In the summer of 2015, I had the opportunity to join an urban gardening initiative in its first year running. The Grow! Project is a partnership between the UVM Ecological Design Collaboratory overseen by Professor Walter Poleman, the local restaurant and events venue ArtsRiot in Burlington owned by Felix Wai and PJ McHenry, and Champlain Elementary and J.J. Flynn Elementary Schools in Burlington. The project’s goal is to turn underutilized spaces in Burlington into highly productive gardens that can grow food for schools and local restaurants. The project started with two locations, which were hosted by the elementary schools. ArtsRiot purchased all extra produce from the school gardens this season. 

The elementary schools turned out to be perfect hosts as they are working on the farm to school movement and already have garden spaces, but they were struggling to find time to maintain them on their own. My work involved acting as a garden manager for the elementary schools and keeping the gardens maintained throughout the growing season. At Champlain Elementary, I started off the season constructing eight new garden beds in addition to their existing 20. I planted crops based on what the teachers and ArtsRiot would use most, which were primarily herbs, kale, and tomatoes. I also planted root crops like carrots and potatoes, which the students had a blast harvesting in the fall. In July, the Ecological Design Collaboratory had a high school group visit from the Island of South Andros, Bahamas, to study agricultural systems and complete a service project during their stay.

Professor Poleman suggested they complete a project for one of the elementary schools, so I designed a compost system to be built at Champlain. I had never built, let alone designed a compost system, so that was a fun learning experience for me.

Where Champlain Elementary already had a large garden space established, Flynn Elementary was still in the process of creating theirs. My work at Flynn involved maintaining their four garden beds and working with Felix Wai on a design for the rest of their garden space. This was another learning experience for me, as I had never gone through a design process before. We had to work closely with the teachers to make sure the design would work for them and the students. With the help of a hardworking third grade class, I was able to begin creating the garden once the design was agreed upon.

Overall, I had a great time participating in this internship. I learned a lot about growing food, harvesting for a restaurant, and collecting data on how much produce was being sold. I enjoyed working with the teachers to help them move forward in farm to school efforts while also creating a more sustainable mini food system in the process. One of my most memorable moments will be experiencing the joy the students had while working in the garden.