The History of Sustainability at Saint Martin's

Saint Martin's University has a rich history of sustainability and continues to aim at sustainable practices today.  This video gives a brief overview of that history.  Also check out  Saint Martin's Insights Magazine, which comes out the third week of December.

Winter Garden

It is time for another garden party in the Learning Garden!

Growing your own food can save you a lot of money and help you eat well.

Local expert gardener, Lynn Villella, will lead a workshop on how to winterize your garden. Lynn will show us how to prepare the garden beds for the winter and what kind of crops to plant.

Drop by for a free hands on “Winter Garden” workshop in the SMU Learning Garden.

Tuesday, Nov 15
Between 9:30 and 1pm (drop by any time, stay as long as you like)
The Learning Garden (outside of the dining hall)

Be prepared to pull radishes, plant garlic, have some hot cider and more!

FYS students planting our own Kale seedling and put up cloche

We plant our own transplants into a Garden bed and put a cloche over to protect them.

Heirloom Tomatoes

ripe in the garden

Food Summit

Sustainable South Sound is putting on the Food Summit.

"The goal of the Food Summit is to bring our community together to celebrate, network and develop an action plan for a safe, local and sustainable food system."

Read more about it here.

October 14 community potluck and activities are all FREE! The keynote speaker, Mark Winne is the author of Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart Cookin’ Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture and Closing the Food Gap.

Art in the Garden

Olympia artist David Scherer Water will be holding an art workshop in the SMU garden next Tuesday, July 19 from 1:30-3:30pm.

Join the Anthropology of New Urbanism class and help make beautiful garden art out of found and recycled objects.


Please seek out and bring any plastic, metal or non-food lightweight junk you may find, acquire from housemates, family. Broken toys are great.

David Scherer Water enjoys making things out of junk. He's the artist responsible for "The Flat Win Company" which sells neatly packaged found materials back to people. Products include empty beer cans, burnt toast, twigs and small bags of gravel. David got his first "big break" as a visual artist when he was given permission to decorate the lobby and halls of a small apartment complex in downtown Olympia, The Martin Building.

A New Service Program - Grow Gardens in Schools

Wondering what to do after you graduate next year? Take a look at this awesome new program. It's like Americorps but all about growing gardens.

"The vision for FoodCorps is to recruit young adults for a yearlong term of public service in school food systems. Once stationed, FoodCorps members will build Farm to School supply chains, expand food system and nutrition education programs, and build and tend school food gardens.

The ultimate goal of the organization is to increase the health and prosperity of vulnerable children while investing in the next generation of farmers and public health leaders."

This seems like a great opportunity to participate in the new garden revolution. And there are other perks too. Participants receive the following benefits:

A biweekly stipend totaling $15,000 for the year
Health insurance, if not covered under another policy
Child care, if necessary
Student loan forbearance
A $5,550 Education Award for past or future education
Career mentoring, professional development, and strong work experience

Garden Visitors

Garden Parties should always start with lunch in the sun.
for more pics go here

There was a new visitor squatting on the side of the shed - a wasp. She didn't bother us.

and another one, lounging on a mint leaf - a lady bug with no dots.

we built a trellis, planted some lettuce and weeded and fed the strawberries.

Thanks to Tanya from Bon Appetit for feeding us with iced tea and treats!!

for more pics go here

Garden Party #2 2011

The sun is finally out and the weather report says that it should get up into the 70s this week. Come garden with us tomorrow Wed May 18, 12-1pm. We will be planting, weeding and building stuff in the garden. Bring your lunch and eat outside!

First Garden Party 2011

Wake up the Garden!

Come to our first Spring garden party this Friday, April 8 from 2-4. Get the soil ready, plant some seeds, pull some weeds. It's your garden too!

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Subscribing for a CSA share is a way to buy your veggies directly from the farmer. Most CSAs have a pick-up location where you can pick up your box of produce weekly. You sign up for a season and whatever is ripe and ready, arrives in your box on a set day of the week. You never know exactly what will show up. There is an element of surprise each time you open the box. Sometimes you get to try out something you've never had before.

Some things we like about CSAs are that they support local farmers; we get the freshest seasonal and local food; and less fuel is needed to transport the food since it goes directly from the local farm to a nearby pick-up site to our kitchens. It's good for us, the farmers and the environment.

The Sustainability Committee has been working with Bon Appétit and Full Circle Farm to set up a pick-up location for such a CSA on the SMU campus. Imagine being able to pick up a fresh box of organic, seasonal veggies while you're at school!

There are many CSA options in the area and you might pick one based on price, pick-up location, seasonal options, frequency of delivery, etc. Take a look here to see what farms are offering CSA shares near your home.

A few of us who live on Olympia's east side have been pretty happy with Rising River Farm's shares.

