Shepherd’s Table needs your help

September 11 at Shepherd’s Table at 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Planting!!!!!

(Gloves and gardening tools will be a great help!)

 

The front  “garden area” of Shepherd’s Table  has long been in need of a massive overhaul. One of our terrific volunteers took on the project. Little did he know what a huge project it would be! The volunteer is Hal Thomas. Hal is now a young adult employed with Golden-Cohen, an insurance firm. Hal volunteered at Shepherd’s Table as a youth and came back recently and asked what he could do to help!  Since that question, Hal has orchestrated the painting of our dining area and other offices.

 

 Now he has taken on the project of massive proportions…bringing the garden area in front of our building back to life…. creating a planting bed that is below the concrete wall so that the mulch does not drift away every time it rains,  bringing in good dirt and replacing the clay ground so that plants, bushes and trees have a chance for life, landscaping and wooden stairs. Hal and a multitude of friends are outside digging and moving dirt and building new wooden stairs and a retaining wall as I write this e-mail –  today, Saturday September 5.

 

On September 11 we will have the blessed opportunity to plant new grasses, plants and bushes. I NEED YOU! Gardening is not my strength and because more hands and more hearts and more creativity will create a more beautiful garden for our clients, guests, volunteers and donors,  I NEED YOU! Can you give a few hours on September 11 and make a BIG difference at Shepherd’s Table? Can you lend your hands and your heart in the national UNITED WE SERVE day to remember the victims of September 11 and to bring good into our world?

 

Thanks for e-mailing me and letting me know.

 

Also want to let you know that on that day we will be having a special meal for our dinner guests. It will be a way for our dinner guests and volunteers  to pause and to remember and to continue doing GOOD! Whole Foods of Silver Spring, Olazzo and Eggspectation restaurants will be preparing and donating the meal. Volunteers from GEICO will be our guest SERVERS for the evening!

 

The entire day will be a day of giving and gratitude and remembering!

 

I look forward to hearing from you. If you can’t come on the 11^th I’d sure appreciate your prayers for a successful planting!

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

 

Jacki

Jacki Coyle

Executive Director

Shepherd’s Table

8210A Colonial Lane

Silver Spring, Maryland 20910

301-585-6463

jcoyle@shepherdstable.org

www.shepherdstable.org

 

A proud member of Community First Greater Washington DC America’s Charities, Combined Federal Campaign, Catalogue for Philanthropy

Why net a pond?

When fall comes, so do the leaves.  Filling your pond with leaves adversely affects the eco-balance.  It can be fatal to your fish.  When the leaves decay, oxygen is depleted leaving nothing for the fish to breath.  Covering the pond with a net is an easy way to prevent this problem.

Why clean your pond?

Your pond needs cleaning periodically.  Every situation is different.  Pond cleanings remove harmful and  toxic debris. Leaves, yard runoff and other things collect in a pond. If your pond remained clean and free of leaves over the winter, a full cleaning may not be necessary.  Your bio filters and skimmers should be cleaned at least annually if not more.  Most of our clients prefer at least an annual cleaning of the entire pond.  When the pond is clean you can see straight to the bottom and the fish will thank you.

Lotus pond adds a unique presence to our side yard

side yard

Lotus butterfly

I am using the pink font because the flower is pink. When we had our Parade of Ponds the other week there was a family that said it was such a unique color.  It really is beautiful and what’s most amazing is its simplicity.  We do NOTHING to it.  We put in the tub two years ago and some lotus plants and leave it alone.  I think we have fertilized the plants but that is about it.  The frogs LOVE it cause its all filled with dead plants from the year before. The only thing we do is look out the window and see its beauty.  I caught the butterfly just as it came to the flower.  It only stayed for a nano second:)

