The Permaculture Garden at Robson Harrington Park in San Anselmo is well underway, thanks to the many volunteers that came to the March 3rd workday. We dug swales on contour, sheet mulched between the swales, planted cover crops on the berms, and covered the berms with straw. Just in time to benefit from the mid-March rain!

Our next workday is scheduled for Saturday, March 31st, from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm at Robson Harrington Park, 237 Crescent Road in San Anselmo. If it’s just light rain showers, we plan to be there. If it’s raining hard, the work day will move to Sunday, April 1st. We will be digging more swales and fine tuning the ones we dug previously, as well as continuing to sheet mulch the rest of the site.

Bring any snacks or lunch that you want, plus plenty of drinking water, and work gloves if desired. We have plenty of tools on site. If you have any cardboard to contribute to the sheet mulching effort, please bring that too.

More Information: To learn more about this project, please contact Cheryl Fromholzer at Gathering Thyme. Phone: 415.524.8693

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Robson Harrington Park Permaculture Garden

volunteers digging swales at the first workday

volunteers sheet mulching at the first workday

Robson Harrington Park Hillside Proposal
by Rebecca Speert

Original Site Assessment:
The hill oriented to the northeast of the Robson Harrington Park garden plots is untended. Plants are over grown and dried out. Plot could benefit from clearing debris, mulching, planting of low maintenance species, and implementation of swales.

Objective:
To create an aesthetically pleasing, low maintenance arrangement of plantings, providing a cleaner, more maintained appearance in the park while increasing bird and beneficial insect habitat. The area will also act as a demonstration site for park visitors to envision what a low maintenance landscape can look like.

Proposal:

• Implement swales on hillside to capture, sink, and spread rain water. Mulch the whole area.
• Plant climate appropriate plants, grasses and medicinal herbs that require little water and are low maintenance
• Possible educational signage to provide explanations of plant choices and earth works.

Permaculture Marin is supporting the project by directing some of the grant money received from the Lia Fund towards the purchase of plants for the garden.