Map of Duncan MacArthur Hall, edited from Queen’s PDF to show directions to gardens and watering stations

Nestled Garden

The nestled garden is not directly accessible from the building because doors are often locked. Instead, go down the hallway The Studio is in, out the left hand doors, and through the gate. There are three large rectangular beds, a small triangular bed, and many window boxes and other containers.

Because of the surrounding buildings, the nestled garden receives ample shade in mornings and evenings, and harsh direct sunlight midday.

There are three active rain water collection barrels in the nestled garden. Before watering, be sure to check the right hand rain barrel and empty from it first because it receives the run off water from the middle rain barrel. If (when) the water in the middle rain barrel runs out, water must be collected.

Collecting Water

During Summer months, Kingston experiences drought-like conditions. Because of this, the water collection barrels will run out ~weekly with consistent bed watering. To refill the water beds, email edhelp@queensu.ca at least one day in advance to secure a cart to help move water.

During the organized window, bring available empty buckets inside to the cart and wheel it through the Tech Ed hallway and out to the Paul Park Garden breezeway. Locate the hose immediately to the right of the doors and fill the buckets. Then, push the loaded cart back across the hallway and carry each bucket through the doors. Empty the buckets into the rain barrels.

I recommend leaving the cart halfway through the second set of doors so you don’t have to pull the full cart over the lip while also trying to hold the door open for yourself. I also recommend assigning this weekly task to a team of 2-3 people so they can set up a regular time to have the cart available.

Watering Woopsies

*these instructions were written before knowledge about the hose beside the ITEP gardens*

To collect water from indoors, first collect a few buckets and a large tube from beside the shed. The, navigate to the change rooms inside. The large tube fits over the shower head, but has a toonie-sized hole in it so you must be mindful of how you hold it while filling buckets. Use the door that attaches to The Studio hallway instead of carrying buckets through the gym and along Student Street.

Hillside Garden

The hillside garden has multiple water barrels; however, the rainwater collection is currently broken. During first session, be sure to fill the barrels with the hose beside John Orr Tower. Always make sure to return the hose and ensure it is packed away nicely! The program can lose water access privileges if it is damaged or put away messily.

The hillside garden features 8 garden beds, and two of them are reserved for other Queen’s community use. Because of rock base, the garden beds are shallow, so we recommend planting fibrous root vegetables such as pumpkins and corn, instead of taproot vegetables such as carrots.