Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo
I cannot overstate this enough, PEOPLE REALLY WANT TO GARDEN!
I have received an endless flood of emails from enthusiastic gardeners looking for a plot on campus. I suppose this all started last year when we dramatically increased the garden plot offerings on campus. We surged from about 8 plots to about 50.
There were a couple of problems for sure last year. First, we didn't get the garden going until July, about a month later then when everyone typically starts seeding. On top of that there was the possibility that the land would eventually be taken away for another development. And of course we had never managed a garden of that size so everything was a new experience.
Of course some dude named Murphy showed up and we were told that the garden land was going to be developed for the CAPEA project. No one was really surprised though, we all knew that there was a possibility of that happening. But the community didn't give up and dozens of successful garden plots were harvested.
But that was last summer and this is now. Over the year we had numerous requests for plots from students and faculty members. We even spoke with a few profs that wanted to do some research plots (wild pollinators and things of that nature).
So we needed to find some new space. We ran a poll on our Fan Page and the resounding choice was the Colony By Building roof (it should be noted that some people did did for "in Allan Rock's office" too... maybe not a bad idea). We had a meeting with the administrators of the building and they were having none of that (the space is used for summer campus). So we took a walk around campus and looked for new spaces.
So we are proposing a plan to get 50 plots again but nothing is certain yet. We are thinking of a mix of mobile plots (like McGill has at their School of Architecture) and some plots long King Edward again. At any rate when everything comes together we are going to need your help for a big gardening day. And if you are interested in a plot you can contact the Garden Coordinator for more info.
-jon