Sustainable Business

Are you interested in sustainable business practices? You might find this new book by Zingerman's co-founding partner Ari Weinzweig, an interesting read. During my days as an undergrad at the U of Michigan, I sampled many of Zing's tasty treats. Over the last 30 years, the small Jewish deli has turned into an impressive instution with a bakery, creamery, roastery, restaurant and a candy store that supports local farmers, values good food and practices sustainability.

Winterizing Your Own Garden

Hello again to all our readers, volunteers, and fellow garden and sustainability enthusiasts,

For those of you who, like me, are perhaps more enthusiasts and less experts, we have been doing some further research about important things to remember when putting your garden down to hibernate for the winter months. The following are some important and easy tips and tasks to remember to preserve your garden until Puxatony Phil announces the arrival of spring:

• Rake the leaves—Leaves might seem like a natural cover and a good insulator, but they can mat, and suffocate your plants. So rake them up, and compost, compost, compost.
  
  



• Pull up Annuals—Any plants that have fallen victim to frost, and won’t be coming back next year can and should be pulled up. You can add these plants to your compost, just be sure to check and throw out any you think might be diseased.
  
  




• Cut back the Perennials—Be sure to trim back any dead or unsightly leaves, etc. You probably won’t need to get rid of the whole plant, and those leaves that still look good can add some color to your winterized garden until you start growing again.
  
  




• Weed—Might seem a bit superfluous to be weeding, particularly if you aren’t planning on growing anything this winter, but this gives you the opportunity to make sure weeds don’t get the head start on you in the spring.
  
  




• Dig up tender bulbs—Any summer-blooming plants aren’t likely to survive the winter months in a USDA zone of 9, or colder. (Click on the map below to visit the USDA's website and learn more about your own area) Store bulbs in Vermiculite in a paper bag in a cool (65-degrees F or cooler), dry spot. (Tender bulbs may include: Begonias, Gladiolus, Dahlias, and other summer blooms)
  
  
  



• Protect broad leaved Evergreens—Spray them with antidesiccant. This will prevent water loss and dehydration of your plants from drying winter winds.
  (Broad leaved evergreens might include: Rhodendrons or Holly)
  
  




• Water Evergreens (and small trees)—If your fall weather is particularly dry, you want to make sure that the leaves and stems of your evergreens and trees are healthy and plump to survive the drying winds and winter months.
  
  




• Save your favorite plants before the frosts hits, small annuals and herbs can flourish and brighten up windowsills in the winter months.
  
  




• Be careful to avoid fertilizing your garden, or pruning at the end of a plant’s season, this promotes new growth that will be killed off by frost and cold. Trimming dead or damaged branches or leaves is fine though.
  



• Winter mulch Perennials—If winter temperatures are likely to fall below 10-degrees F, you should provide your perennials with winter mulch to insulate them from the cold. Simple and lightweight mulches such as: shredded autumn leaves, pine needles, or straw will work. Avoid compact mulches and whole leaves since they can suffocate your plants.
  
  But just because it’s winter doesn’t mean there aren’t plants that will flourish in your garden in the winter months. One of the things we did in winterizing our garden was to plant plants which would reintroduce nitrogen and other nutrients this year’s crops may have taken out of our soil.
  
  
  This is a sample of what the Hayes Valley Farm, an urban farm in San Francisco, does to layer and add nutrients to their soil.

Again, thank you to all of you who follow our Learning garden's progress here on the blog, and have volunteered your time and hands to keeping our garden beautiful and running smoothly. And best of luck with your own winter gardens.

Winter Garden-land

Last Friday the garden hosted an expert gardener, Lynn Villella, who walked us through the process of preparing our learning garden for the inclement weather of the winter months in the great Northwest.


And not a moment too soon, as the following days before our Thanksgiving break the garden seemed to be growing snow.


We had wonderful volunteers and hands that came out last week to help us prepare the garden for a winter hibernation. As per our usual M.O. we had rain and light showers for our garden gathering, but we still managed to recruit some brave souls to help us.

Our volunteers helped us to clean out the beds, compost old plants, and plant faba beans in the empty beds to help reintroduce some nitrogen and other nutrient goodies into the soil for next year's plants.

Gardens in front yards or other high visibility locations used to be a taboo, because of the pressure for them to be maintained and looking beautiful, but after our clean-up our expert thinks we'd pass inspection.

We also enjoyed some hot apple cider and treats from Bon Appétit.

And our volunteers even managed to take home some mint starts for themselves.

A very productive, and timely work party for our Learning garden.

Many thanks to everyone who have been following us here on the blog, and volunteering your time in the garden helping to keep it beautiful, and running smoothly. Our wonderful garden wouldn't be possible without the help from all you.

Winter Garden

This year’s theme for International Education Week is Striving for a Sustainable Future. With sustainable future in mind, gardens are becoming increasingly popular all over US campuses, in people’s homes and in cities!

