New Community Garden on Campus

By Anita George

Setting up food from the vendors. Left to right- Christopher Cary, Craig Page, Morgan Fleming

Morgan Fleming introdues the food from the vendors


Eating healthy can get expensive. So for those who are interested in locally grown, organic produce, a new student organization is providing a chance for students and faculty to grow their own food on campus, for free.

Sept. 23 marked the official introduction of UGArden and its plans to cultivate a community garden on campus. UGArden kicked off the semester with dinner and a viewing of the critically-acclaimed movie, “The Garden”, a documentary about a Los Angeles community’s fight to keep their community garden from being destroyed.
The organization says it is devoted to educating others on “all things food-related” such as agricultural sustainability, food justice and food policy.

To prove their point, its leaders insisted that the food served at their first event had to be local, seasonal, organic and fair trade. Finding locally produced food posed its own problems and a few of the ingredients for certain dishes were not local.

The furthest any member went for an ingredient was Madison, Ga.
“I had to drive 40 miles to get the milk here tonight,” said Morgan Fleming, a founding member of UGArden.

Though seven local food vendors, such as Full Moon Farm and Johnston Farms, donated some of their signature products to UGArden’s inaugural event, it can still be difficult to find everything that you need locally.

That’s why UGArden is launching a community garden project on campus.
The proposal to set up a community garden on a plot of land behind the Ramsey Student Center, currently being drafted and will be submitted for review by the University of Georgia in mid-Oct.

The garden will be supported largely by donations from the UGA Physical Plant and Southern Seed Legacy. The organization will seek a grant from Go Green Alliance, according to Fleming.

Working closely with Fleming and the other founding members of UGArden, Dexter Adams, director of the Grounds department of the UGA Physical Plant, acted as an advisor for the organization, saying that he supports the idea of a fully visible, accessible campus community garden.

“My vision of the campus grounds is that it be varied, interactive, and attractive, not just scenery. This is the kind of project that gets the campus community involved with their environment.”

The UGA Physical Plant will provide compost and any surplus materials which might help establish the “infrastructure” of the garden.

“Water and who pays is still an issue. If it’s City water, there is a bill and there are use restrictions. If the goal is to harvest rainwater, again, that involves the cost to retro fit roof drainage systems, purchase large-capacity cisterns and rain barrels as well as a system to distribute that water,” said Adams.

The exact size of the garden and costs of its cultivation have yet to be determined.
Craig Page, executive director of Promoting Local Agriculture and Cultural Experiences (PLACE) also made an appearance at the UGArden event. He and Fleming both worked on the proposal sent to the university for review. His organization also offered to cover any expenses for the event should any food donor requests were to fall through.

PLACE, an Athens- based organization, seeks to help build a strong, accessible local food culture in Athens and does so in four ways: outreach events, educational opportunities, increasing the availability of locally grown food, and helping local farmers network with prospective vendors and restaurants, according to Page.

“Essentially, we help locally grown food find its way to consumers,” said Page.
In addition to helping UGArden get its campus community garden project off the ground, Page also said that PLACE is willing to offer internships and courses for credit programs that are directly involved with the garden project.

One of the vendors that donated food to the event was Earth Fare. Earth Fare prides itself on providing organic, locally grown, and free-trade items.

The Athens location of the Earth Fare chain follows a strict food policy, known as a “boot list”.

“We don’t accept products that include ingredients that are on our boot list,” said Cazzie Carter, the store manager of Athens’ Earth Fare. It’s our list of ingredients that are banned because they contain harmful chemical or hormones.”

On the health benefits of locally grown, organic food Carter says that it was mainly a matter of not taking in the harmful pesticides and chemicals that usually comes with harvesting genetically-modified produce.

“Also, the more fresh a fruit or vegetable is, the higher the nutritional value. Travel time can affect the amount of nutrients provided. So something like an apple, it nutritional value is at its highest when it has just been picked,” said Carter whose dog will not even eat “conventional” strawberries.

“What can I say? We both taste a difference between conventional strawberries and organic ones.”

Edited by Ashley Thompson