Summer Garden Projects

Summer is the best time in the garden! Heat and sunshine make everything beautiful. On Friday students from Dave Martin's class joined our new Garden Coordinator, Sky Myers for a work party. Dave led a group of international students in the construction of a new bin for last year's maple leaves that were in one of the raised beds.

First, they took the fence apart and removed the netting. Beneath the surface, the leaves were already beginning to decompose. We worked some of the leaves into other beds and used some as mulch. Leaf mulch helps retain water as well as keeping the weeds down. The new bin was constructed entirely from recycled materials. It will allow us to turn the leaves regularly to expedite the decomposition process.

Meanwhile another group of students worked on clearing out an area where we will later build a trellis. Students also created a new small bed along the fence and planted some sunflower starts and cleared ivy from around the gingko and fig trees. Ivy is terribly invasive and requires continual maintenance to keep it at bay. 

After a break, Sky and a few of the students worked on the drip irrigation system. An afternoon of hard work in the garden left us with smiles on our faces and sense of accomplishment.

Garden Coordinator, Sky Myers is in the garden on Friday afternoons; stop by and say hello or pitch in for an hour. She always has projects going. Next up? Planting the raised bed that formerly held the leaves.

Can you believe these are onion flowers?!

P.S: It's almost time to harvest strawberries! Please come and check how great they are! If you find some red ones, you can taste them! Definitely better than what you buy in supermarket!

Garden Map

Sky made this awesome garden map for watering, so I thought I'd share. In case you want to see what's happening in the garden, here it is. download a PDF here.

Films about food

Here are some titles of films about sustainable food production and things related:

http://www.ted.com/playlists/55/the_joy_of_eating.html -  various TED talks about food

Dirt (2009): Talks about the science of dirt and importance of good dirt as a natural resource.

Growing Cities (2013): SMU library has this. About urban farming in America and implications of food ownership.

2012 Time for Change (2010): An eclectic searching movie that covers many eco-cultural topics, goes to a range of interesting speakers, and leaves one feeling hopeful and capable of creating a flourishing present.

A Community of Gardeners (2012): Focuses on Washington, DC, community gardens as centers of calm and social interactions in inner-city neighborhoods.

Canned Dreams: what people, places, and animals go into a can of ravioli

Food Inc: industrial food industry focused

Food Matters: health focused

Forks over Knives: health focused

Ingredients (2009): Focused on the local food growing movement and sustainable farming. 

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil: hopeful; culturally and economically focused

The Garden: South Central Los Angeles farmers fight to save their huge community garden in a poor urban area

The Garden at the End of the World: social justice and permaculture efforts in Afghanistan 

Vegucated: New Yorkers go vegan as a challenge

Sustainability, Place-based Learning, and the Campus Garden

Dr. Tema Milstein (UNM), award-winning journalist and eco-pedagogist, visited as a guest facilitator at an afternoon workshop focusing on using SMU’s garden as a “learning laboratory” for teaching and learning.

Participants included: Olivia Archibald, Heather Grob, David Martin, Teresa Winstead, Kathleen McCain, Julia Chavez, Ernesto Chavez, Mary Jo Hartman and Irina Gendelman

In the tradition of Hands-on Teaching and Place-based Learning and following the concept of Washington Center’s Curriculum for the Bioregion, the workshop focused on the ways that we can prepare undergraduates to live in a world where the complex issues of environmental equality, community health and well-being, environmental justice, and sustainability are paramount.

Faculty and staff discussed the Learning Garden as a laboratory and envisioned a collection of teaching approaches to build sustainability concepts and place-based learning into a wide array of undergraduate courses that can be used to engage students with the issues facing the bioregion.

   

Dr. Milstein’s work, which includes whale and community-based participatory research, focuses on communication as a cultural force in the nexus of humanity and ecology. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico.  Among her publications, Dr. Milstein’s article “Greening Communication” was published in Greening the Academy: Ecopedagogy Through the Liberal Arts, a 2013 Critics Book Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association.

Bring on the Ban: Owning the Water You Drink

Sustainable Saints get inspired at WAHESC (Washington Higher Education Sustainability Conference) and initiate the conversation about banning bottled water on campus.

Scholar's Day. Annabel and Dalia present reasons to ban the bottle at SMU.

Bring on the Ban: Owning the Water You Drink

HH 115

April 29, 2014

1:30pm

Annabel Warnell

Dalia Pedro-Trujillo

This presentation takes a closer look at the “Ban the Bottle” movement that has successfully spread among several institutions of higher education in Washington State. Drawing upon inspiration from the Washington Higher Education Sustainability Conference this past February, the following questions are explored: what are the benefits and consequences of the ban, what does the ban really aim to accomplish, and why should Saint Martin’s join the ranks of “bottle-banners?”

Garden Sale

Our first garden sale of the year was a success! Come by on Friday and we will have more tomatoes, herbs greens, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, flowers, native trees and more! Everything is organic and non-gmo.

UNI 101 students selling plants for the garden

Plant Fundraiser Sale

Wednesday April 23 & Friday, Aril 25

12-2pm in front of the cafeteria

Get your starts for the garden! This is a garden plant sale and benefit for the SMU’s Learning Garden. Prices vary from $3-$7 depending on the plants.

