Grow It Forward

02/13/2023

SIGN UP BEFORE MARCH 3, 2023 TO GET YOUR OWN MICRO-NURSERY! If you live in the Seattle Metro area, now as far north as Mt Vernon, you can participate in growing native tree seedlings for habitat restoration! You will contribute the cost by paying $100 for the starting materials. This includes 100 baby bare root seedlings, and pots that you come to Seattle to pick up on March 12, and 500 pounds of soil, delivered to you the week before.

YOU CAN ALSO OR INSTEAD VOLUNTEER TO BE A PICKUP TRUCK OWNER/DRIVER AND DELIVER SOIL AND SEEDLINGS!

SIGN UP FOR EITHER A MICRO-NURSERY OR TO BE A PICKUP TRUCK VOLUNTEER AT OUR WEBSITE BELOW.

If you sign up for a micro-nursery, we will email you a PayPal invoice for $100 for the materials. Soil delivery will be arranged by one of our awesome pickup truckers!

Grow It Forward is a group of PNW gardeners who grow valuable native tree and shrub seedlings to give to habitat restoration organizations.

01/01/2023

“Happy New Year! If you’ve set a resolution to commit to a new goal or hobby that serves a greater cause, consider becoming a host with us! It’s a simple and tangible way of connecting yourself to your community and contributing toward a better planet.”

02/07/2022

VOLUNTEER PICKUP TRUCK OWNER/DRIVERS NEEDED TO HELP HABITAT RESTORATION PROJECT GROW NATIVE TREE SEEDLINGS!!

YOU CAN HELP RESTORE NATIVE SALMON HABITAT IF YOU HAVE 4+ HOURS (one or 2 times if you can) AND A PICKUP TRUCK!! Go to our website to sign up if interested: growitfwd.org

JOB DESCRIPTION: You will be given a list of 4 addresses and contact info for people grouped in a part of the Seattle area. You will contact each, and arrange when to drop off about 500 lbs of topsoil at each address. You then go to one of Pacific Topsoil's facilities and get loaded with 1/2 cubic yard (about 1,000 lbs) of topsoil (charged to Grow It Forward Restoration), which you then deliver to two of your addresses. You do this twice, but iff your pickup can handle a full cubic yard, you can make 4 deliveries from one load. The recipient may help to unload, but it is relatively easy as the soil is loose, and you shovel it down off the tailgate with gravity on your side! Before making the deliveries, you will come to the Phinney Neighborhood Center in N. Seattle, say hello to other volunteers there, and pick up a bag of nursery pots for each recipient that you will deliver with the soil. The recipient will later receive a 2nd delivery by others of 100 bare root seedlings, which they will plant in the pots and grow for 2 years for later donation to habitat restoration organizations.

Last October and November, our organization, "Grow It Forward Restoration", delivered 3,300 potted native tree seedlings our volunteers had grown, to 10 different habitat restoration organizations.

The two photos show soil delivery in action, and a host with his micro-nursery.

Grow It Forward Restoration, is now preparing to distribute materials to 100 local gardeners at the end of February, beginning of March.

BUT WE NEED HELP!!

Our goal is to connect average citizens to the areas wonderful, but not well known, habitat restoration organizations. We help them out, donating or selling at low cost, our 2 to 3 yr old seedlings that we pay $1 each for, but would cost $4 each for at a commercial nursery.

Here is where our 3,300 finished seedlings went this year:

1. The Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group (our earliest supporter) 1,364 seedlings
2. The Mid-Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group 600 seedlings
3. The South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group 300 seedlings
4. The Mountain to Sound Greenway 320 seedlings
5. The Cross Kirkland Corridor 40 seedlings
6. The Washington Native Plant Society 40 seedlings
7. Dirt Corps 100 seedlings
8. Earth Corps 61 seedlings
9. King County Conservation District 35 seedlings
10. The City of Kenmore (to be delivered January 2022) 160 seedlings

03/12/2021

Some more local recognition from the Phinney Neighborhood Association! They put up an article on Grow It Forward on their web site, and also had me install a Micro-Nursery right in front of the Phinney Neighborhood Center at 6532 Phinney Ave. N. https://phinneywood.com/2021/03/10/greenwood-habitat-restoration-project-looking-for-host-gardens/

03/12/2021

We are getting some local interest, here is a nice article on a local blog:

Wright started "Grow it Forward" mid-pandemic in 2020, funding the supplies and plants himself - with 23 volunteer home gardeners around Seattle - each growing a mini-forest of 100 saplings to donate to restoration projects. Wright calls these "Micro-Nurseries" and hopes to expand the project to 50....