For example, take a look at a San Francisco’s neighborhood recent re-use of a freeway ramp into an urban farm!

In this spirit, we are excited to offer you a Garden Workshop this coming Friday in SMU’s new campus garden.

Garden experts will be on hand to tell and show you how to prepare your gardens for the winter.

Dress to be outside and get dirty! Bon Appétit will provide hot apple cider and there will be light snacks.

At 2pm, we will gather in the St.Gertrude (dining hall) atrium for a talk, followed by some hands on work in the garden.

NOTE: the IEW poster says 3-5, but we are actually starting at 2pm!

Friday, Nov. 19
Winter Garden Planting
SMU Community Garden, 2-5 p.m.

Worldchanging for the Green

Greetings to all our readers, volunteers, and fellow garden and sustainability enthusiasts,

Last week the sustainability met to assess our progress, budget and future plans, and one of the many possibilities we addressed was introducing other valuable organizations and resources that are committed to sustainability, and possibly looking into recruiting speakers for workshops and lectures about our community learning garden, and sustainability.

One such organization that came up is local, Seattle-based “WorldChanging,” a nonprofit media group with a global network, and global goals of affecting sustainable change. Since its inception 7 years ago, Worldchanging has produced a bestselling book: “Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century,” which is widely considered an encyclopedia of all things green and sustainable, and “go-to source for forward thinking, solutions-based journalism that takes a big picture approach to sustainability,” and publishing more than 11,000 articles related articles, with local issue specific blogs for Denver, Seattle and Canada. Earning Worldchanging the honor of being rated the second largest sustainability site on the web by Nielsen Online in 2008.

“Worldchanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century,” is a 600 page compilation of solutions from across the globe. Among its many accolades it has been on Amazon’s bestseller list in both the U.S. and Canada, and won the Green Prize for sustainable literature, and one of the books of the year by BusinessWeek. The book has also been translated into French, German, and Korean, and expects to soon be available in several others.

Co-founder and Executive Editor of worldchanging.com, and editor of “Worldchanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century,” Alex Steffen, spreads the message of sustainability global through regular speaking appearances at leading companies such as Nike, Amazon, Yahoo!, and has been hosted as a keynote speaker at design and invocation conferences across the globe including Ted, Pop! Tech, as well at some of the world’s leading universities including Harvard, Yale and Stanford.

His talk last November in Seattle’s Town Hall, explored why our present global crisis requires a different approach to reach a greener future in which we can provide increased prosperity, security, and quality of life for everyone on the planet, and helped influence Seattle’s adopting the goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.

Today he will be addressing Seattle again on “The State of the Future,” where he will be presenting his new ideas on “planetary futurism,” global solutions, and the next big step towards a sustainable future.

Best of luck to Alex and Worldchanging in all their green endeavors. And to our readers, volunteers, and fellow green enthusiasts, check out the latest goals, events, and news from Worldchanging on their website, or their book for solutions for a more sustainable future.

A Delicious Harvest

Photo by Prof. David Suter

Happy Friday readers and garden enthusiasts.
As you know Wednesday found us in the garden harvesting the many delicious veggies our garden has produced in spite of the peculiar and antagonistic weather we have had this summer and fall. I am happy to report we were able to harvest some straggler radishes, broccoli, green beans, peas, squash, a great collection of tomatoes (ripened and green), and potatoes.

And the Saint Martin's Sustainability garden was able to donate a box of our harvested treats to the local Thurston County Food Bank, in spite of the fact a small percentage of the tastier veggies seemed to disappear somewhere between hand and buckets, which I wouldn't know anything about...

My roommates are probably happier to report that I was able to bring some of the harvest home with me.

We celebrated the garden harvest with a little breakfast for dinner: homemade quiche with the fresh potatoes, and broccoli. Yum.

Many thanks to all of you who have followed the garden's progress here on the blog, and volunteered your time,and green thumbs to keep our garden running, beautiful and bountiful.

The Potatoes Are In!

Warm greetings to all our readers, and volunteers who have helped to keep our garden running and beautiful.

Many of you have seen first-hand the transformation that has taken place in our learning garden since we first began with a grass, and ivy-covered patch of land beside our Dining Hall.

We're happy to announce another milestone...

The potatoes are in!

And we'd like to invite all of you to come out to help us dig them up.

We will be harvesting them next Wednesday, October 20, at 3pm .

The box of produce will be donated to the Thurston County Food Bank. So please come out and join us in supporting sustainability, our local food bank, and keeping our learning garden growing and beautiful. Thank you to all who have been following us here on the blog, and volunteering, for all your support, and lending us your green thumbs. See you Wednesday!

New Students

First Year students come to work in the garden

they mulch the tomato plants with used coffee grounds from the campus cafeteria

paint some garden signs and assemble the new compost bin

pull up more ivy

weed the ground around the garden

mount some bird houses on the fence

and pick some viggies