Eckerd College Campus Garden

A Visit to the Dancing Goat

2012-01-18T20:43:00.000-08:00

This morning Forest and I headed out to Tampa to visit Pam Lunn and her urban dairy farm, The Dancing Goat. We were on a mission to pick up a truck load of goat poo to fertilizer our garden. It'd been a year since I last came to the Dancing Goat, and I was thoroughly looking forward to it. Pam and the volunteers on the farm are welcoming, and her animals are always full of personality (then again, what goat isn't?). We mucked out a stall, all the while chatting about how much we love the smell of a barn: hay, animals, feed, musty-dusty wood, and manure...mmm. Seriously, I love it.

We got the poo we came for, and we also got to visit all of the goats, the barn cat, the horse, and two precious week-old kid goats! We also learned that Joel Salatin of Polyface, Inc. will be coming to Tampa April 19th to speak at an event called Salatin on the Suncoast. The event will be dinner and a talk by Salatin at Roosevelt 2.0, and awesome gathering place I can't wait to check out. For those who can't make it to the dinner, there will be simulcast events--"meet your local Joels"--where people can meet sustainable farmers, gardeners, and thinkers in their area and watch Joel's talk virtually. Eckerd's Sol Food Grow-Op intends to host one of the simulcast events, so keep an eye out!

This Sunday at 1pm we'll be having another workday out in the garden, so put on your gardening hats and come on out!

As always, grow strong and plant lots of seeds.
--Deb

Goats in an argan tree! (http://www.bellasugar.com/How-Goats-Climb-Trees-Help-Produce-Argan-Oil-9845988)

Digging Back In, and Digging Being Back

2012-01-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

Well fellow gardeners, thus begins Winter Term and all of the garden maintenance and pre-planting preparation that goes with it. Last Sunday we had a workday in which students and friends came out and helped water, weed, and clear some sod for a future strawberry patch and other plants. The weather was perfect--I'm hoping we'll have a couple more weeks of this mild weather because it sure makes working out in the garden all the more enjoyable.
Some of the projects we hope to accomplish before the end of the month include:

Making a trip to some local farms to pick up manure
Fertilizing our beds and trees with the manure, compost, and compost tea we've been collecting
Clearing some more bed space for the spring
Scrounging for lumber to make a gazebo to put at the center of the garden
Planting some crops (like the awesome quinoa Willow LaMonte graciously gave out at her talk for Slow Food Tampa Bay)

We'll be having workdays every Sunday at 1pm during the month of January, and a couple of us will be out weekdays tending the garden from 4:30 'til sundown. Come on out!

--Deb

Here are some pictures from our Sunday Fun-day:

Various beans from the 3 sisters patch we collected for seeds

A view of the beds from the north

Our recycled water fountain-planter with an airplane plant and purslane!

Lovely bulletin board/sign painted by Autumn Term volunteers

Sunflowers!

Forest tends the sunflowers

Cucumber sign...only no cucumbers to go with it at the moment...

Some of the Sunday group clear weeds off the old dirt pile to make a new bed: we're thinking a crescent-shaped sweet potato and sunflower mound?

Caitlin rakes away the weeds!

Cooke ties up a tomato

Forest plants some marigolds, our tried and true companion plant

We gather around the planting table to take a brake from shoveling

Found this guy in the old dirt pile...I hope they don't find our produce!

Fall Harvest Festival Announcement!

2011-11-23T09:33:00.001-08:00

We are preparing for our annual Fall Harvest Festival at the garden. It will be Saturday, Dec. 10 from 4pm-7pm, with a potluck dinner (bring your favorite dish!), live music, and fun activities.

But here's what we need from you: Musicians, performers, speakers, or any other talents you want to share! Please email Andrea Willingham (willinam@eckerd.edu) as soon as possible -- preferably THIS WEEK -- if you can help with this or know someone who can. We need to know who will be performing so we can put together a flyer and spread the word.

Thank you, and hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

Garden in Photos

2011-11-13T16:15:00.001-08:00

Check out some photos taken today of the garden!

Ghost chilis ("Caution: Super Hot!")

Our lone melon

Freshly painted and marked beds

Turnip greens

Newly refurbished trellises

Peas and corn

Peanuts!

