Justin Heavey never imagined that his capstone project would become a blossoming garden under the care of the Green Campus Initiative club.

“I just proposed the idea to them and they ran with it,” Heavey said. “GCI is the primary driver of sustainability efforts at ESF and the garden is an example of that.”

Heavey only had amateur gardening experience prior to starting the Lafayette Road Experiment Station garden in 2011, when he was an undergraduate at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He taught himself using tutorials, trial and error, and the advice of friends.

The goal of the garden is to promote green living and allow students to learn about organic and sustainable gardening, according to a Sept. 21 ESF news release.

The club members typically work at the garden once a week, where they clean the greenhouse, transplant seeds, harvest food and winterize the greenhouse. They also host potlucks using food from the harvests, and support the garden by organizing volunteer planting days and holding plant sales.

Thirty types of annual garden vegetables, hazelnuts, serviceberries, raspberries, plums, herbs and about 50 other types of edible perennials can all be found in the garden, Heavey said.

The garden’s soil is enhanced with compost, which is collected on campus. This not only helps the garden, it also creates less waste on campus, according to the release.

But the garden is just one example of the club’s projects. Emily Bielejec, current president of the club, said the club’s mission’s is to revolutionize the norm.

“Our club is really big on making things happen. Any sustainable project we are all over it,” said Bielejec, a natural history and interpretation major. “We make proposals and we go to administration to make our ideas work.” 

Some of the club’s initiatives have included removing lamps from Moon Library in an effort to save electricity, and selling sporks at ESF’s “Thank Goodness it’s Friday” events in order to move toward a zero-waste campus, Bielejec said.

The garden has truly bloomed since the beginning, Heavey said. The infrastructure has improved and the garden now has an automatic irrigation system, a dozen raised beds and tools. In addition, a 600-foot deer fence now encloses the entire two-thirds of an acre, he said.

“ESF just celebrated its centennial anniversary,” Heavey said. “I’d like the garden to still be active when ESF turns 200.”

Published on October 8, 2012 at 12:58 am

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