In May, Green Up will be starting a community garden to encourage the St. Michael’s community to start thinking about living a more earth-friendly lifestyle.
The garden, located near the nature trail behind the jug handle, is made up of 12,800 square feet of rich soil. Three-thousand two-hundred square feet of the garden is designated for individual plots so faculty, staff, students, alumni and people in the surrounding community can work together putting their green thumbs to good use.
Garden growth
 |
Junior and Green Up member Margaret Mahan is the coordinator of the community garden. (Photo by Kaitlin Couillard) |
Sophomore Margaret Mahan is the leader of the community garden. The idea arose when she was on a road trip from Vermont to Maine, she says.
“My friend and I were talking about the fact that our school doesn’t have a garden,” Mahan says. “Personally, that turned me off about St. Michael’s, because a lot of other colleges have gardens.”
Having a community garden is important because it helps people connect with one another and brings individuals together, she says.
“I think that people have grown very distant from the earth,” Mahan says. “Vermont’s heritage is farming and that is what people have been doing for hundreds of years.”
St. Michael’s was not using the 500 acres of which a part of will be the future community garden, Mahan says. She wanted to cooperate with the environment instead of taking advantage of it, she says.
“We are doing what we can to respect the earth, but at the same time learn from it and connect with it,” she says.
There are 36 individual plots in the community garden that are being taken care of by faculty, staff, students and alumni, Mahan says. There is a waiting list for the individual plots because they are trying to keep the garden small, she says.
To have an individual plot, $20 must be donated to the community garden which helps buy the tools and seeds needed to grow the crops, Mahan says. The individuals must also sign a contract saying they will be responsible and promise to take care of the space.
“It’s up to them to do what ever they want with their plot, but they have to remember that it’s an organic garden,” Mahan says.
There will be a generous amount of different crops available in the garden, with everything from sweet corn, peppers and Irish potatoes, to edible flowers, a salsa garden and a tea garden, she says.
There is also going to be a cottage near the garden that was donated by Grace Kelly, director of Student Activities, Mahan says.
“I offered the building because there was a need and it is a structure that I no longer use,” Kelly says. “I welcome the opportunity to support such an important effort.”
Taking root
There are currently more than 100 different community-based gardens in the Vermont Community Garden Network (VCGN), says Jim Flint, of VCGN and executive director of the Friends of Burlington Gardens (FBG).
“These include traditional allotment-style community gardens with individual plots, neighborhood gardens where two or more households grow food together, school gardens, senior gardens and youth gardens,” Flint says.
The VCGN was formed in 2005 by the FBG. The first VCGN statewide conference was held in February 2006, Flint says.
 |
The community garden will be located down the hill near the nature trail behind the jug handle. (Photo by Kaitlin Couillard) |
According to the Friends of Burlington Gardens Network Web site, the mission of these organizations is “designed to teach beginners how to plant, cultivate, harvest, and preserve fresh organic vegetables.”
There are multiple reasons why community gardens are important, Flint says.
“Most importantly, the gardens provide Vermonters from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds with the opportunity to grow their fresh local food,” Flint says.
Chittenden County has the largest concentration of the community gardens, Flint says.
There are nine garden sites in Burlington, two in Essex Junction, and one each in Shelburne, Williston, Colchester (at Ft. Ethan Allen), and South Burlington, Flint says.
Future fruits
Sophomore and Green Up member Heidi Lynch has an individual plot at the community garden, she says. She is going to be staying in Vermont this summer and thought it would be a good idea to reserve a plot, she says.
“I would love to be at the garden everyday because I think it’s so meditating,” she says. “It’s also fun to get down and dirty.”
It’s necessary for numerous reasons to have a community garden on campus, Lynch says.
“With our global shifting that’s going on, it’s important to have gardening skills and learn from these skills,” Lynch says. “It makes you appreciate where your food is coming from.”
 |
Margaret Mahan holds a plan of the potential design of the community garden from a booklet. (Photo by Kaitlin Couillard) |
The community garden will provide many advantages to St. Michael’s, Kelly says.
“This garden will provide all kinds of benefits to our community with fresh veggies and opportunities to work with the earth and communicate with others,” Kelly says. “It’s great!”
Geography professor Richard Kujawa reserved an individual plot in the community garden, he says. He liked the idea of student managers, shared responsibility and the fact that the garden will be organic, he adds.
“I've wanted to try a garden plot for several years and the St. Mike’s garden gave me a chance to do it,” he says. “I’m looking forward to growing some tomatoes and cucumbers.”
There are many plans that are going to be fulfilled during the summer for the community garden, Mahan says. Whoever is in the Burlington area and is willing to help with the garden is welcome to do so, she adds.
“If someone doesn’t think they can afford groceries for their family, they can come and do some weeding for half an hour and take what they think is fair from the garden and eat it for dinner,” she says.
During the summer there are going to be a lot of community building activities, Mahan says.
“There are going to be picnics and people who have gardens can cook the food that they grow and make a dish for everyone to share,” Mahan says.
The garden is going to start as soon as possible and is going to continue to grow throughout the fall and the beginning of winter, she adds.
When the cold weather starts Mahan will be freezing a lot of the vegetables, she says.
“I know that I feel strongly about the environment, and I choose to have a relationship with it on a fundamental level,” Mahan says. “Gardening has changed my life and ultimately I would hope that through this garden people would have a similar experience because it’s so fulfilling for me.”
Mahan says she wants people to build a sense of community through gardening.
“If we get to know each other, we get to know the earth,” she says.