Entire garden

Keyhole garden

Our awesome blackberry bush

Three sisters garden

Herb spiral

Lizard home :)

Aaand we're back!

2011-11-10T16:32:00.001-08:00

The Eckerd College Campus Garden blog is back up and running! New updates will be posted soon with pictures of our freshly painted, planted, and beautifully growing garden for the 2011-12 school year!

Until we get pictures up though, here's a short list of what's new in the garden this year:

Three Sisters Garden - This is a round bed that combines horticultural techniques of low-growing squash and pumpkins, tall-growing corn, and climbing beans to utilize natural plant structures
Keyhole Garden - Specialized walled off garden for different types of plants
Trees - We have tons of trees that are helping to act as windbreaks in the field, including Crape Myrtles, figs, a banana tree, avocado, and citrus
Berries - We have a huge blackberry teepee now
Herb Spiral - Newly refurbished from last semester
Compost - Restarting the composting system, with compost bins purchased from our Carbon Offset Fund for every dorm complex. There will be a team starting up to collect compost once a week.
Art - We are working on painting all the beds and beautifying the garden with flowers, artwork, and more.
Cultural Bed - Most of our plants are heirloom or native varieties, but we have one bed for more exotic plants from around the world, including Venezuelan Peppers
Peanuts! - We are experimenting with growing peanuts, just 'cause it looked like fun. :-)

More updates later, so stay tuned!

-Andrea

P.S. Until we get pictures up, enjoy this photo montage from last year's growing season:

Harvest Fest Music

2011-05-19T17:25:00.001-07:00

Luckily for the garden (but not so much for us gardeners!), it poured down rain last weekend. Normally this is something we look forward to, but Saturday was our annual spring harvest festival, and incidentally the biggest one we've had yet.

Fortunately, we were able to move everything into a building for the evening, and, although it would have been nice to be outside, we enjoyed a huge potluck of food mostly made from garden-grown ingredients. We had a great turnout as well, including students and outside community members, many of whom were first-time visitors.

For me, the highlight of the evening was the incredible lineup of talented musicians who came to play for us. I was really impressed not only by the quality of their music, but also the creativeness and messages in much of their music. It really set the tone for a busy finals week, and reminded me how fortunate we are to have the garden, and the beautiful and amazing people who make it what it is.

Enjoy the music!

Fresh Florida

2011-04-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday I finally achieved something that I have long wanted to accomplish. I was able to create a full meal completely from food that was available with in walking, and paddling distance of Eckerd. While the garden has been a reliable and rewarding source of fresh produce, as an omnivore I was always left wanting the sustenance provided from some sort of meat. While the vegetarian lifestyle is admirable it is just not for me. The animal part of my meal was always the hardest to provide.

With a plan and a few words of advice from a close friend who has been feeding people with fish he catches for many years, I went to the waterfront with some shrimp for bait, a fishing pole, and not much else. I checked a fishing kayak out from the waterfront and pushed off from the dock headed out toward Indian Key just south of Eckerd. My targeted prey was speckled sea trout. I had been given a few pointers on bait selection and the areas where I could find the fish, shallow grass beds are the best place to start. There are many of these grass beds surrounding the island so it made sense to start there.

I put a shrimp on the line and threw it out. The plan was to let the shrimp drift with the boat and see what happens. Within about five minutes the drag on the reel started to scream indicating a strike on the line. I panicked and grab the rod and reel and started frantically reeling in the line. Not having an exact plan, I reeled the fish in next to the boat and sure enough there was a 22 inch trout on the line. I had brought a mesh dive bag with me that I used to keep diving equipment in, and I figured it would work to keep the fish contained, but still in the water. I grabbed the fish and threw it in the boat. It took a few tries to get a good grip to take the hook out, trout are quite slippery. After that I opened the bag and threw the fish in. I tied the bad to a cleat on the kayak and that was that, I had caught dinner.

It all seemed so easy, why hadn't I done this before? I think the overall idea just seemed much more daunting than it really is. People had been surviving like this for thousands of years yet most of us, myself included, seem to think it is impossible, or at the very least improbable. Yet I managed it in less than half an hour. While I was getting the fish situated in the boat I was being pushed by the wind toward the opening of Indian Key. Those who are familiar with it know that there are old cement pilings that stick out of the water across the entrance, remnants of an old shrimp farm from what I'm told. As I looked up I realized that I was only about 20 feet from colliding with a piling. I also noticed something sitting on the piling, a bald eagle. It was just sitting there, watching the comedy of errors it seemed, hoping I would drop the fish and it would have an easy meal. I slowly paddled away back out toward the grassy area to cast again, and the whole time the eagle just watched, sort of an inspirational reminder of the balance of things.

