Environmental Action Team

The toasty autumn sun on your cheeks, the feel of soil as it crumbles in your fingers, the clean scent of fresh morning dew, lush green vegetation in a vast expanse, and the thumping of your heart after a long morning of volunteer work. It does not get more hands on than this.

Last October, volunteers from the Environmental Action Team worked on an urban farm located right on the outskirts of downtown Salt Lake City. This farm is part of a program called Real Food Rising, which is an initiative with Utahns Against Hunger. This initiative is aimed at providing sustainable agriculture and hunger relief for the community.  

The food that Real Food Rising grows gets donated to food pantries, sold at local farm stands, and some being sold to restaurants. As members of the Environmental Action team, our primary goal is to help improve the quality of our environment through service. In doing this, you will learn valuable new skills by participating in conservation and sustainability projects here

in Utah. Volunteering with Real Food Rising was a great opportunity for us to incorporate all of the goals of EAT into something both tangible and rewarding.

Being able to learn about sustainable agriculture and working hands on really made me feel the difference that we were making as a group, and it motivated many of us to want to be more involved and active with environmental sustainability. After a long morning of work, the volunteers from EAT weeded, cultivated, and sowed 1200 square feet of organic vegetable crops on the farm.

This is just a small taste of what we do at EAT, if you are interested in volunteering with us, please reach out to Kate at eatvolunteers@gmail.com.

Kate Zhao

Program Director

Environmental Action Team 

Back-Farms Program with Green Urban Lunchbox

We’re spotlighting our Back-Farms program with Green Urban Lunchbox, which is a program where we pair up volunteers with low income senior citizens that have the room for a garden. Volunteers learn new gardening techniques every week as well as getting to take home a third of the harvest! In all of the programs with Green Urban Lunchbox, the remaining harvest is taken to food banks around the city.

The program had 30 volunteers that rendered a collective 90 hours of service this past June. 16 gardens were maintained, and from those gardens, 200 pounds of cherries were donated to Meals on Wheels, and 400 apricots were harvested and donated! Program Director Courtney Dean reflected on the service:

“In June we harvested pounds and pounds of cherries. Most of the grade A fruit went to Meals on Wheels who delivers meals to seniors all around our city. The seniors were more than ecstatic about receiving the fresh fruit! The Green Urban Lunchbox was featured in the Salt Lake Tribune for making a contribution to senior's lives by simple providing fresh fruit for their enjoyment. Many of whom had not had fresh fruit, especially cherries in quite some time. Providing something as simple as fruit, which I buy weekly for myself, to someone who doesn't have the financial privilege to buy such things is an amazing feeling. People simply don't have access to health food, even if they wanted to live a healthier life style it cannot always be incorporated into their daily lives. Seniors have a set budget without much room for wiggle, providing them with something that is a standard for living should be a goal of every community.”

For more information on the program, check out their website here, and if you're interested in volunteering with the program, check out the link here to sign up with us at the Bennion Center! 

Edible Campus Gardens

About the Gardens

The Edible Campus Gardens are managed by the Office of Sustainability as outdoor laboratories for a variety of academic courses. They serve as demonstration gardens to showcase the beauty and diversity of edible landscaping in an urban setting. Additionally, the gardens provide service opportunities for student volunteers from the Bennion Center and others, as well as K12 youth education programs.

Dr. Fred Montague, professor of biology (now retired), founded the first campus edible garden at the Sill Center in 1996 as an outdoor laboratory for his courses. In 2002, he established a second garden site east of Pioneer Memorial Theater. The Pioneer Garden was greatly expanded in 2011 and again in 2012 when students successfully proposed more gardens instead of lawns after utilities construction work in the area dug up the existing turf.

When Dr. Montague retired in 2010 the Office of Sustainability assumed primary oversight. Sustainability Coordinator Jen Colby serves as gardens project advisor.  A handful of stalwart interns and coordinators have served throughout time as vital garden crew members.

Four-Season Gardening

The gardens have been designed to maximize diversity and growing space using raised bed techniques. Dr. Montague describes this method in an article in Catalyst Magazine

and in his beautiful, hand-lettered and illustrated book, Ecological Principles of Organic Gardening.

Although summer and fall are the height of the growing season, the gardens project is active year-round. The winter months are times for garden planning, seed starting in the Biology Department greenhouses, composting, and even some outdoor gardening. Students have been experimenting with season extenders such as row covers and low hoops to protect cold-hardy vegetables such as spinach, kale, and fava beans, as well as cover crops for soil conditioning and erosion control.

Summer brings a bounty of classic warm-weather crops such as beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, and basil. Most varieties are heirlooms, and students experiment with different ones to see which do best at each site.

Produce grown in the gardens is sold seasonally at a student-run market stand. From July to mid-August, the stand is open Fridays at the Pioneer Garden site. Once theUniversity of Utah Farmers Market opens, the stand moves to Thursdays at Tanner Plaza. Some items are also sold to Chartwells, the campus dining service. All proceeds directly support the gardens. Vegetables are also donated to local charities, the Social Soup Lecture Series, and enjoyed by students and volunteers.

