Our Year at Pelion

What Pelion is

The same five numbers, every visit

Whatever chapter we are on, we could start every visit the same way.

Unit by unit

The same five units as the syllabus, seen from the garden. Ideas, not promises.

1. 1

   Ecology and Ecosystems

   Chapter 1

   The setup, and the words the whole year runs on. Your group could claim one square meter of the garden and keep it all year. We could pick one spot to photograph from and shoot it the same way every time. Then the first numbers. How big are the beds? What does this place hand out for free? That list is its natural capital: the food, the shade, the rain it soaks up, the bees. Against that we could measure our own footprint, the water and soil and fuel that has to be carried in from somewhere else, and ask the question we come back to in June. Does the garden give back more than it takes? Pollution is right there too, in the runoff off Best Street and in whatever people dump on a lot nobody watches. And four empty lots start a real argument. Some people see a garden. Some see a parking spot. Some see land that should be left alone. That is a worldview, and everybody has one, including you.

   • Natural capital
   • Footprint math
   • Quadrats
   • Photo point
   • Runoff
   • Worldviews
2. 2

   Biodiversity

   Chapters 5–6

   Who lives here, and why. We could count pollinators with a timer, on a lot of different days, and then you could watch the numbers fall as the season ends instead of me telling you they fall. One bed has every kind of species interaction in the book. Aphids eat the kale. Bees help the squash. Weeds fight the lettuce for space. Aphids and an old tree could show you the difference between a living thing that has thousands of young in a hurry and one that has a few and takes years to do it. Crowd a bed and it hits carrying capacity, the point where there is not enough light or water or room left and growth stops. The corner nobody planted shows succession, which is how a bare spot fills back in on its own. And if we measured six spots in one afternoon, from the warm south wall to the hot pavement, we would probably find six different climates in one garden, which is how biomes work at a size you can walk across.

   • Pollinator counts
   • Species interactions
   • Succession
   • Carrying capacity
   • Fast vs. slow breeders
   • Microclimates
3. 3

   Sustaining Biodiversity

   Chapters 7–8

   What it takes to keep them. Our species list could go up on iNaturalist. Then we could compare it to the list of bees that are supposed to live in Erie County and ask who is missing. Are they gone from this block, or gone for good? One of the bees on the federal endangered list used to live in this part of New York, so we could look at what that law actually does and who it leaves out. We could measure Pelion from the air and work out how far it sits from the next patch of green. That gap is habitat fragmentation, and here you can walk it. On these blocks the garden is a hotspot, and we could prove it by counting species inside the fence and then outside it. Lead and old pesticides do not break down, so we could follow one as it moves from soil to plant to bug to bird, getting more concentrated at every step. We could pull invasive plants, which is real work the garden needs done, and helping put the beds away for winter would be the last lesson here: how to take care of a whole place, not just one animal.

   • iNaturalist
   • Missing species
   • Endangered list
   • Fragmentation
   • Hotspots
   • Biomagnification
   • Invasive removal
4. 4

   Environmental Quality

   Chapters 9–13

   The winter unit, and the one closest to daily life. Soil we dug up in the fall could be tested now. What is it made of? Is it acid or base? Does it have what plants need? Is there lead in it? Buffalo has a lot of old paint, and lead is the reason the beds are raised up off the ground. We could work out how much food one square foot really makes, what it costs in fuel and fertilizer, and who in this neighborhood can actually reach fresh food. We could follow the water the whole way. How much rain fell here? How much did the rain gardens soak up? How much ran down the storm drain and out to the river? Everything out there that is not alive came out of a mine, so we could trace the fence, the fertilizer, and a tool battery back to the ground they came from, and ask what happens when it runs out. We could add up the fuel it takes to grow one tomato here, then find out where Pelion's electricity comes from and how much of it is burned, how much is split, and how much is just the river. We could still go outside in winter. It would be cold and it would be quick. How deep is the frost? How warm is the soil under the snow? How much road salt is in the melting snow at the curb? And why is the compost pile still steaming in January? The unit could end with you designing something that runs on sunlight, using real numbers for how much sun Buffalo gets, and building the best one.

   • Soil testing
   • Urban lead
   • Yield math
   • Food access
   • Stormwater
   • Mines and metals
   • Where power comes from
   • Road salt
   • Solar design
5. 5

   Environmental Concerns

   Chapters 14–18

   People, and the argument. We could count how many people live within a short walk of the garden, and how many empty lots are still sitting on these blocks, and ask how many more gardens would fit. We could measure the pavement and the garden on the same afternoon to find out how much hotter the city gets, and check the air at the curb against the air in the beds. You could take your own lead numbers and work out real risk: how much, how often, and who it hurts first. Then decide something that matters. Do we eat what we grew? You would have to say why. We could weigh the compost going in and coming out, and keep everything that would not rot, which tells you more about recycling than any label does. The garden's own records could show a growing season that keeps moving earlier. And then the whole year could turn into an argument. What are four empty lots really worth? Count the food, the rain they soak up, the shade, and what it does for people's health. The last question is the biggest one, and it is not a made up question on these blocks: who gets a garden, and who gets the pollution instead? The best ending I can think of is that you teach it. The sixth graders come out here every week, and you would run the lesson.

   • Density
   • Vacant lots
   • Heat island
   • Air at the curb
   • Risk assessment
   • Compost audit
   • Growing season
   • Ecosystem value
   • Who gets what

What we bring

Before we walk over