Plants for sale:
 

Green Zebra Heirloom Tomatoes

Red Brandywine Heirloom Tomatoes

Black Krim Heirloom Tomatoes

Yellow Pear Heirloom Tomatoes

 Purple Kohlrabi

Broccoli

Kale

Lettuce

Greens Mix

Snap Peas 

Onions (Walla Walla Sweet)

Beets (Shiraz)

Sunflowers

Raspberries

Strawberries

Rhubarb 

Day Lilies

Golden Sage

Western Hemlock Potted

Firs Potted

Vine Maple Potted

A Laboratory for Learning

The SMU Learning Garden is a laboratory for a hands-on exploration of subjects such as sustainability, food justice, urban farming and engineering.

On Earth Day, April 22 at 6:30pm we will be screening the film Growing Cities in Harned Hall 110 (free). The film examines the role of urban farming in America and the potential of urban farms to revitalize the city and to improve the ways that we eat and live. It will be followed by a discussion with a panel of local farmers and food activists. Check out the full program here. If this inspires you to action, stop by the SMU Learning Garden just outside of the cafeteria.

The campus garden is a perfect place to apply theory to practice and to experiment with urban farming and sustainability ideas. It is a lab to learn and to model  sustainable ways to produce food on a small plot of land. For example, most recently, we have faced the problem of water. EPA cites that sustainable water management is essential to ensuring the environmental and economic sustainability of our communities.

So we asked, how can we collect and use rain water to water plants in the garden? We began with a 260 gallon food-grade tote, found on Craigslist for $100. If you do a search online, you will find that there are plenty of these containers available for re-use after they have been emptied of their original contents.

Next, we had to figure out how to install the massive tote in the garden. Since the plot is in the center of campus and highly visible, aesthetics are just as important as function.

Maintenance technician, Vernon Randloph, came up with the ingenious design. He covered the plastic container with cedar siding to blend it into the garden and raised it to create water pressure for watering.

To our surprise, the 260 gal. tote filled up after only a couple of days of rain! Vernon had to engineer a design that dealt with the overflow.  Once the tote was full, it would spill over and create a drainage problem around the base of the building and in the garden, so Vernon rerouted the overflow back into the building drain. Check out the incoming and the outgoing pipes and the awesome water pressure. Now we have a model for a water collection system that can be used for demonstrations of the design, class experiments as well as for watering the garden.

What do we do with the food that we grow? In the Benedictine spirit of service to the community, it goes to the Thurston County Food Bank.

Spring clean up

  Weeding, mulching and pulling up carrots and beets that survived the winter!

Time to wake up the garden

On the first day of Spring, David Martin and his team of international students sowed seeds in the greenhouse, weeded and prepared garden beds for planting. It was so warm on the first day of spring that the vents on the greenhouse popped open. Students planted chives, peas and lettuce seeds.

Some things have been thriving all winter. The garlic greens are already about 5 inches tall and the culinary sage is abundant. Drop by the garden and pick some sage leaves for cooking. If you are not sure what to do with them, try out this recipe from Saveur.

Fried Sage Leaves

Delicate, crunchy fried sage can be crushed and sprinkled on squash or bean soups, served as an accompaniment to burgers, and even eaten whole as a snack.
1 bunch fresh sage
1/4 cup olive oil
Coarse salt
1. Pinch off leaves from sage. Heat oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat until hot.
2. Fry 6–8 sage leaves at a time until crisp, 2–3 seconds. Transfer with a fork to paper towels and sprinkle generously with coarse salt.
MAKES ABOUT 30 FRIED LEAVES

Spring is almost here!

Two days until Spring is official, the weather is warming up and it's about time to start weeding and getting the garden beds ready for planting. Here is a great resource about what to do in the garden, complete with a guide on what to plant when and some useful apps for mobile devices.

 Also, if you are thinking flowers, here is how you can help the bees out.

Sustainability Conference

The Sustainable Saints are going to a sustainability conference being held at Western Washington University in February.

The student summit looks especially exciting. Check out the conference schedule here. Registration is still open! Email Irina ( igendelman... )  if you would like to go and carpool with us.

HOLIDAY NATIVE TREE SALE

 
BENEFIT FOR THE LEARNING GARDEN AND SUSTAINABILITY

Wednesday, December 4th
12-3pm
 
OUTSIDE OF ST. GERTRUDE’S DINING HALL

NATIVE TREES DECORATED WITH EDIBLE ORNAMENTS FOR THE BIRDS - PLANT A NATIVE TREE AND SEQUESTER CO2 FOR OVER 100 YEARS

CRANBERRY POPCORN GARLANDS AND SUNFLOWER BUTTER BIRDSEED FEEDERS - FEED THE BIRDS IT WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY
 
ORANGE AND CLOVE POMANDERS – KEEP MOTHS AND OTHER INSECTS AWAY

Leaf Mold Bin

What is a leaf mold bin and why would you want to make one?

 

  A Leaf Mold is a type of compost made of leaves broken down by fungal action.

We need to add compost to our garden beds on a regular basis to replace and replenish our soil to grow the best vegetables.

Although compost is available commercially it is very expensive and made of a wide range of materials, some better than others.

The leaves we used in our compost were Bigleaf Maple leaves,

Acer macrophyllum our native Maple Tree with

Very Big Leaves!

 It is very important that the leaves remain wet over the winter to achieve decomposition by Spring.

We will add another layer to the bin and we may cover it in the Spring to heat up the fungal action.

Come and check out our leaf mold bin!