Service Learning Blog

I volunteered at the Campus Community Farm Work Party. Lia Andrews is a student at EDCC that is the lead at the farm. Her email is lia.andrews@email.edcc.edu. Edmonds Community College sponsors the work parties. The goals of the work parties are to maintain the functions of the farm and learn about sustainability. I went once in September and then, again, in November. During my first visit, I transplanted strawberry runners. During my November visit, we turned tomatoes into compost and rinsed and weighed vegetables.

This experience helped me gain more of an appreciation for the food I eat. The food we harvested cleaned and weighed feeds local homeless and needy teens in the local area. Something seemingly easy, as harvesting swiss chard is going to provide meals for hungry youth. Contributing to benefit the lives of another person made this project worth everything.

I learned a lot about sustainability while working on the Campus farm. At the farm, they use everything and waste nothing. Rotten unused tomatoes were broken down with leaves and turned into compost to enhance the soil. Worms eat the food waste and their poop works as a fertilizer. Sustainable foods are real organic healthy food, not the processed and pesticide-ridden diets American commonly eat. The farmers there are in control of the food they put in their bodies and have a deep appreciation for the farm and food itself.

This project connects to ecology is many ways. The farm is an ecosystem in itself. It thrives on the diverse species of plants and insects. Some of the plants are native to the area and the farmers brought in some plants.  Because I went to the farm in two different parts of the season, I got to see the importance of different climates to the farm. Late summer was a time for harvesting and replanting for spring. November was filled with composting to ready the soil for spring.  All of this relates to the functionality of both biotic and abiotic factors within an ecosystem. The plants and insects need the water and sunlight for their ecosystem to thrive.

Questions:

1.    How can individuals, like me, practice sustainability in our own lives?

2.    Why are worms so important to the compost?

3.    How can the farm ensure pollinators, like bees and butterflies, thrive in this environment?