Cooking and dining enthusiasts, along with anyone else who watches The Food Network, know that the food trend these days is to eat locally and act globally. Two Juniata students have taken that seed of an idea and put it into practice by starting an organic garden on campus. Located on a patch of ground behind Brumbaugh Academic Center, the new garden features 45 different varieties and crops ranging from heirloom tomatoes to potatoes to jalapeno peppers. “When I was a freshman, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time focusing on what I was eating,” says Elly Engle ’12, of Penns Valley, Pa., who started the garden with another student, Chesney Richter ’12, of Pueblo, Colo. “When Chesney and I were taking (a) botany (course) we were looking for a semester-long project and we chose to create a garden.” “The garden has been something the students have wanted to do for a long time. We’ve delivered tomatoes, squash and peppers and the dining halls have served the vegetables during the summer to students attending camps on campus,” Engle says.
The garden produces several varieties of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and other crops. Engle and some student volunteers have tended the garden during the year.
Elly Engle ’12, of Penns Valley, Pa., has created an organic garden project that has garnered so much support on campus that Sodexo, Juniata’s food contractor, agreed to use its output for catering and other uses.
At 700 square feet, the entire garden is not capable of Del Monte-like output, but the gardeners have received commitments from Sodexo Inc., Juniata’s food services provider, to incorporate the garden’s output into Juniata’s dining menus. Engle and Hal McLaughlin, manager for Sodexo, have met several times to plan how to incorporate more produce from the garden as the project expands. “We’re folding the garden products into the menus as she brings it in,” says McLaughlin. “So far we’ve used a lot of the produce in our catering.” Sodexo and the Student Food Initiative also opened a new dining hall option for students featuring locally grown organic vegetables called the LOVE Line. “It stands for Local Organic Vegetarian Eating,” Engle explains. McLaughlin points out that much of the fresh food used in Juniata’s dining hall is locally grown or distributed (local is considered within a 100-mile radius).
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2011 Fall-Winter
Photos (left): courtesy Don Braxton; (right): Andy Waplinger ’11
Not-So-Secret Garden: Harvesting Lessons, Building Relationships