The Garden Project: Chapter 4--Getting our Hands Dirty

A couple days later (we were exhausted and needed a few days rest before continuing) a couple of us gathered again in the garden with one mission: GET THE SEEDLINGS INTO THE GROUND! They were sitting so lonely in their little seedlings trays and were crying to become part of mother earth! We started with the herbs because we already had an existing herb garden with sage, lavendar, parsley, and chives (returned from last year in full bloom) so we added herbs in between those plants. The basil though we planted with the tomatoes because it is classic to find the two harmoniously growing together. We planted all of the brassica together (kale, chard, broccoli, and collards) and the tomotoes were given their own beds (they like to compete for nutrients, so we spaced them out and allowed plenty of room for growth).

And then we did all that we could do: we watered them daily and waited...and waited...and waited for everything to grow.

The Garden Project: Chapter 3--The Renovations!

While I am a bit late in submitting chapter 3 to this epic tale of the Slow Food Garden, I still feel it is important to enlighten you on all of the progress that has been made since I last wrote.

After researching where to buy all of the materials needed for these garden renovations, we were able to submit that funding request to the SGA and it was approved! Full speed ahead! We had a specific quantity of wood to pick up from Home Depot...and the grounds crew on campus was nice enough to pick it up for us rather than having it delivered for some outrageous fee. It was dropped off one day and we realized that it was the WRONG SIZE!!! Rather than panicking though, I made a few phone calls, and the carpenters at school agreed to come to the garden and cut the wood to our specifications. They did a fabulous job and after that was out of the way, we decided to create an event on facebook to bring in a bunch of people for the renovations. (PS: If you ever want a group of people to find out about an event, post it on Facebook. It works. It really does!)

After ripping out the old rotted boards from the garden, a large crew of us gathered to build new boxes. We had about 20 people show up throughout the day, which was much more than we anticipated! Many hands really do make light work. I got to play with the powerdrill!! After 7 hours of hard work and sweat (it was the first hot and sunny day we had after 5 days of rain), the boxes were built and put into place. The garden already looked brighter and happier! What we had done earlier was take the existing dirt out of the boxes so that we could build trenches for the boxes to sit it (more stable that way) so our next task was to re-fill these boxes. But like I said before about many hands....as one box was complete, we would move it into the garden and a crew would start filling the boxes. It was a very smooth running operation that allowed me to stand back for a second and observe the music and harmony occurring that one fine day.

Alexis arrived with the seedlings of all sorts--herbs such as mint, basil, oregano, lavender, lemon verbena and vegetables such as tomatoes (galore!), zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, swiss chard, broccoli, kale, collards, and some beautiful sunflower seedlings. We could not wait to put these into the ground and watch them grow!!

And that concludes the first part of renovations!!

The Garden Project: Chapter 2--$$$$

Of course with any sort of project like gardening, there is money involved. Where do we get the money to renovate this garden you ask? Well, being at a college where there is a student government association (SGA), student clubs are funded for their projects. Isn't that convenient?

But the process is a bit complicated to acquire this money. We have to first fill out a form explaining what the money will be used for. The SGA meets as a group to discuss this funding request and then there is an open meeting for all club officers to attend, such as myself. It is here that they ask us to describe the event and what we plan to do with the money. They then decide "yay" or "nay" on the funding request and we always hope for a "yay." Sounds easy right? Nope. We have to fill out this form three weeks before we plan on using the money; we cannot just ask and receive. So it requires a bit of anticipation for the funds.

Good news: As the fiscal year of our school comes to an end, the SGA realizes that there is a lot of money that has not been spent (since they are allocated a large sum at the beginning of each fiscal year which does not rollover to the next year). With knowledge of this large sum of money not used up completely, clubs JUMP at the chance to use this money for their clubs.

SFOC was particularly excited because we needed a lot of money for all of our anticipated garden renovations! We asked for money for new wood, tools, hardware and seedlings just to start and it all got approved! So the renovations were on their way.

