Student Gardens: Growing on Grounds

“We also take donations from sister gardens and community members.”

Throughout the year, three to four student interns help support the space, each working twice a week during the school year and three times a week during the summer.  

The garden at Alderman and McCormick roads, near Observatory Hill Dining Hall, has been a center point for many class projects, resulting in diverse plantings over time.

“A few years ago, a student in UVA’s Sustainability Leadership class wanted to promote pollinator gardens around Grounds,” Garner said. “We let her plant a few pollinator flowers in the garden that are still thriving today.”

In operating the garden, the students do not use pesticides or chemical fertilizers, though it is not formally certified as organic. Black Bear Composting of Crimora provides soil and compost for the garden. 

“All of UVA’s food waste and compostable products go to Black Bear, so in a way a students’ apple cores from lunch are helping grow food in the garden,” Garner said. 

The students also capture rainwater; runoff from the roof of the nearby Astronomy Building flows into a cistern and is then used to water the beds. Students in an Engineering Foundations course built a watering dolly to aid gardeners in transporting the water to the plant beds. The garden also has a wooden picnic bench, garden shed and work table that UVA Sawmilling made from trees fallen on Grounds. 

Volunteers get first dibs on produce that comes from the garden, with the remainder going to UVA’s Community Food Pantry. The produce is one of the perks for Aliza Diop, one of the student volunteers.

“I find weeding therapeutic and mindless, and since we always garden at 8 a.m., it’s a nice task to start with,” Diop said. “Getting to see anything ripe and ready to pick is always exciting because it’s a reflection of your time out in the garden.”

Gavin Crigger, a sustainability student employee, said time in the garden has given him an opportunity to learn from peers who have more gardening experience.

“Gardening has shown me the importance of green spaces within communities,” Crigger said. “The ability to go out and garden regularly has been great for my mental health and I’ve been working to help bring as many people into the space as I can.”

Just down the street, the Hereford Garden is under the direction of master gardener Michelle Maggiore, who has been part of the gardening team for about four years.

“The Hereford Garden is a community effort,” program coordinator Tommy Ferrier said. “We have our dedicated master gardener coordinating student volunteers and paid garden interns and even the rest of our professional staff all chipping in to help the garden grow.”

Gardening is woven into a one-credit course, The Garden Party, available to Hereford residents in the fall and spring semesters. Students in the course, usually three to five at a time in a workshop, learn basic houseplant care, beginning vegetable gardening, reading the soil, tree pruning and vermicomposting (composting with worms). Aside from growing, the students also try preserving.

“Within the Garden Party class, as a separate workshop, we have processed popcorn, made elderberry syrup and bouquets/tussie mussies (bouquets of herbs and flowers) and braided garlic,” Maggiore said. “Herbs are easy to dry. We’ve also saved many of our own seeds.”

The Hereford Residential Garden contains vegetables – such as tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, eggplants and potatoes – as well as a mini-orchard with plums, apples, blueberries, pawpaws and an elderberry grove. The gardens also contain ornamental beds and a “pollinator bed” filled with native flowers and perennial shrubs that support beneficial insects, such as bees, wasps and flies. 

“Our latest addition was a brand-new greenhouse which we are excited to use for seed-starting and overwintering cold-sensitive plants,” Ferrier said. 

The residential students share the produce.

“This time of year, a lot of the produce is shared with the summer garden interns and whoever remains in Charlottesville over the summer,” Ferrier said. “Once the students return in the fall, we invite our residents to stop by and pick their own snacks and occasionally host events where we prepare meals featuring ingredients grown in our own backyard.”

Ferrier said the Hereford Garden blends sustainability, mindfulness and social awareness. It is free of chemical pesticides and fertilizers and acts as a living classroom. 

“Our students routinely report that spending time in our garden is analogous to therapy,” Ferrier said. “Spending time in the fresh air, focusing on the present moment and getting their hands dirty is a great way to find relief from the often-overwhelming stress of University life. We find that taking care of the plants in the garden serves as a reminder to take care of ourselves as well.”