Organic Garden Gives Back

 

Emily VanWyk '11 and Andy Smith '11 of the Colby Organic Gardening Club, tend their crops.

Students interested in sustainability have brought the concept to Colby’s dining halls. From mid-June through October, students in Colby’s new Organic Gardening Club have been contributing produce to Colby’s dining halls—everything from lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers to carrots, beets, and garlic.

Two students, Ben Hummel ’11 and Andy Smith ’11, took the lead on tending the garden this summer. The primary crop provided to the dining halls was lettuce, and, according to Associate Director of Dining Services Joe Klaus, people reacted favorably to the local organic produce. “What it seemed to do was generate good conversation about Colby’s sustainable practices,” he said.

The club now has dozens of members, and students are exploring ways to increase production in upcoming years. While quantities have allowed only for sporadic use of student-produced veggies, Dining Services has found ways to maximize the impact. They designated Oct. 15 “Garlic Fest,” and dining halls held to the theme. On the menus? Shrimp scampi, garlic, spinach and cheese stuffed roast pork, garlic mashed potatoes, and more.

And for dessert: garlic ice cream. Created especially for Colby by Shain’s of Maine using garlic from the garden, this unusual item was paired with roasted mandarin orange crepes and ginger sauce. Seventy-five pounds of garlic put to good use.

Click here to see a student-produced video about the garden.

Comments

• On December 8, 2008, Phil DuPerry wrote:
  As a long term organic gardiner at the Colby Gardens, it is exciting for me to see the Colby students tending their plot. Too many today take for granted the very food we all enjoy on our tables and know nothing of the process by which it is obained. This is an effort that should be highly commended by the administration and fellow students at Colby. It certainly is by those that understand how far we have strayed from our roots. Phil Organic Gardiner / Unity College Faculty
• On January 5, 2009, Jessica Peaches wrote:
  If anyone reading this wants a real true explanation of why all the "new foods", those mis-shapen foods and so forth, and how this can be counteracted to restore the genetic integrity of the plant-life on earth, and what is being done by the "Cleanie Greenies" (people who like things organic, green, that we are Lightworkers, healers, and like creating new health products and recipes on Earth, and that we have ONE member (literally, as yet); and we don't take marijuana or anything like it, etc.), welcome to the CELESTIAL COSMIC AGE TRUST, we are only too willing to share information, not just to send it upon request, but also to learn from others, should they like to contact ourselves at Celestial Cosmic Age Trust. There is a new technology that helps re-organise atoms, molecules and so forth by silently, quietly, and wonderfully well, via HEALING, that can naturally many problems, using natural energies, and that such things are safe, effective, so if your foods are mis-shapen by any way at all, contact ourselves. WE don't sell the New Technology, we advise about it. WE oppose g.m. and g.e., and g.s., all those unnatural things that organics is right to avoid. We wish you well, and thank you for going on the Net about Colby. Our addresss is: Celestialhealth@slingshot.co.nz, Jessica Peaches, F1, 5 Coates Street, Hamilton, New Zealand. If you are travelling here, welcome to my home, write ahead first please so I can buy some biscuits, I cannot accommodate others overnight, however I can advise about where you may wish to stay. Ph: (07) 859 3461. I've read an article in a magazine that Australia is said to be the safest places for people to live in these days, it was in Sedona Magazine, the author of the article is a North American Shaman. I do believe it's true. So if you wish to leave your own nation and go somewhere else, another nation, we advise Australia as best (it would cost quite a lot of money to go there if the person was living in the Northern Hemisphere.)