I stayed out for about two hours and caught another 5 or 6 trout, but none were big enough to keep, they need to be at least 15 inches. I paddled back to the waterfront and went through the normal docking procedure of rinsing and returning items. I grabbed the mesh bag with its contents still struggling and put it in a bucket full of ice. After a short walk back to Omega the fish was still and I was in my apartment faced with the task of filleting a fish...something I have no experience with. I again called a friend for guidence, and watched a few youtube videos on how to fillet this exact species. It all all seemed easy enough. I grabbed the fillet knife that came with the knife set I had bought years earlier and went to work. I soon realized there is in fact a bit of an art to filleting, and that the tools, aka the knife, make a huge difference. I managed to get most of the meat without completely butchering the fish. After being rinsed the fillets went in a bag and in the fridge for later that night. I cleaned up myself and the kitchen and headed for the garden. I grabbed a couple of carrots, some bush beans, a small squash, and an onion with thoughts of stir fry vegetable hash. By the time I started walking back to Omega it was starting to get dark, and the day seemed to all make sense. I had secured the food I needed and was ready to begin cooking.

I chopped the veggies, and tossed them with a clove of garlic and some olive oil on the stove. The fish was treated with a healthy amount of cajun spices, a small amount of butter, wrapped it all up in tinfoil and then popped it in the oven. 15-20 minutes later everything was tender and ready to eat. All in all it was one of the most satisfying days I've had in a long time. I had provided entirely for myself with food provided to me by the land and sea all within half a mile of where I lived. I'm excited to try my hand at fishing again, and trying different preparation techniques. Now that I have an idea of what it takes, the options seem endless, all it took was a little bit of time, work, and knowledge.

Presidential Lunch

2011-04-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

On March 30th President Eastman hosted a lunch on campus for leaders in the St. Petersburg community. In an effort to support the community initiative of sustainability the President asked if the garden would be willing and able to contribute fresh produce to the lunch. I worked with Leonora, and Kip in a meeting with the head of our dining services, Jamie Llovera, and the Director of Special Events, Jamie Llovera. They are in fact two different people, and they also happened to be married. Eckerd is in more ways than one a close knit family.

We agreed to provide fresh Swiss Chard, Radishes, Carrots, and Dill to incorporate into the overall menu for the lunch. I went out the day before the lunch and harvested as much produce as was ready and walked it over to the Cafe Kitchen. There was roughly 35 carrots, about a pound and a half of swiss chard, two dozen radishes, and a large hand full of fresh dill.

2011-04-14T18:55:00.000-07:00

A Trip to Fancy Town

Over spring break Leo, Mike and I and a group of 11 other enthusiastic workers went on a service trip to Durham, NC. We stayed at a place in what is called the "rural buffer" of the city where four young men, including Eckerd ES alumnus Dylan Hammond, are working to transform an old tobacco homestead into a self-sustainable, off-the-grid home. They envision a homestead that will have no need for outside energy sources and an organic garden and orchard that will supply the home with food, allow them to sell produce and be a CSA site. When we arrived they had a compostable toilet, outhouse, rain-water collection system which supplies the whole house with water, a small garden, and big plans.

We helped them lay the foundation for a passive solar room and an outdoor kitchen, clear trees in the place of a future orchard (and planted blueberries!), renovate the kitchen, build a porch, and expand their garden by more than twice its original size. On Thursday we volunteered at NEEM (Natural Environmental Ecological Management), an urban organic garden organization in Durham doing various work to help them transform an abandoned florist shop/greenhouse/garden into a working CSA site.

