Dirt, Worms, Raised Beds - Community Gardens!

 

Community gardens are used to provide opportunities for resources to help better the lives of the people in the community. Centenary Church houses one such community garden, and problems with the economy make community gardens, like this one, especially important.  This particular community garden features raised beds because of a fear of the lead in the soil being absorbed in the produce.  Fear of lead concentrations in the soil is common in older neighborhoods due to the lead-based paint used in the buildings.  However, all neighborhoods with buildings associated with lead-based paint do not necessarily need to fear lead poisoning from  planting produce in the soil.  Only proper testing of the soil can determine if the lead content in the soil is in concentrations high enough to be harmful.

Mystery of the Megaflood...

 

In the 1920s, geologist J. Harlen Bretz was ostracized after trying to get his fellow geologists to accept his hypothesis for the unusual geologic features of eastern Washington.  Bretz proposed that the deeply pockmarked terrain was not the result of slow weathering, but a catastrophic flood caused by Glacial Lake Missoula that engulfed the area thousands of years before.  Evidence later lends support for Bretz's once ridiculed hypothesis and also indicates that the flood Bretz hypothesized may have been only one of many that repeatedly swept through the area.