MISSION DRIVEN
A garden of learning Students and faculty grow vegetables and community spirit on campus. By Kris Dreessen
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t’s a chilly fall evening and students are quick-stepping to the dining hall with jackets zipped and hands in pockets, but it’s harvest time in the Geneseo Community Garden. Deep purple beets are ripe for picking. Turnips are as big as baseballs. Stalks of Swiss chard grow in neat rows of orange, buttery yellow and crimson. Colin Waters ’10, Molly Kerker ’09 and a handful of other students are kneeling in the soil, pulling out tomato vines and some of summer’s less hearty plants that won’t make it through fall. They are choosing today’s produce for a home-cooked meal. “You have a much greater appreciation of what you’re eating,” says Kerker. “It’s such a simple, direct connection from the earth to your mouth — it’s so satisfying.” Most meals in American homes travel at least 1,300 miles from farm field to plate, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service. It’s as low as zero for students who volunteer at Geneseo’s Community Garden. They don’t burn fossil fuels. They don’t use pesticides. They plan, cultivate and pick, then walk home. They learn about sustainability and selfreliance and they probe larger food issues, like how methods of consumption have changed, impacts of large-scale farming and how we might manage the whole food-thing better. “It’s a good learning experience outside of the classroom,” says Waters, who wants to become a soil scientist. “We wanted to get people to think about food and where their food comes from.” Waters and Kerker helped start the campus garden in 2007 with other students and two faculty members — history Associate Professor Jordan Kleiman and English Associate Professor Kenneth
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geneseo scene
Cooper. In community gardens like Geneseo’s, people tend a collective plot and share in the bounty. Just two years later, the garden has doubled in size in the Spencer J. Roemer Arboretum. Up to 20 students volunteer twice a week, growing three full seasons. They plant heirloom tomatoes and other traditional produce alongside more uncommon veggies like mache lettuce and turnips. A whole network has emerged, says Kleiman, as students explore culinary tastes from crops that are best suited to the local climate. They share recipes and have potluck dinners. Community gardens are a growing trend on colleges and universities but gar-
• www.organiclinker.com/ food-miles.cfm — Calculate how many miles food has traveled to reach your plate. • www.localharvest.org/csa — Find Community Supported Agriculture farms in your area. • www.wwoof.org — Learn about volunteering at World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.
PHOTOS BY KRIS DREESS E N
Growing vegetables like rainbow chard has given her more appreciation for food, says Geneseo Community Garden co-founder Molly Kerker ’09.
dening together and using it as a teaching tool is less common, according to Greg Bowman, manager of communications at Rodale Institute, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to training organic farmers. At Geneseo, the Community Garden is part of a greater initiative called the Geneseo Food Project. Through an active lecture series and ongoing curricular development efforts, students and faculty connect hands-on activities to broader questions about food, social justice and the environment. Students and faculty also have launched the Geneseo Community Supported Market. The initiative allows students and community members to buy shares of fruits and vegetables sold at a Rochester farmers market. Kleiman and Cooper also explore the history, evolution and future of the American garden in a class. Students examine the role gardening played, and can play, in communities. “It’s a good place to foster community — to grow relationships and ideas,” says Waters.