Since being back here at the garden, we've been made plans to renovate our compost system and build a gravity-driven drip irrigation system. We've planted more trees including fig, peach, and avocado, and our plans for improving our community outreach have been emphasized. The trip was refreshing, and being able to see so much progress in so little time was exciting. But what was most inspiring was working alongside like-minded people, both at the homestead and at NEEM, who see our future as one in dire need of sustainable practices and a new appreciation for farming and food. Everything is tied together by agriculture, yet our agriculture system is unsustainable. With education and the implication of practices and infrastructures like the ones we learned about during the trip we could very well save ourselves from unhealthy lives and worse. I'm thrilled to see what becomes of the little farm in the rolling meadows of North Carolina and the seeds we planted there...I'm thrilled to see what becomes of the knowledge and understanding it planted in us.

Deborah

March Means Spring, Sprouts, Signs and a Drip Irrigation System

2011-03-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

So much work being done. I wish I had more time to lend a hand and even just time to write about it. The Campus Garden continues to grow in multiple ways. Michael Loop and Tommy Leonard have installed piping for a primitive drip irrigation system. This will allow us to control our water use much more accurately (as we slowly move toward a rain harvesting system) and to ensure targeted watering. The soils of Florida are much more sandy than anywhere I have ever been and drip irrigation seems the best way to get water to the roots and plants.

It's working, as the sprouts are sprouting:

There is now a water faucet with a hose connector right in the middle of the garden. While I don't have pictures, there are also new additions of trees somewhere around the perimeter and plans for one more bed of vegetables.

The bulletin board was also installed last weekend and if I had had time to go out there this weekend, I would have pictures of the plexiglass door constructed by Jamey. We are now participants in the locally grown online store here in St. Petersburg: St. Pete Locally Grown : so if you're looking for fresh chemical free local produce, please think of us. All proceeds are reinvested in the garden.

Our Friday meetings are proving to help keep momentum on the many many projects we have all taken on this semester. We have a great core team and a growing number of community members and participants.

Bon Appetit will be serving food from our garden more and more as the semester wears on, and we are providing some food for a major event in St. Petersburg in two weeks.

The hard work is starting to pay off all around.

Prof. Kip Curtis

Environmental Studies

How the garden grows

2011-03-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

Each day I come out to the garden, I am amazed by how quickly it's growing. Today I came out to find that new, sturdy trellises had been built over the weekend for our fast-growing beans and peas. Carrots were practically jumping out of the ground, and our lush beds of herbs and greens are bursting into full bloom.

The garden has also become at least a temporary home to several varieties of trees and bushes in the last week or so, due to the ongoing construction of Eckerd's new Molecular Sciences Building on campus.

Early March in the Campus Garden

2011-03-09T15:38:00.000-08:00

This spring we've begun a regular everyone meeting on Friday mornings. We've got faculty starting to use the garden a little bit to supplement their courses, and new efforts to coordinate with Bon Appetit. The Eckerd students are doing amazing things. Food is planted and the garden looks ready to go!

Jamey Handorf, Assistant Director of Residential Life, has run the Student Affairs side of this project for the past year, and continues to add a great deal of value to the project. His rain barrels captured a bunch of rain in this past weekend's downpour. He brought a group of parents out on parents' weekend. And he continues to play a critical role as liaison and project coordinator. The garden is fortunate to have such a dedicated contributor who seems to have developed his own passion for organic gardening.

Here are the beds looking south. One of these has been half-planted with potato seeds by Professor Gaskill's botany class, who visited two weeks ago and pulled some carrots at the same time as part of their lesson on roots. I have never grown potatoes from seed, so I am not sure how long it will take them to sprout.

Here are the same beds looking north. We have squash and potato, carrots and kale, swiss chard and radishes, and all sorts of cilantro and leafy things bolting with white flowers that we hope will go to seed. It is always windy when we meet on Friday morning, so there are usually very few pollinators. But they undoubtedly visit some time during the day.

These scarlet flowers are the first signs of activity that we hope will lead to raspberries. Tommy Leonard worked through Winter Term and continues this Spring to landscape and enhance the overall look of the garden. He added raspberries, blueberries, and pineapple as potential permaculture fruits.

This looks like a gourd leaf to me. But it is probably a cucumber's primary leaves. There are plans for more planting and weeding. There are also plans to build a bulletin board and perhaps put up a sign. The garden needs a name, which students are going to have a contest to decide.

