GEEE Redesign and Scaledown

Before

 After

We scaled down the GEEEcycling station to a much more efficient transplant station.  We still have basil seedlings to transplant.  Come in and trade to fill your windowsill gardens!

Before

After

We disassembled the Trading Table and replaced it with the Specific Item produced for HPAC at the Expo Chicago.  It's much more minimal.  We're beginning to detach from the architecture of the building.

We created a bench from the self-watering begonia planters.

 We re-acquainted the arched windows to create a field of basil.

Clippings are free. 

Cream Co. Presents GEEE at Expo Chicago

On Wednesday, September 19th, Cream Co. debuted it's first GEEE Specific Item at Expo Chicago 2012. It serves a desk and display table with integral planting.  It is composed of borrowed items, craft paper, gaffer's tape and basil plants.

GEEE asked to Produce a Specific Item for Expo Chicago

 When Hyde Park Art Center was invited to display a booth at Expo Chicago, the heir-apparent to Art Chicago, they approached us at Cream Co. to install a GEEE piece to serve as furniture.  They needed a table to sit and have conversations, as well as display brochures and catalogs.

We went to the Rebuilding Exchange where they graciously allowed us to borrow whatever materials necessary.

We  looked at windows, 

doors, 

knobs to be used to hold headphones at the video displays, 

and more windows. 

Rooftop Tomatoes

With unseasonably hot temperatures in June and July, the tomatoes started to produce and ripen early.

The colors and sizes have been spectacular.

We've lined up the tomatoes on the parapet to ripen.

June was the Busiest Month So Far at GEEE

The exchange calendar for June was extremely full.  A lot of people traded fro tomato plants to start their vegetable gardens.

Gardening Class at GEEE

For 5 weeks in June and July, Cream Co. taught a perennial garden gardening class at GEEE.

 As Marie says, "to garden is to weed," so we took the opportunity to weed the Abundance Garden.  What is a weed? an unwanted or invasive plant.  We decided as a group that the thistle was a weed.

 Each student made a version of our tomato planter made from a 5-gallon bucket. and planted a tomato plant on the roof.

 The class was very conversational, students bringing questions from their own gardens.

The class was a social and community event.  It fulfilled a need to get one's hands in the dirt and just chat.  We miss our students now that the class is over.

Abundance Garden at the Union in Omaha

The Adundance Garden is a project we started at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago.  The concept is for the community to donate the plants that they are thinning from their garden and to donate them to establish a community perennial garden.  Once established, the garden can serve much like a library were people bring their excess plants and thin plants to take back to their gardens.

When we arrived at the Union for Contemporary Art in Omaha, there was some landscaping done by the front door.  Some of the plants grew large leaves that were overshadowing smaller plants below.

 As we showed in an earlier post, students helped us prepare the soil.

 People came and donated plants such as hostas, irises and ornamental grasses.

 As the plants came in, a wide variety of people from the community volunteered to put them in the ground.

Even after a good soak, the plants looked stressed, rightfully so with temperatures in the 90's.  But with some TLC, patirnce and some green-thumb luck, the garden will thrive.

One new friend was looking for a home for some "Superberries."  Unfortunately, the Union had not made raised beds yet, but this gentleman was quick to offer his resource for free composted horse maneur, his trailer to haul it, and some reclaimed lumber to build raised beds.

The Trading Post for GEEE at the Union in Omaha

With borrowed architectural elements and found materials, we built a Trading Post for the Big Dig Gig Omaha.

The awning was made from a tarp taped to the soil bags from the tomato trellis containers.  

We found these angular windows to use as a tabletop with mailboxes as legs.

We used a white door with 3 framed red panels to display pots, baskets and preserves.

The central display uses paint cans from the Union as legs supporting another of the shard-shaped windows..

A half-circle vinyl ventilation grill worked well as a tabletop, draining excess water from herbs.  Insulated flue joints served as the legs.

Matt, a member of the Union's community, built this table from a palette a few days before we arrived.  He

Tomato seedlings were displayed on salvaged pallets that were turned into tomato trellises after the event.

 The piggy bank steals the show in Omaha, just like the one in Chicago.

All purchases and donations benefited the Union.

People brought in pots and excess fencing to trade.

 People traded excess seeds.

And refreshments were supplied.