The Pearson Drive Garden

408 Pearson Drive, Asheville

The Pearson Drive Garden is the Bountiful Cities Project's model garden. It encompases over an acre of land that produces edibles for the community. We grow a diverse selection of vegetables, including a wide range of greens and peas in the spring, tomatoes, squash, potatoes, and pumpkins in the summer. There is some vegetable production throughout the year, as we grow cold tolerant vegetables under row covers.

In addition to the traditional garden vegetables, we grow wild greens, culinary and medicinal herbs, and some perennial vegetables, like the Jerusalem artichoke. Fruits grown at the Pearson Drive Garden include strawberries, raspberries, and apples.

When the Garden was first conceived, the garden beds were arranged in pie-shaped wedges around a central area devoted to medicinal herbs. In 2005, this circular layout was converted to a square layout with linear beds. The linear beds allow for a higher level of food production, and also make it easier for volunteer gardeners to move through the garden.

Bees!

The Pearson Drive Garden is now home to two hives of honey bees. (You may see additional hives there - sometimes additional hives are located there for "bee-sitting"). Honey bees are an important part of the garden ecosystem - in their search for nectar and pollen as food for their hive, bees pollinate many garden plants, including apples, cucumbers, and zucchini. They are also important pollinators of native plants. Honey bees are now very rare in the wild because of habitat loss, pesticide use, and the rise of a pest, the varroa mite.

Warning:Honey bees typically only sting when they are threatened. Be kind to the bees and chances are they will be kind to you. If you have a serious allergy to bee stings, you must enter the garden at your own risk!

Composting at the Pearson Drive Garden

All organic matter produced at the Pearson Drive Garden in composted in one way or another. Organic waste from some local restaurants is composted there as well. Composting is done with thermophilic "hot" compost, cool compost and vermicomposting (using worms). The compost produced by these processes is then applied to garden beds to fertilize and improve the structure of the soil.

Thermophilic composting: this picture was taken after much of the compost was removed to amend garden beds.

In worm composting, vegetable scraps are fed to worms. The worms produce a compost with a great ability to hold nutrients and improve the structure of soil.

Green Building at the Pearson Drive Garden

When you visit the Pearson Drive Garden, you'll notice that the main garden is framed by a number of structures.

	The composting toilet is a crowd-pleaser. It is a cob structure with a green roof. (This picture was taken before the roof was completed.)
The Pavilion is a covered structure used for workshops and community events.
	The bread oven is another cob structure.