This week has been a giant burst of activity, with my responsibilities truly seeming to blend at times: Student, Intern, Coordinator, Fellow, Volunteer, and Aide. They all support each other, with ebbs and flows in what is necessary for each position from week to week; I’m thrilled that I’ve been able to build win-win situations that connect the community garden, the medieval herb garden, Demeter’s Garden, the Organic Farm, the Taste program, the Ecological Agriculture program, the SURF Fellowship, and the Food and Agriculture Pathway as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Monday, while working with volunteers in the Taste program plot, I was able to meet with several community gardeners and talk through future projects and workdays. I still have not received access to the Google group, but I reached out to several gardeners again, hoping that someone will invite me to the link. If I can get the message out about the meeting, I think we’ll have the opportunity to narrow down our immediate goals and establish continuity of leadership at the end of my internship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was so happy to rejoin my cohort of food and ag volunteers at the farm this Wednesday, especially as it was such a GORGEOUS day. The group finished restoring the perennial flower bed last week and so Beth had us start a new and really exciting project: the rhubarb and asparagus patch that has been mostly neglected for the last two years. We started on the side of the rhubarb, specifically targeting an abundance of Canada thistle that was choking both plants and paths. We were joined by students from across the food and ag pathway, all seeking fellowship and an opportunity to take action with nature through agriculture. We could all be doing anything else, but we want to do nothing else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After finishing the rhubarb, we carefully began moving into the asparagus gently loosening the thistle; the early stalks are coming up, and we had to be incredibly observant and sensitive not to damage the produce. It was a fantastic opportunity to train new volunteers on the proper techniques and tools for this sort of sensitive job, and I think they will all be more thoughtful about what they are doing on future projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prior to our volunteer hours, the coordinators of SCARF met for a planning meeting to discuss our future fundraising plans. We’ve agreed to a weekly continuing bake sale that will be held at the same time as the organic farm stand on Thursdays, functionally creating a farmer’s market with our own stall at the farm. We will have our own table, canopy, and signage. We will be offering baked goods donated by SCARF members and homemade lemonade with lemon balm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, we will be supporting a campus wide art contest to benefit the club, the farm, and the food and agriculture pathway as a whole. Last year I created a cookbook with another student in the POF program, which is already almost sold out of stock at the farm; I’ve decided to lead the charge in creating a ‘Volume 2’ of the cookbook, with more recipes and new artwork. We also want to create T-shirts for the club, both to raise awareness of our organization and as a fundraising opportunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In order to support all these interconnected goals, SCARF will sponsor an art contest with three category winners: Best Cover Art, Best Art Overall, and best SCARF logo design. We will offer a small prize for each category and will hopefully be able to gather our target number of illustrations for the cookbook and club merchandise. SCARF will then join the food and agriculture pathway party, helping to create graduation bouquets for the farm, and will join the organic farm stand on red square to sell baked goods and t-shirts on the day of graduation. Quite festive!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will be planning our next two community garden work parties this weekend, one for an upcoming Monday afternoon and another for a Saturday Barbeque at the end of the month. I hope that with our next Monday meeting we can tackle the east compost pile, so I will be doing research on proper compost maintenance and turning in preparation for leading volunteers. Additionally, the irrigation pump that connects to the community garden is down again and awaiting repair, so we will be running hoses from the farm out to the east fence; from there we can connect our own hoses to use until the pump is fixed. I hope to take care of it by the beginning of Week Eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m also beginning the work for my upcoming fellowship, working with Dr. Steve Scheuerell in spring quarter, Dr. Angelos Katsanis through summer quarter, and finishing-up with Dr. Sarah Williams in the fall. I’m interested in growing radicchio and late storage cabbages, so I’ve been researching interesting varieties from certified organic producers like Uprising Seeds, Adaptive Seeds, and High Mowing Seeds. Our field was formerly a strawberry patch, so I will also be researching possible amendments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week has been a giant burst of activity, with my responsibilities truly seeming to blend at times: Student, Intern, Coordinator, Fellow, Volunteer, and Aide. They all support each other, with ebbs and flows in what is necessary for each position from week to week; I’m thrilled that I’ve been able to build win-win situations … Continue reading Week Six<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":455,"featured_media":256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"geo":{"latitude":47.0707932,"longitude":-122.9853745,"description":"Olympia, Washington, 98502, US"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/foodag-portfolio-2022-dyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}