And this is the three-sisters plot, complete with potato tires. The mound in the background is the remaining topsoil for planting. So much activity. This week the garden club was going to try to deal with the fire ant problem the garden has developed. They took my Coleman stove and were going to pour boiling water over the mounds. Prof. Spohrer's Writing the Environment class visited the garden last Thursday and Tommy Leonard gave them a tour. Tomorrow morning, Introduction to Sociology will be visiting. And, finally, I am working with a student to develop a workshop so that nearby elementary school classes can come visit the garden, help plant or weed or harvest some food, and have a nice local meal. We hope to launch that project next Fall.

We are grateful for all of the interest.

Kip Curtis

Asst. Professor of Environmental Studies

February 2011

2011-02-23T18:43:00.000-08:00

Harvesting the Rain

2011-02-18T07:44:00.000-08:00

Eckerd College's Campus Garden finally has the capability of harvesting rain water. Rain water collection is especially important at Eckerd College and in Pinellas County. Most of Pinellas County does not have an aquifer beneath its soil. Rather salt water has intruded inland. This forces us to pump our drinking water from further north. This is a big deal when you consider the sheer volume that is required to support Pinellas County, the most densely populated county in Florida.

Planting season

2011-01-25T06:25:00.000-08:00

Its that time of year again. This January represents the one year anniversary of the creation of Eckerd Colleges vegetable garden. January also means that it is time to put plants in the ground. We have already began sowing seeds into the ground. We have also started transplanting some plants. The most exciting new planting represents one of out first experiments. Eckerd has long worked on the project of removing invasive species from campus especially Brazilian pepper.We cut back some brazilian pepper and planted three young avocado trees in the garden along the Brazilian pepper tree line. The plants were donated and started by an Eckerd student. Avocado trees have very extensive and aggressive root systems that often out compete other plants within a 15-20 ft. radius. Planting these trees is an experiment to see if as the trees develop will they be able to choke out the invasive brazillian pepper.

We have also planted a new established pineapple plant. However we will have to keep it alive until for several more years if we want it to produce. Our last batch of pineapples fell victim to the lawnmower after the summer. We are rooting an addition eight pineapples to put in the ground soon.

Some of the plants we planted last year are also still producing and doing well such as many of our greens including lettuce, swiss chard, and spinach. Broccoli is also producing and we have an abundance of huge carrots.

Winter Term

2011-01-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

vermaculture

The quiet and calmness that winter term often brings has sent some students out into the garden. Here Cristina Pucci mixes goat manure with worm castings from the vermaculture. This organic fertilizer is used to supplement plant nutrition in our sandy soil and raised beds.

2011-01-11T09:03:00.000-08:00

November

2010-11-18T17:41:00.000-08:00

2010-09-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

You're invited to join us on Saturday, Sept. 11th from 1-3:30pm to plant this season's crops. Afterward, please come back for the 6-8pm garden potluck! Bring a dish and feel free to bring any musical instruments or drums for a drum circle, and just hang out, enjoy discussion, and get to know each other and the EC Community Garden.

So, we will be planting and working from 1-3:30pm, and eating dinner from 6-8pm on Saturday, Sept. 11th. Anyone who brings a dish will be reimbursed!

Please come join us and invite all your friends! We always have a great time and would love to have you there.

Into the Streets

2010-09-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

This Autumn term freshmen came out in forces to clear beds for planting. A team of students came out for several hours for service learning's community service project, into the streets. The following day additional students (some repeat) came out to participate in the garden again this time to receive a stamp in their autumn term yellow booklets. Students removed weeds and tilled the soil in record breaking time. Now beds are really to be planted by students this coming Saturday.

Harvest Festival Photo Credit:Joanisa Tenreiro

2010-06-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

Harvest Festival

2010-06-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

The Cost of "Modern" Agriculture

2010-05-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

Children exposed to higher levels of a type of pesticide found in trace amounts on commercially grown fruit and vegetables are more likely to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than children with less exposure, a nationwide study suggests. (CNN.com)

Read the entire article here

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/05/14/pesticides.adhd/index.html

This article once again shows how important what we are doing on campus really is. This opportunity to produce food that is healthy and does not actually do harm to us is really something special. As a society we need to move away from pesticides and chemical fertilizers and go back to the effective natural and organic methods that have been working for thousands of years. This year has proven to students that you can successfully grow food without consuming costly and environmentally destructive products. We need to realize what major producers are really doing to the food they manufacture, and think about the transportation required to get food from the farm to our plate.