02/08/2021

UPDATE: Grow It Forward WILL add 100 new Micro-Nurseries! But sign up by the end of February!!

If you want to have your own micro-nursery, sign up at our website. Or, if you want to volunteer as a pickup truck owner/driver, sign up at our website too. There are 2 different forms.

This is a volunteer project, funds go only for materials and expenses like soil, pots, baby seedlings, gas for pickup trucks. Its an all volunteer effort.

There is a summary of the purpose of Grow it Forward at the bottom of this post for new Micro-Nursery hosts. Also visit the Grow It Forward website at the link below.

Qualifications for new Micro-Nursery hosts:
a. Live in the Seattle area as far north as Mt. Vernon.
b. Have basic gardening skills
c. Will plant all 100 seedlings within 2 days of getting them on March 12, requiring about 5 hrs. of light work.
d. Will devote 16 square feet (4 feet by 4 feet for example) of garden space that has partial sun and shade (full sun is too much, full shade with dappled sun is good, half sun and half shade each day is good.)
e. Commit to up to 1-1/2 years hosting the Micro-Nursery until the seedlings are big enough, keeping them protected and watered through the dry season.
f. Pay $100 to Grow It Forward for Micro-Nursery materials (100 baby seedlings and pots that you come to N Seattle to pick up on March 12, and 500 pounds that we deliver the week before March 12).
g. You will receive an email with a PayPal invoice for $100, and once you pay that, you are in!

Jim Wright, Head Gardener

Summary of the purpose of Grow It Forward:

Grow It Forward is a new group of Seattle gardeners who grow valuable native tree and shrub seedlings in our gardens that we sell to habitat restoration organizations at half the price wholesale nurseries charge. They use our seedlings to restore “critical habitats” that have been destroyed by development. In the Puget Sound area, we are particularly focused on small areas of critical habitats along rivers that are critical for the survival of endangered salmon, and for the survival of those creatures that eat salmon, such as orcas.

The challenge for habitat restoration organizations is that candidate properties must be located and their owners willing to allow the restoration work to be done. Then the habitat restoration workers must do the labor intensive work of removing invasive plant species and replanting with native plants. They then care for the restored areas for a few years to prevent the invasive plants from returning and to insure the survival of the native plants. Once enough critical habitat is in place for the needs of each phase of the salmon’s life cycle, it becomes possible for their populations to recover.

Our objective is to empower average citizens to be involved with the restoration organizations in doing this work.

Grow It Forward is a group of PNW gardeners who grow valuable native tree and shrub seedlings to give to habitat restoration organizations.

05/19/2020

This shows the steps for establishing a Micro-Nursery of 100 tree seedlings.

05/19/2020

Grow It Forward is my new project. It is intended to connect average citizens with efforts to restore valuable habitat through providing tree seedlings to habitat restoration projects in our region.

What are these items in the photo? Some of the ingredients for a Grow It Forward "Micro-Nursery". 500 pounds of soil, 100 plastic pots, 100 2-yr old western hemlock starts, and a 4x8 foot square of landscape fabric. Twenty three citizen gardeners are using these and volunteering to each steward 100 tree seedlings, growing them for a period of 1 or 2 years in pots, in their gardens. After this time, the larger, more hardy tree seedlings will be planted out in forest restoration projects throughout our region to help expand critical habitat for many plants and animals, and sequestering carbon at the same time.

In the Pacific North West, environmental organizations are particularly focused on restoring specific bits of critical habitat along rivers and in wetlands that are in turn, nurseries for salmon. Past human development has destroyed most of this critical salmon habitat, driving them slowly to extinction and harming other species that depend on them, like orca whales, and humans. Grow It Forward lets individuals create a direct connection with healing our natural ecosystems. Just as important, it connects those citizens to the many non-profit environmental restoration organizations that do the hard work of identifying critical bits of damaged habitat, getting permission from the owners to restore it, and performing the expensive, difficult work of removing invasive plants and planting native species to eventually re-establish forests of native species. These forests shade and cool the water and provide cover and insects beneficial to the adult and juvenile salmon.