This past Sunday was one of the few bright and sunny days Wooster has seen in the past couple weeks and the Cowpatch was buzzing with students taking advantage of the decent weather.
The Cowpatch was started at the end of the 2008-2009 school year as a part of the Collegeís WooCorps program. The program helped students find summer jobs and internships in these tough economic times.
On Sunday, students were gathered in the Cowpatch with visiting professor Matthew Mariola from the Environmental Science department.† Mariola and students worked together to pull garden stakes and plants, harvesting any of the remaining ones and to use various agricultural techniques to prepare the patch for the winter to come.
The main goal of the patch party was to till more than half of the garden and plant a cover crop seed, a plant that covers the tilled ground preventing soil loss due to rain, wind and exposed soil. The other half of the garden, which is largely occupied with grass and too hard to till, will be covered with leaves from the surrounding trees, which will act as a protective layer between the ground and the elements.
Since its founding, the garden has been a learning process as students overcome obstacles as they cross their path. Since its creation, one of the main goals of the patch has been to provide the Lowry Dining Hall with fresh local produce, a major component of sustainable agriculture.
The gardenís intent is to achieve close to organic gardening practices. They also strive to practice sustainable agriculture techniques. The garden does not use any pesticides, although the grounds crew did distribute fertilizer throughout the garden this summer. Whether or not that will become a repeated practice is unknown.† Other sustainable practices include recycling the plants to the compost heap to create mulch that can be used in the garden as well as other locations on campus.
Mariola, whose involvement in the garden stems solely from his strong interest in sustainable agriculture, plans to encompass planning and trip to the garden into the curriculum of his agriculture class next semester.† Heíll encourage students to draft plans regarding crop layout and usage, and will require them to participate in maintaining the garden.
In the process of establishing the garden WooCorps worked with Chuck Wagers, the director of Food Services in Lowry to establish an impact crop that could be used in the dining hall. Wagers chose Roma tomatoes, which can be used to make marinara sauce and can easily be frozen.† In addition to tomatoes, the patch began growing eggplant, onions, lettuce, various peppers and other varieties of plants.
Unfortunately, communication between Lowry and the Cowpatch is still being worked out. Mariola stated that Lowry needs to plan for its meals and usually doesnít store excess foods. The garden doesnít always allow for accurate planning. A combination of the communication gap and this being a test run period, the patch had a surplus supply of Roma tomatoes, many of which were discarded.
In attempts to use some of the surplus plants, The Office of Residence Life held a salsa-making party in which students were encouraged, free of charge, to attend the party and make their own batch of salsa with ingredients from the garden.
Another hiccup along that way involved the maintenance of the garden. Sarah Falkoff í11 informed that the week that followed finals week this past May she and two other students were hired by Residence Life to maintain the garden until Aug. 8 when they would disperse to prepare for the new school year.
From Aug. 8 on, she commented, there were no students or staff assigned to maintain the garden. ìEssentially, we went from having students tend to it everyday to no one from August till now” says Falkoff.
The garden is a work in progress and is, of course, continually evolving.† For more information on the garden or Woo Corps, or to get involved, contact Residence Life or the C.O.W. Grounds crew at (330) 263 ñ 2560.