Campus Gardens Make Dining a Fresh Experience

By Susie Wall
Published on August 1, 2012
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College Community Gardens, University of South Carolina in Columbia.
College Community Gardens, University of South Carolina in Columbia.
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What began in 1991 as a demonstration food garden at Ecology Park in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, is now a five-acre showcase of ecological landscaping.
What began in 1991 as a demonstration food garden at Ecology Park in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, is now a five-acre showcase of ecological landscaping.

When the University of Montana opened the gates to its new 7,500-square-foot garden this past spring, it joined a growing number of colleges with campus gardens. These student gardens help turn a younger generation on to the joy of growing their own food, offer educational opportunities, and provide for more healthful food choices in campus dining halls.

More than 100 U.S. universities now have a garden, according to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, based in Denver. Some campus gardens, like the one at UM located in rural Montana, can be seen as an obvious part of college life. Others, like gardens at New York University in Manhattan and The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., are a welcome surprise to students who plan to spend their college years in a big city.

The benefits of these campus gardens are numerous and include teaching the financial advantages of self-sustainable living, giving students the satisfaction that comes from growing their own food, and promoting health and wellness by supplying natural unprocessed foods sorely lacking in what is considered the normal college diet.

Some students, like those attending the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, use the student garden as a way to give back to the community by donating food to local low-income families. In addition, gardens can offer storm water control and a way to cut disposal costs and recycle waste from the cafeteria by turning it into compost.

Even a small garden offers boundless research opportunities to further the education of all students no matter their area of study. Engineering majors can find ways to harvest rainwater. Environmental planning students can learn about sustainable food production.

In Montana, student gardener Laura Ginsburg explains her role as being “involved organically managing the garden, planting seeds and starts, managing pests, watering and planting perennial shrubs and trees. The challenges of establishing a new garden kept me on my toes and gave me an education in gardening in Montana. It was really satisfying to harvest in the morning and see it being consumed in the cafeteria at lunch.”

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