Wednesday, April 15, 2020 // The Statement
2B

Managing Statement Editor

Magdalena Mihaylova

Deputy Editors

Emily Stillman

Marisa Wright

Associate Editor

Reece Meyhoefer

 Designers

 Elizabeth Bigham

 Kate Glad

 Copy Editors

 Madison Gagne 

 Sadia Jiban

 

Photo Editor 

Keemya Esmael

Editor in Chief

Elizabeth Lawrence

Managing Editor

Erin White

I

f there’s one good thing that comes 
out of this quarantine, it’ll be the 
little spinach plants my boyfriend 

Davis and I planted in a garden bed behind 
his childhood home. A few weeks ago, in a 
rare haze of productivity, we planned out 
a summer garden and ordered some seeds. 
The first to sow? Spinach. (Which, to my 
uneducated surprise, does produce seeds.) 
We planted them in some seed-starter 
pellets, shoved them under the couch to 
“simulate soil darkness conditions,” as 
Davis pragmatically put it, and waited 
for those suckers to pop. Lo and behold, 
they did, and yesterday, with more focus 
and precision than I’ve given to any of 
my classes during the past two weeks, I 
helped him transplant them into the soil 
outside.

During the past 24 hours, both of 

us have gone out to check on them. 
He’ll gingerly hold the watering can 
over the buds or I’ll brush some dirt 
away from their emerging little leaves, 
which resemble actual spinach more and 
more each day. This morning I asked him how they did 
overnight. He replied with a detailed report of their 
nascent well-being. I imagine it’s how having children 
feels, especially if children came with far lower stakes, 
grew to adulthood on their own and then you ate them.

If their growth goes well and all our plants yield, we’ll 

have — by my comprehensive calculations — about 22 
leaves of spinach to eat when all is said and done. Even 
though it’s not quite enough for a salad, I look forward to 
gently pulling the leaves off, rinsing them above the sink, 
and creating something with them. I feel grateful to be 
able to grow and eat some of my own food, even if it’s just 
a few leaves of spinach.

I have felt connected to where my food grows before 

this, though — all of us at the University of Michigan have, 
whether we realize it or not. Not far from the University’s 
central campus is the Campus Farm. Nestled behind the 
Matthei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, in 
what often feels worlds away from the urban Ann Arbor 
we’re used to, is organic, local produce growing in four 
hoop houses, two greenhouses and three acres of arable 
land.

The first time I volunteered at the Campus Farm was 

a freezing, rainy day in late October 2017 — we were 
outside harvesting swiss chard to be sent to the dining 
halls. I remember not being able to feel my fingers from 
the cold, but not caring because I was just beginning to 
realize that the swiss chard in my freezing, muddy hands 
was the same one I’d eat in East Quad once I got back 
home. 

I started volunteering almost every week and 

throughout the past three years I’ve been able to help 
harvest the spinach that was later in my spinach pie in 
East Quad, the microgreens that were on my bowl of 
stew at Maizie’s Kitchen in the League, the tomatoes in 
the salad bar at South Quad and the squash I took home 
and cooked for a Thanksgiving meal with my roommates 
once I finally moved out of the dorms.

Initially founded by a group of graduate and 

undergraduate students in 2012, the Campus Farm 
has grown to employ more than 27 student staff; it 
supports programming, volunteer and research oppor-
tunities, internships and classes; it is entirely student-
managed and makes over $100,000 in revenue and sells 
nearly 35,000 pounds of produce each year to clients 
like M-Dining and Argus Farm Stop. It also supports 
the Maize & Blue Cupboard, a food pantry that aims 
to ensure “healthy, nutritious, and nourishing food” to 
those who may face food insecurity, with regular produce 
donations.

Even with the coronavirus quarantine, the Maize 

& Blue Cupboard and the Campus Farm remain in 
operation. For the Campus Farm at least, there have been 
some obvious but necessary changes: The dining halls 
have temporarily suspended all orders from the Campus 
Farm and nearly all Campus Farm staff are now working 
remotely, doing administrative tasks and program and 
development planning individually and through Zoom 
meetings. Student and community volunteer workdays 
have also ended until the stay-at-home order ends and 

the quarantine is lifted. 

Lead Manager Carly Sharp, a recent alum, 

and Student Engagement Manager Lydia 
Hsu, a senior in the School of Kinesiology, 
have over six years of experience working 
at the farm between the two of them. I’ve 
gotten to know both of them over the past 
few years through hours of pulling up drip 
tape and afternoons of harvesting dozens 
of pounds of spinach. Both Sharp and Hsu 
are still able to work at the farm during the 
quarantine.

One thing they’ve been prepping for is 

the annual plant sale in collaboration with 
Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols 
Arboretum. Each May, the farm sells 
transplants of popular garden plants like 
tomatoes and peppers. In an interview with 
The Daily, Sharp and Hsu said that because 
of the stay-at-home order in Michigan, 
“There will literally be thousands and 
thousands of plants that could go to people 
and won’t (if the sale can’t happen).”

If the stay-at-home order continues 

through the summer, the Campus Farm 

won’t be able to plant their normal amount, which means 
less produce to harvest in the fall and fewer sales made 
to M-Dining. “Because (M-Dining) is where a lot of our 
revenue comes from in the fall, it could mean fewer staff 
and less programming that we’d be able to support in the 
long run.” 

But plants are plants, and they keep doing their thing 

during quarantine. There is still spinach that needs to be 
harvested and chard that needs to be planted. Hsu said 
that because it’s been so warm, she plants something in 
a greenhouse one day, it will pop out of the soil the next.

Even though it may be a little stunted right now, the 

farm is certainly not going away. “I feel super fortunate 
and am super proud to be part of an organization that’s 
still supporting staff and students right now, and that we 
have the means to be able to do that as an organization,” 
Sharp said.

The best part of the Campus Farm? “It allows so much 

collaboration, and community, and autonomy,” Hsu said. 
“Whatever ideas we have, we have the space to go forth 
with them.”

I know for certain that without my experiences at 

the Campus Farm, my 22 leaves of spinach would not be 
growing in the backyard right now. This summer Davis 
and I plan to grow some jalapenos, cayenne peppers, 
banana peppers and cucumbers. The place where they’ll 
grow is just a small homemade garden bed built from 
some scrap wood with a few screws sticking out, but it 
does the trick. Virus or no virus, we’re all still learning 
how to grow.

statement

THE MICHIGAN DAILY | APRIL 15, 2020

BY ELLIE KATZ, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
The Campus Farm keeps growing

PHOTO COURTESY OF ELLIE KATZ