Students working in the gardens

How You Can Get Involved

The Edible Campus Gardens survive and thrive because of a dedicated crew of student and community volunteers. Volunteers are welcome year-round for a wide variety of projects, such as:

• planning and design;
• greenhouse work - seed starting and propagation;
• gardening;
• harvesting;
• helping at the Farmers Market booth;
• outreach and education - including tours for youth from local schools;
• planning and hosting events like the Fall Harvest Soiree; and
• enjoying the vegetables and fruits we grow!

We host both one-time projects and ongoing long-term efforts. Skilled gardeners are particularly welcome for some projects. No gardening experience is necessary, though.

The Bennion Center hosts the official Edible Campus Gardens Student Group. To get involved in the gardens, please fill out the Volunteer Interest Form.  The gardens are listed under Environmental Stewardship.

For more information you may also email the program advisor Jen Colby at the Office of Sustainability, or call 801-585-9352.

Like and follow University of Utah Edible Campus Gardens on Facebook to keep up with the latest projects, opportunities, and garden news.

We also encourage people to get involved in other ways.

• Take a class (click on the academic opportunities tab on this page)
• Shop at the produce stand at the U of U Farmers Market
• Donate to the project.

  

  Bradley DeHerrera, Campus Gardens PD

Gardens as Living Laboratories and Outdoor Classrooms

Do you want to learn how to grow your own food? Are you interested in the science of gardening? Or perhaps how gardens can serve as spaces for community building, artistic expression, and health? Consider taking a course!

The Sill and Pioneer Gardens serve as outdoor classrooms for the Department of Environmental and Sustainability Studies, Continuing Education, Biology, and more. 

A sample of current academic classes includes:

ENVST 3280, Organic Gardening, Summer Semester (cross-listed as ENVST 328 through Continuing Education)

BIOL 3460, Global Environmental Issues, Spring Semester (cross-listed as ENVST 3460)

AOCE Lifelong Learning 529, Vegetable Gardening Basics

Katie Sikkema harvesting beans

-Bradley DeHerrera, Campus Gardens Program Director

Social Justice Gardens - Jackson Elementary

Top 10 best things about volunteering with Social Justice Gardens:

1. Learning gardening skills (learning how to garden!)
2. Interacting with families and community members
3. Working with kids
4. The joy and pride gained from planting something and watching it grow
5. Being outside
6. Tasting fresh garden vegetables
7. Learning and doing something about food injustice 
8. A sense of connection with the environment and community that surrounds you 
9. Watering plants! 
10. The opportunity to meet new people

Social Justice and Relationship Building through Food:

The Social Justice Gardens project has one major goal: to bring community members and schools together, through food. We work collaboratively with a team of parents, teachers, school administrators, and university/high school students to create community-classroom gardens. These gardens are acts of resistance, in which community members reclaim public land as a space for congregating, relationship building, and food production. They are educational; teachers, university and high school students use these gardens to learn about nutrition, environmental justice, math, and earth science. And, they are spaces made by the community for the community. We are lucky to have partnerships with a number of organizations including the Bennion Center, Wasatch Community Gardens, the Mestizo Arts and Activism Collective, and Adelante. However, we do not see our work as service. Our work is part of the struggle for historically marginalized communities to gain access and opportunity for a higher education, healthy food, and beautiful neighborhoods. We participate in this multifaceted/multi-faced work in a small way by providing space, supplies, and support for horticulture at Jackson Elementary and Mountain View Elementary.

Why I volunteer:

   Volunteering in any context offers a slew benefits to those not only receiving the help, but for the volunteer themselves. Any person who has participated in volunteer work as extensive as projects through the Bennion Center or as small as offering to care for a neighbor’s yard while they’re away knows how extensive the effects of volunteer work truly can be. Though I know I’m guaranteed the warm feelings of helping out a person or project, the volunteer experience is more far reaching than one could ever attempt to predict.

   I volunteer because I never know just what I’m getting myself into. At the garden, the Co-Directors and their volunteers meet with people of all backgrounds, all ages, and even a diverse range of their own intentions for the gardens. The Bennion Center crew encounter obstacles and triumphs perpetually. This kind of collaboration is rewarding and fulfilling, and I couldn’t think of a better way to get that thrill from working with people than while helping out a great program.

 - Dyana, volunteer

A Day in the Life of a Volunteer:

   My day at the garden starts early: 9 o’clock, a daunting time for the night owl that I am.  To my surprise, I love volunteering and gardening in the early morning.  The early sun’s warmth, the earthly smell of homegrown vegetables, and the realization that my day has started with a purpose usually leave me with an indescribable feeling that lasts throughout and brightens my day.

   A volunteer at the Cougar garden encounters lots of quirky tasks -one task being tomato harvesting.  It is challenging to harvest tomatoes in the garden without consulting our resident “tomato-whisperer” Sena.  A master, Sena will show you the tricks to finding and harvesting elusive small cherry tomatoes.  When there is nothing left to harvest, everyone engages in mini tug-of-wars with the plants as we winterize the garden by uprooting the wilting crops.  Squashes are the worst with their vines, strong and prickly, deeply rooted within the soil.

   Of course, the day is not complete without the most important part of the garden: the families of Jackson Elementary.   Volunteering in the morning, I get to meet and talk to many parent gardeners.  Learning more about the community I am serving and knowing that I contribute to the garden’s overall impact are also rewarding aspects of my day.