Think, Live, Shop, and Eat ORGANIC

Harvest Fest

2010-05-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon!

The EC community garden will be holding their very first harvest festival at the garden between the baseball and soccer fields on campus from 5-8 pm on THIS FRIDAY! There will be fresh cooked food from the garden served as well as speakers, bands and garden tours!
You can come to the garden after the Natural Science dinner, and you are highly encouraged to bring your own plate and utensils!

We hope to see your smiling faces on Friday!

2010-05-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

The first EVER harvest festival for the garden is going to take place this Friday, May 14 from 5-8pm next to the garden! There will be some speakers, garden tours and bands, but the main part of the event will be the food.

Here is what we have to work with in the garden as of right now:
LOTS OF:
radish
kale
collards
yellow squash
fennel
dill
chives

some:
string beans
potatoes
zucchini
cucumber
cilantro

maybe some:
cherry tomatoes
beets
spinach
carrots

If anyone wants to make something with any of those ingredients, let us know by posting on the blog.  We will be able to get additional funding to supplement any ingredients that we have not grown in the garden.

Aquaponics!

2010-05-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

This is an aquaponics experiment that an Eckerd College student has set up in a dorm room. This system is a small scale version of what students and Bon Appetite Food Services hope to implement in the campus garden. Aquaponics is an idea of sustainably raising both food and plants in a closed system. The idea combines aquaculture with hydroponically growing food.

Fish produce large amounts of nitrogen as a by product of their waste. Nitrogen is the key fertilizer that certain green leafy plants such as spinach utilize. Water rich in nitrogen is pumped out of the fish tank and is then used to hydroponically grow food. One of the biggest advantages of this closed system agriculture comes from the health benefits found in the fish. Fish grown in a closed system are guaranteed not to bioaccumulate pollutants such as mercury. In addition, aquaponics is a form of recycling. Waste produced by the fish is utilized by the plants, and the plants clean the water so that the fish can survive.

Aquaponics systems are cheap and as easy as a fish tank to maintain. The fish, (a species of tilapia), building materials, and duck weed (used for fish food) were all obtained from Eckerd campus. Tilapia are a good species of fish to raise in Florida, due to their ability to live in high temperatures.

*This system has only been running for a week, and spinach takes 8-10 days to germinate. Check back next week to see what has sprouted!

CCJ march and presentation of petition

2010-04-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

Collards Farm to Fork

2010-04-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

April 30th

2010-04-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today was a big day in the garden. Today is the first day when students have had the opportunity to reap the rewards of their labors. Yesterday, Thursday afternoon students harvested collards, beans, and peas. E, the head chef for Bon Appetite, cooked the collards for a luncheon for the housekeepers held in the garden. E prepared the collards in a vegetarian southern style with brown sugar seasoning. They were delicious. Students also shared their beans and peas with president Eastman. They were served today in a lunch that he held.

After the Coalition for Community Justice (CCJ) sponsored housekeeper luncheon students began to gather in the garden in force. Students then marched through campus gaining numbers as they peacefully walked and chanted for a better wage. The march led students to president Eastman's office where they presented the president with a petition signed by one third of the student body advocating raising workers wages on campus to a living wage. President Eastman was very receptive and spoke with students and participated in an open discussion on the topic of workers wages. Look for an article in the St. Pete Times or for a report on the news. The days events were evidence of the community building power of the garden.

Por Kev

2010-04-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

Garden Pictures

2010-04-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

Drip Irrigation!

first signs of success

2010-04-26T22:14:00.000-07:00

Art Explosion

2010-04-25T19:09:00.000-07:00

On April 20th Eckerd students took part in a day of art and upkeep. Students came out to the garden for several hours to partake in art project to beautify and add character to the schools new campus vegetable garden. Art projects included creating wind chimes, painting garden structures, building seating, building flower beds, and planting flowers. In addition to beautification planting flowers also played a more functional role: that of pest management. Students took part in an effort to implement elements of integrated pest management into the blossoming garden. Students pla
nted marigolds in and the end of the beds. Marigolds produce a scent that repels a wide range of common pests from insects to rodents. Other elements of integrated pest management that were used include the release of 1800 ladybugs, and the building of structures to provide shelter for lizards. Both animals are being introduced into the garden in an effort to control pest through the means of predation. The first crops of beans and peas were harvested.