green _........ tnumb Not many students and faculty knew Harding cultivated a complete organic garden on campus. Still fewer were aware of HUmanity's contribution of freshly grown produce to the Harding community. HUmanity, founded in 2007 as part of a successful movement to get fair-trade coffee beans on campus, was mainly focused on social justice issues. In the spring of 2009 the group established the community garden, located just north of Cone Hall, in order to provide an organic and sustainable alternative to corporate agriculture. Students involved in HUmanity ran and cultivated the garden. The garden contained a wide variety of crops, including tomatoes, radishes, beans, peas, summer squash, broccoli and collards. HUmanity partnered with Aramark to receive waste food left over from the cafeteria, turning it into compost to help fertilize the garden. "The garden IS a special symbol to me and several others of the alternative possibilities to corporate agriculture," senior Josh Nason said. "It serves as well to show what can be achieved when people can work together in the community." HUmanity members were able to use their harvest in many ways and found that there was plenty of demand 2 3 2 organizations for fresh produce from the garden. "We were able to give lots of produce away this year to friends, as well as sell som'e at the farmers' market and keep lots fo1- our dinner tables," Nason said. Senior Emily Gilbert said her work with the garden over the past two years had more than doubled her knowledge of gardening. "First, I learned how wonderful homegrown food is," Gilbert said. "I don't know if it's the fact that my hand had a part in the process of creating the tomato or if it's just that fresh food picked at the right time and served right away with all its original nutrients is simply better. Most of what I've learned, though, has come from the people I'm working beside in the garden every week and from the people selling corn at the stand next to ours at the Searcy Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings." Through sponsorship by HUmanity, the garden gained approval to use land on campus for planting. Since that time, its popularity had grown exponentially, and members were encouraged at the bright prospects for the garden's future. "HUmanity has been successful in the projects that we have undertaken," Nason said. "We hope to do much more in the spring, as well as recruit the younger class to keep the activist tradition alive at Harding." Heidi Tabor
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc5NA==