concrete block cell and concrete was poured and mixed in both cells.  Costs were $2,524 hours, the largest cost being $1,300 for the Faswall bed frames. 265 hours have been logged in and we have six more new friends. .

mound bed WP_20151105_001 sm Renee Liz digging spiral photo7 rubble construction spiral WP_20150909_001 spiral planted WP_20151105_004 sm 150925 long bed layout pre construction Ken IMG_2361 Ken drillling panels sm WP_20150929_002 dirt in long bed WP_20151018_002 sm octagon WP_20151001_003 0ctagon recent WP_20160120_007 151107 Sherry & Annie al fin IMG_2367 nan with hose clamps WP_20160206_011 mix concrete WP_20160207_16_22_00_Pro sm jeff whole system WP_20160112_001
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Costs to date are $32,000. In addition to the costs above, we spent another $8,000 for: art , tools, supplies, tree move and removal, food, plants and gifts. The required volunteer match to earn a $32,000 grant is 1,600 hours. We have far surpassed that goal with 3,153 hours and counting! Total new friends since the grant start date is 56.

Within the next couple of months, we will finish the garden beds, plant new fruit trees and vines, and complete the native plant section in the south end.

Ruth

2 replies
  1. ken
    ken says:

    Nice to see a summary of the project with its costs, volunteer hours and friends made.
    Thanks for the post & slide shows!
    Get to see what else happened where I couldn’t see, or when I wasn’t there.

    Reply

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