This Saturday is shaping up to be a busy one, if you’re into gardens and parks. There’s the community garden work party at the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center, you can Spring Into Bed all around the city, you can get some community service hours in at the Picardo P-Patch (if you have a plot there [EDIT: This is happening MONDAY, from 6:30-8:30pm]), and, heck, maybe your own yard could use some work.
However, every second Saturday of the month, the Friends of Ravenna Ravine gather to do battle against invasives like nightshade, bindweed and jewelweed (all co-starring this month).
Know thy enemy - jewelweed, in this case
George Macomber of the FRR sends out an email the week of the work party, detailing the work to be done that Saturday. This week’s agenda:
We will be starting near the Kiosk removing nightshade along the creek, looking for jewel weed (not as good as it sounds) and other bad things. We also have a few trees to plant. The bindweed is getting started ( it emerges on tax day so it has a 3 week head start.)
This month’s email also included the following tidbit about a future project in the park:
Beginning in late June the county will be starting a project to insure that sewage does not mix with the creek on its way to the Lk. Washington during rain storms. They will block the trail between the 55th and the ball field, and dig down to reach the point where the creek enters a ‘Box Culvert’ that runs under the field. They will not be digging upstream from the drain. They will be treating thistle and removing yellow iris in the daylight area, probably in May and June and replacing dead trees in the fall.
I’m definitely FOR keeping sewage out of EVERYTHING, except the sewer.
FRR meets at the lower playfield at the kiosk in SE Ravenna Park, north of NE 55th St. and north of the ballfield. Check the Friends of Ravenna Ravine homepage for more information on these work parties.
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