Olivia Leos
February 29, 2016
February Blog post
February 16, 2016.
Today I went on a hike at Blunn Creek, a five-minute walk from Saint Edward’s University. Here I am going to observe the different plants and animals that inhabit the area, and compare it to another area where agricultural practices are being done.
I arrived at around 9 am at Blunn creek. Unsure of what to assess, I hiked for about 20 minutes until I got to an area by the creek. You could hear the sound of people hiking, the buzz of people driving, and the chirps of birds (all undetectable). As I passed what looked like a Barbados Cherry Tree,
I found a large magnificent tree, with branches growing from all over its trunk. 
It had a very open stance to it, almost as if inviting me to sit there. This is where I sat and began to take note of everything all around. There were no birds in sight, although you could faintly hear the song of one. This may have been the cause of noise pollution. The creek, which could be seen from where I was standing, appeared cleaner than usual, although still stained with human garbage in places. 
The biodiversity seemed vibrant. The tree provided a fair amount of canopy to my area, and yet much was growing around the area. Branches were spreading across the area, small invertebrates were crawling across the ground, and plants on the ground were beginning to bear flowers. Biodiversity seemed plentiful, and beginning to wake up from the short winter we experienced in Austin. I could not detect if the plants where invasive or endemic, as this site is constantly under surveillance for invasive species removal. After waiting for birds or any activity to occur, and taking in the richness of the area I collected myself and was on my way.
February 27, 2016
Today, I volunteered at an organization named Green Corn Project that builds and restores urban gardens in areas for underserved communities and schools. Their mission is to bring education, healthy activity, and food to people in underserved communities who want to build a home garden in their backyard/ school garden. Today though, was an educational day, where we were taught different methods of building a garden in Austin. A few of the methods that are used are biointensive gardening, compost use, double digging, and companion planting. Biointensive techniques are used to maximize crop production in small spaces, such is the case in urban agriculture. These techniques include double digging, which in essence is the aerating of soil without harming or disturbing the microorganisms, and adding organic matter to increase productivity in the soil. Compost is usually added as the organic matter that goes over the aerated soil. Finally, crops are paired in accordance to the amount of water they need, how tall they get, and which types of organisms use them for pollination. The idea according to David, one of the board members in the organization is that “The insects that are pollinating one plant will go to another plant. Companion planting enhances their growth, deters garden pests, improves pollination, and even improves flavor of the fruit”. Overall, the methods used are for the reason of sustainability, and increasing yield for the small area being used.
We were taught that there are three necessary steps when building a new garden, this is marking your garden bed (the Green Corn Project likes to work with areas that are four by twelve feet) and getting rig of all the weeds in the area. The next step is to begin the double digging technique. Locating yourself to the side of the garden and working from one edge to the next. In this process, a hole has to be dug out in the edge. Once there is a nice even hole at one edge of the bed, forks are used to aerate the soil being carful not to disturb microorganisms. Afterward, organic matter (usually compost) is set on top of the hole, continuing the process all over the bed. Afterward, gardening begins. To my surprise plants/fruits are planted only on two or three inches into the soil and seeds are to planted only as deep as the seed is tall. Using the book Tropical Nature, as we were gardening I was able to see the pollination of flowers and bees nearby, and made note that the reason these flowers bloom where beautiful and colorful flowers was to attract pollinators and be able to spread their seeds (a process that can be facilitated with companion planting).
As the day ended, I went to look around to see if there was any correlation between the surrounding plants and the urban agriculture that was being done in the area. 
This garden area was in the city, in East Austin, being too urban to able to see any real effects that sustainable agriculture had on the natural area. The area was surrounded by streets, restaurants, buildings, and planted trees. There was a little flower garden a few feet away from the garden, right next to the sidewalk. Hopefully, as I keep participating in this organization and I can see areas less disturbed by nature to see if there are correlations or common occurrences occurring with the surrounding natural area.
Consequently, in comparison to Blunn Creek with the urban area in Austin, Blunn Creek had substantially more biodiversity. Blunn Creek had different plants and insects in every corner, while the surrounding area of the garden was mostly inhabited by people and planted trees (who may have been different species but still did not compare to Blunn Creek’s biodiversity). Hopefully for the future, I can go to a more rural agricultural area and see a difference now in comparison of the agricultural methods used in growing food. Although, a difference is obvious in comparing urban agriculture and mass production agriculture, I do believe that there are some methods that can be applied to increase yield and become more sustainable to both. In this comparison I can also compare the plant biodiversity and plant species difference between rural agriculture and urban agriculture; and be able to see if there is a comparison in the surrounding plants to be made.
References
“Vegetable Garden Planting, Planting a Vegetable Garden, Garden Spacing.” Grow It Organically. Grow It Organically, 2009. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
“Texas Native Plants Database.” Texas Native Plants Database. Texas Native Shrubs, n.d. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
“Green Corn Project.” Green Corn Project. Green Corn Project, 1998. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
“Preserves Perishables.” The Science News-Letter 80.11 (1961): 168. Preserves Overview. Austin Parks and Recreation. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Forsyth, Adrian, and Kenneth Miyata. Tropical Nature. New York: Scribner, 1984. Print.