The Garden Project: Chapter 1--The Planning

April 15th: I returned from Italy three weeks later wondering what had been done with the garden. A couple SFOC students had gathered to clear out leaves and plant some peas, since those have to go in the ground early on. But once I returned, we were all able to get together and form a plan of action as to what to do with our garden. It is a 1800 sq. foot area with 600 sq. feet of garden space. We inspected the construction of the raised beds with wooden boards. The boards were completely rotted away; so rotted away that all I had to do with kick one and it would fall away from the soil.

We knew we had to replace them. We then decided that maybe what we wanted to do with the garden was not so much focus on planting a ton of vegetables and turning into a vegetable producing machine. We wanted to make the garden look nice first (it is in shambles at this point in time). The ground had small pebbles on it with lots and lots of weeds growing in between the beds and it just looks neglected. Poor garden! We then found out there was a seedling rack where there should have been seedlings being prepared over the winter, but there weren't. We simply did not have enough time to invest in starting from seed (too much risk of improper germination), especially with our busy schedules and lack of people to take care of the seedlings.

We divided up tasks to beautify the garden. I was quite excited about making it look nice again, so I chose to look into stones for the ground and the landscaping aspect of it. Alexis would look into where we could get seedlings donated to us or where we could buy them, and Edward would look into wood to replace the beds (untreated of course). I also decided to learn about composting since we were told by Dick and Jane that there were composting bins...this becomes a chapter in itself.

The Garden Project: Introduction

I am not really sure how to begin this story, so I will just start from the beginning, as do all novels.

There is a garden on campus that was created for The Garden Society, a club on campus where students had the chance to learn about gardening. It has been around for a couple of years, but since my time here, I have not heard much about it. It was just this club that no one really knew about and no one really knew when they got together to garden. Skip ahead to a couple months ago when I am in my weekly meeting with Slow Food on Campus (check out www.slowfoodusa.org) to understand exactly what this club is about. We are talking about projects and events come Spring since the weather is shaping up and the snow is just about gone. One of us mentions that we should team up with Garden Society to show our true values and bring knowledge to the student body. Good news and Bad news....first the bad: the couple who ran Garden Society in the past were overwhelmed with the amount of work it took to run the garden with just the two of them, so they had no plans of continuing it this season. Good news: those two people were in my history class, so I decided to jump at the opportunity to acquire the garden.

Here is the conversation:

Me: "Hey, Dick and Jane** (Names have been changed)

D/J: "Hey Audrey, how's it going?"

Me: "Good, I was wondering what you were planning on doing with the garden this year?"

D/J: "Oh, well, we are actually looking for someone to take it over; its just too much work for us!

Me: "I'll take it!"

D/J: "Seriously?? OK! Great!" (with smiles on their faces and sighs of relief)

Me: "Yea, totally. Slow Food has a bunch of people who are interested in gardening!"

So there you have it--the acquisition of the garden.

This was late March. The problem with the timing is that myself, Dick, and Jane were leaving on our wine trips in 3 days and would be gone for 3 weeks...meaning there would be no one around to help with the transition of the garden and prepping of the beds while we were away. Before leaving, the three of us met where I was given the Garden Society binder with information about past lay outs of the garden, seed information, when to plant, what to plant, where to plant, how to plant, and all the other paper work. They gave me a quick run down of what they had done for us (NOTHING!!). So basically, we acquired a garden that had not been maintained throughout the winter and had no seedlings started to be put into the ground. Myself and the members of Slow Food (SFOC) knew this would be a project for us. (Especially difficult for myself since I know very little about gardening).

I'm so Punny, oh so Punny

Let's get this out of the way first: I am sorry I did not continue to write while in Italy...limited internet access and time spent exploring hindered my ability to write. Check out my pictures on Facebook...there are a couple albums and they are organized by where I went.

Now for the purpose of this blog:

I am sitting at work (I work in the tutoring center at my school), but there are no students to be tutored. So I thought to myself, rather than going on Facebook and wasting my day away, like I usually do, I'll write in my blog about my day so far.

I woke up, did laundry, YAY clean clothes!, ate an orange, checked my email, watched last night's episode of GLEE (AMAZING!), talked to one of my chefs about composting (more on that in a future blog), and then the fun part started...

