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