Pond Repairs – Fixing a pond

There are SO many things that can be done to enhance a pond.  Some things are required to repair a pond or fix something faulty while other things can be done just to make it more enjoyable.  Fixing pond lights, fixing pond water clarity, getting the right balance between fish and plants, repairing underwater lights and getting rid of the algae are easy repairs that can be done in a matter of hours.  Many ponds that we see do not have properly working lights or even lights at all.  If you dont have lights in the pond then you miss some of the most exciting times of your pond.  The fish look really cool at night.  A green pond looks nasty but with the proper balance of fish and plants, the proper nutrients etc, it can be so clear you can hardly tell there is even water in the pond. A pond aerator is something that we introduced to our pond this year.  We thought it would be something we would try out for a year and see how we liked it but when people saw our aerator they wanted one.  We have installed a bunch of them this summer.  Fish tunnels have also been big this year.  Some would call them an enhancement while others would call them a necessity, particuarly if you have a heron targeting your water.  It is getting more and more common to install these tunnels when we originally build the ponds. It seems that every time we turn around there is something new and exciting to enhance a pond.  The first tip would be to maintain the existing pond with regular drain and cleans and cleaning the skimmers every week or so. 

Parade of Ponds wrap up

Our second Annual Parade of Ponds taught us a lot about the approach to the process of marketing.  Since the Parade is to benefit a charity we have tried to keep costs down by using free sources of advertising, the internet and word of mouth.  Kathy Jentz with Washington Gardener magazine has been invaluable to us.  With that said, though, we didnt have as many tickets sales as we would have hoped.  The Gazette was supposed to come out to the Parade on Saturday along with Channel 9 but neither showed up.  There is a discussion going on about the role of the charities in promoting events for which they receive the ticket proceeds.  Since it is not in the usual scope of a charity to have a marketing department its kind of a catch 22.  We did fine but we would like to have had a hundred + more people out at the ponds.  The weather was perfect and the hosts were all ready, but next year we need more people.

Building a pond on a swale.

This week’s pond was built on a swale, a natural part of the yard for rainwater to run.  Because it is never a good idea to have  rainwater runoff introduced into a pond on a consistent basis, we had to build a sort of rain collector right before the pond.  This allowed the pond to be in the path of the swale without the runoff coming into the pond. 

Right before the pond we built a stone/rock garden which actually had a drain underneath of it.  It took the runoff under the pond and out the other side to another rock garden.  No one is the wiser.  With  the massive amounts of rain that we received this week it was paramount that we get this system up and running prior to installing the pond.  It worked like a charm.

I would have pictures but it does not do it justice in the pictures plus it was pouring when we left.

Rain Harvesting…good idea or waste of time?

Aquascape Design has designed an innovative system to harvest the rainwater after a rain fall.  Its purpose is to collect the rainwater for future use around your yard.  The rain is collected in an underground tank so no need for unsightly rain barrels at the end of your downspouts.  The water is then filtered and held in the underground tank until it is needed for landscaping and other yard uses. 

It might seem like a waste at this point in our area because we are having too much rain but there are YEARS where we are in near drought conditions.  Once we do get back to those conditions it may be too late. 

We have a page on our website that shows the design of the system.

 http://premierpond.com/Rainwater.html

2nd Annual Parade of Ponds

 Once again we are gearing up for our Parade of Ponds.  We had a lot of fun last year getting this all situated.  There are so many POPs throughout the United States that we thought it was time for this event to be in the DC Metro area.  We learned a lot from our first year and hope to implement many of the suggestions from both the hosts and attenders.  For one, we will be having fewer ponds but in closer proximity to eachother for ease of viewing.  On a side note, many hosts offered refreshments which were most appreciated.  Please view our webpage for further information.  http://tinyurl.com/n5ahgl

An evening next to our pond

We eat lunch and dinner most every day next to our pond.  Rain or shine, frog mating season or not, we are out there.  I taped a bit of what we get to experience the other night.  It is truly so relaxing and peaceful. 

http://tinyurl.com/qyvj3s

 

Enjoy for yourself!