Lafayette Organic Gardening

Lafayette’s environmental club, LEAP, has always wanted to start an organic garden.  In Fall 2008, the first-year student orientation was themed “Live Green Lafayette” and a group of faculty, students, and staff together planted corn on our campus quad.  This provided an experimental dimension to the orientation festivities focused on Michael Pollen’s the Omnivore’s Dilemma. (See picture of Corn on the Quad, photo taken by Andy Smith)

Every Wednesday morning at 7am, a group of excel students and faculty would come to the quad to work in the corn before their work began that morning.  One of these early mornings, Andy Smith, Jenn Bell, Art Kney, and Dave Brandes were working in the corn and started talking about the idea to start a garden (and grow more than just corn!).  We talked about the location options and considered Metzgar Fields as an ideal location since it’s already leased as farmland.
The idea was talked about excitedly, but we seemed to have no means to get there immediately.  A couple weeks later, Jenn’s friend Ben Towne told LEAP leaders about the Clinton Global Initiative University awards.  He had been involved with a project headed by Fluney Hutchinson that had won an award the year before.

Jenn began talking with Dave Brandes about the possibility of applying for this grant award.  As they talked, their ideas developed into a 2-acre garden, half for the community and half food-production for the dining halls.  The proposal was called “A Locally Sustainable Food Loop for Lafayette College” and included growing our  food for the dining halls, composting the disposed waste from the dining halls, and then applying that compost to the gardens.
The proposal called for a deer fence, a rainwater collection system, and signage.

Then one night in September 2008, Jenn received an email from the Clinton Foundation notifying her that Lafayette had won the Clinton Global Initiative University Award for $5,000 to begin the project.

Since then, Dave Brandes, Andy Smith, John Wilson, Derek Smith, Jenn, and others have worked together on the project.  Other funding has come from Society of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (SEES),  LEAP,  and donations to the project for various items.  Thanks to all these sources of funding for making this project possible!!