11:45 am...my friend and I are meeting in Farq Hall (where all the students eat lunch). But we aren't meeting for lunch...we are waiting for FREE FALAFEL!!! Yup, three of the Israeli students on campus decided to make falafel and just give it away. Why? Probably because the falafel in this school that the other students try to make is...ready for my first pun?...fal"Awful"! But this falafel, was fal"awesome!!" My friend and I were sitting eating our free falafel and making these puns just laughing at how bad at making jokes we are.

I then talked to my friend on Facebook about puns...side note--our conversations are usually just us firing puns back and forth to one another, its pretty awesome. I then made another pun about how in the middle east, they probably have their wedding vows as "do you take so and so to be your "falafel" wedded wife?

Dear Davis family, I hope you are proud that the Davis humor runs in my blood. Or should I say, "puns" in my blood?

Benvenutti a Italia!

We have been in Sorrento (region of Campania) for almost two days now. But I will start by telling you how it all began!

Our trip began once we landed in Rome after a 7 1/2 hour flight from the states. The flight did not seem as long as I thought it would, though I was able to catch some shut-eye for two hours. Once arriving in Rome, we were greeted by Patrizia, our tour-guide, with one of those signs with CIA on it. We felt so special having a sign! Now all we needed was our limo with champagne! It was only 7:45 am so we had a full day ahead of us, which we knew was going to be exhausting, especially after flying for so long! We hopped right onto a coach bus (the driver's name is Antonino and I must admit, he is quite handsom! Speaks very little English though, so it gives us an excuse to practice our Italian). The bathroom on the bus is locked, which so far has not given us any problems with needing to stop, but once we start on our way to other regions with drives as long as 6 hours, pit stops (and espresso stops) will be necessary.

After two hours of driving, we stopped at a small espresso bar and I had my first Italian espresso!It was quite strong, but I had to know what a true espresso tasted like before making a fancy cappuccino or cafe latte with it. I also tried a piece of my friend's chocolate croissant which was so buttery it just melted away in my mouth!

After espresso, we arrived in a little town to have our first lunch in Italy, called pranzo. It was at a small restaurant which used to be a pig barn! It is now a michelin star restaurant which even Ferran Adria has been to and dined at! (world renowned chef). It had a lemon tree out front which was my first time seeing one! We started off with antipasti, followed by pasta, and dessert of a torta caprese (shortbread crust, chocolate, ricotta, amaretto filling). The antipasto had mozzarella di bufalo (from water buffalo milk) that was made less than two hours earlier from milk collected that morning! Talk about fresh! It was unlike any mozzarella we had ever tasted with a creamy, milky, tangy flavor to it. There was also ricotta made that day as well which was so smooth and creamy! We also drank Aglianico wine (white) which is from the Campania region of Italy. After these three courses, I was full, very full, and thought to myself, oh no...three weeks of this!??!

We jumped back onto the bus and were on our way to Sorrento! After most of us had been sleeping for the past hour or so, we were woked up by Patrizia saying, "okay and on your right you have Mount Vesuvius..." Well that sure woke me up!! I jumped awake, pulled out my camera and snapped away!

The road was so windy down to Sorrento and the streets so narrow. Imagine us in a giant tour bus that is almost as wide as the road itself and having to leave room for the other cars, busses, mopeds! Antonino is certainly a talented driver!

We arrived at our hotel around 5 pm and had two hours before dinner. We moved into our rooms and saw that there was a balcony! It was such a nice day out, so rather than taking a nap before dinner, I sat outside and read a book, enjoying the beautiful day!

We ate dinner at a seafood restaurant right on the water. We were served FIVE COURSES! Starting off with a seafood salad of shimp, calamari, and octopus. Followed by liguini with clams and mussels. A light salad with vinaigrette was next and then a plate of fried fish. This followed with dessert called limone delizioso.

That basically concludes my first full day. I will try to report of my second day soon. I am sharing the internet with one of my friends.

I must be going now. My friends and I are going out to dinner in Sorrento since we have the night free!

CIAO FOR NOW!