Students cultivate campus garden

A handful of students clustered in a small, organic vegetable garden Tuesday outside the Hilltop and Nature Garden Center on 10th Street.

Students volunteer from 4 to 6 p.m. every Tuesday and Friday to weed, water, plant and harvest at the center.
  
The Office of Sustainability established the Campus Garden Initiative in 2011 to help students learn more about what goes into the food they eat. They also hope to raise understanding of the environment and organic gardening.

The Campus Garden Initiative grows a variety of organic products including tomatoes, cucumbers and celery.

Garden Coordinator Audrey Brinkers, a senior, oversees the volunteers each week and works alongside them.

“We talk about organic gardening and educate the volunteers with composting,”
Brinkers said.

Brinkers said the volunteers influence what’s planted and where. When the workday is over, the harvest is distributed to the volunteers.

“The Office of Sustainibility hopes that through the Campus Garden Initiative, students will be more connected to their food and more aware of the processes and systems that go into the food that we eat,” Brinkers said in an email.

The Campus Garden Initiative also donates the produce to be used in meals for students and faculty across campus.

“The items are incorporated into dishes at the Tudor Room in the Indiana Memorial Union,” said Zachary Knudsen, manager of procurement and compliance at the Indiana Memorial Union. “It is definitely healthier without steroids, growth hormones and pesticides.”

Campus dining services collect the scraps from their food preparation, such as the sides and tops of pineapples, left over salads and coffee grounds from Starbucks, and donate these back to the gardens to use as compost.

For senior Nick Schwaberow, who has volunteered at the garden for two years, helping out is more than just volunteer work.

“Gardening has always been a stress reliever for me,” he said.