Peirce Mill Update #5 – It’s All About the Soil. And the People.
We love our work at ForestPlanet. But we rarely get to play in the dirt and care for the trees. Our day-to-day work is mostly about raising money to buy trees, planning individual tree planting projects, communicating with our local partners overseas, and the sundry tasks of running a small non-profit.
So we cherish our time in the spring and fall to really get our hands dirty. This is our sixth year of helping out with the small orchard at Peirce Mill here in Washington, DC (see our updates here). In the early 1800s the Peirce Plantation and its orchard covered a large area of what is now Rock Creek Park. Today the orchard is much smaller with only 26 apple and pear trees. The Friends of Peirce Mill planted them in 2012 as part of a great collaboration with the National Park Service, Casey Trees, and community volunteers.
Our work this spring was to keep building up a deep layer of healthy soil. We did this by clearing away the winter ground cover into mulching piles, making room to plant the summer ground cover variety of grasses, clovers, and pollinator flowers.
Fortunately, healthy soil is something that we know quite a lot about. While there is a lot of variation in soil types, their microbes, rainfall, and other factors that affect tree health, the basic rules for soil health apply no matter what corner of the globe you are in – water retention, nutrient availability, and protection from erosion or compaction.
Dirt certainly isn’t the only reason we like to work at Peirce Mill. We also welcome the chance to nurture relationships with our local supporters and to make new friends. Relationships are at the core of our work, whether with corporate partners, individual donors, event organizers, or volunteers.
We have never had government grants or contracts, only donations from people who care deeply about the earth, love trees, and chose to invest in the most efficient way to help – through low cost, high volume tree planting. So we put out a call on social media for anyone who wanted to join us and we greatly enjoyed meeting the great group of people who showed up.
In a world that is still all too often remote, there’s nothing like IRL (in real life) to connect with nature and with people!
Our previous post documenting the soil generation activities at Peirce Mill can be found here.