Ithaca College Organic Garden

Our completely student run, on-campus garden consists of 50 raised beds structures housing a wide variety of organic vegetables, herbs, fruits, and native plants. The Ithaca College Organic Garden is a unique opportunity for students to learn about and experiment with many aspects of sustainable gardening and farming practices, including permaculture design, crop rotation, companion planting, four-season food production, and heirloom seed saving.

Leading:

Co-Manager of the Organic Garden

As co-manager of the Organic Garden, I work with the other garden manager and student leaders as a small team to coordinate all aspects of planning, production, and harvest for the IC Organic Garden.

My responsibilities include planning the garden, preparing soil, employing season extension techniques, planting row cover, coordinating the crop rotation, and implementing organic and integrative pest management.

I also work together with the other garden leaders to plan, advertise, and lead educational workdays. We host monthly harvest dinners, where we gather our volunteers to cook and share a meal together with produce that we worked so hard to produce as a community.

Teaching:

Course Assistant for "Gardens: Design and Practice"

In addition to running the garden, I take an immense joy from teaching others about our garden and the wider view of sustainable agriculture. With a few other students, I designed a 1-credit course focusing on the basics of garden design and practice. I now co-teach the course to my peers, creating lesson plans and coordinating class activities and assignments. The course is currently in its third semester of running.

As part of the course, each "course assistant" leads a group of four or five students in a side project, where students can learn a particular subject to a deeper level. This spring, I led a group of dedicated students in exploring season extension options for the Organic Garden. Together we applied for and received a Commit-to-Change Career Development grant to refurbish an old, falling apart greenhouse structure. The old structure is in the process of being stabilized, and will soon receive new walls and ceiling made of transparent corrugated plastic.

For more information about the Ithaca College Organic Garden, please visit:

https://www.facebook.com/IthacaCollegeOrganicGarden

http://www.ithaca.edu/orgs/garden/