Author: Rachel Glynn

Some clearing of the mud from the newly laid paving took place while construction continued along the pedestrian axis.

At last the main thoroughfare was finished and visitors were able to enjoy a more comfortable path to walk on.

When the paths along the main pedestrian axis were finished work moved to the classroom area, where slate was used to pave the main routes taken by teachers and students. 

Before Konrad left Ladakh he and Tsetan went for a walk around the school to see how many different species of drought tolerant plants they could find. Konrad said “I think we were successful to locate at least five different ones. Some of the plants from the list grow at high altitude or close to water bodies. Our focus was on plants growing on rocks or in the sand that have colour and ornamental value. What we need to do now is to identify them.” One you see on a picture below is: Ephedra intermedia. 

“We found good source of yellow clump forming plants on a hill outside the school. It’s possible for the plant to be Artemisia santolinifolia.”

A disaster day… Sunshine all day with mudslide at night.

Arrived on site to find all our lovely work covered in mud. 

Mud reached the main entrance to the school but didn’t overflow into the orchard apart from the paths. The only affected building was a toilet next to Singeyla House where mud and water entered waste chambers below the latrines. 

Konrad’s main task while at the school is the paving of some of the main thoroughfares. He spent the first few days familiarising himself with the site and finalising plans.

Angdus and Konrad went to Tanglangla pass area to look for slate suitable for the paving task. Tanglangla pass is located approximately 125km from Shey. They had to drive through extremely difficult terrain but located three suitable sources of slate. The next three days were spent collecting slate, loading it into trucks and taking it back to Shey. Suitable slate had to be selected from scattered material on the slope. Some of the slate pieces weigh between 80 to 100kg and need to be lifted by 6 to 8 men. 

Konrad wrote “Despite extremely hard work our team was in good spirits at the end of the first slate trip. I took part in slate collection as well. I must admit that Ladhaki and Nepali people are much more resistant to hard work at high altitude than we are. I had to take several ‘breathing breaks’ to cope with altitude. I have a lot of respect for what they did.”

 Back at the school work started on paving the main thoroughfare between the students’ hostels.

The upper terrace is almost completed leaving symmetrical beds on either side. One of the main tasks next year will be filling the spine planters with more plants like willows, grasses and flowers native to the region. 

GREEN MANURE

The trees in the orchard area are doing well. The alfalfa even though small has already provided a green appearance in front of the administration buildings. The sowings in the bare areas that can have access to water have germinated in a week, rest of the areas can be sown next spring when we will have the sprinkler system installed.The alfalfa which has been sown as a green manure, to be cut before flowering and mixed in the soil, has a slow growth like most other seedlings due to the cooler than normal temperatures this season. Leaving it to grow and flower is another alternative with which the staff would be happier. Perhaps in time it can be turned into a wild flower meadow.

Nepeta floccosa growing between the irrigation and domestic tanks, it formed a line where it can get a little bit of run-off water.

The wild chicory is blooming happily on the edge of the nursery beds and other dry areas.

COMPOST

The compost heap is developing fast with the kitchen waste coming in daily. In the last few weeks we had very little woody waste added in. So in order to maintain a good carbon to nitrogen ratio we added two wheelbarrows of sawdust to the heap, spreading it over. I tried to make sure that the staff understands that we need both the leafy soft vegetable waste and the carbon rich woody waste to achieve a balanced good quality compost.

We started the week with willow planting on the playground area. We planted the two tunnels; at the entrance and near the south wall.

SHELTERBELT

Planting of the first phase of the shelterbelt was completed this week. In the beginning of the week we connected the irrigation system for the shelterbelt area. We started irrigating one day before planting. Angdus arranged the JCB to dig the plants out from his field and went with Tsetan on the small truck to get them on Wednesday. Thanks to the JCB they were all lifted with adequate roots.

New Resident Landscape Architect Seniz Ocal arrived on 30^th March 2015 to continue work on the Dragon Garden.

One of Seniz’s first tasks was to plant the orchard with small apple and apricot trees which had been growing in the nursery. Here are some extracts from her weekly reports:

Our first trial was with manual digging. That was hard and slow despite the labour support. So it was going to be the JCB. The digging was finished by Friday evening. Saturday we moved on with the planting.

First we prepared a good mix of human waste manure, animal manure and compost in the nursery area to go inside the tree pits. We cut our stake ties out of old garments that we found in storage!

After getting stakes, compost and water ready in the area we went up to the nursery to lift up the trees that were going to be planted, working as a team of seven.

We picked the larger sized trees and the ones with no flower buds, also opening up space for the apples that are going to be planted. The trees in the nursery bays had grown good root mass in the three years they spent there.

The small truck was very handy for carrying the compost bags and the trees to the orchard area.

A total of 13 apple trees and 7 apricot trees were planted. First part of the orchard planting came to an end with the tying of the stakes and watering.

The next day we went ahead with tidying up the orchard. We sowed alfalfa and raked it in. We had plenty of seeds so we were easily able to sow the whole area.

GARDEN COMPETITION

We had our meeting with the vice president and the teaching staff on Monday and decided to officially start the garden competition on 25^th April. On Saturday I visited each class, talked about how to proceed and how they will be assessed with the students and teachers. Classes were given the judging criteria for reference. It was good to see the students interested and busy making their gardens.