Sustain Mizzou cultivates garden

By Amber Wade

Published May 6, 2008

Every Saturday from 10 a.m. until dark, Sustain Mizzou members and a few devoted volunteers work together to cultivate their own garden.

Sustain Mizzou President Patrick Margherio said environmental education is one of the group’s main goals, which is why gardening is so beneficial.

“Sustain Mizzou is a nonprofit student organization that promotes environmental sustainability and education around campus,” Margherio said. “We are all about education, and so the garden is a great learning tool for how to be sustainable and grow your own food.”

Margherio said the group has been gardening for many years now but have only recently secured their own gardening space.

“About two years ago we had a farm project where we worked with a farmer outside of Columbia,” Margherio said. “We had a plot where we grew our own crops and then donated them to the Central Missouri Food Bank. After last summer, we started looking for something similar, but more local and urban.”

Former Sustain Mizzou President Adam Saunders said with the land donation from Mark Stevenson of Real Estate Management, Inc., and a partnership with Columbia’s Community Garden Coalition, Sustain Mizzou created a garden where they can plant their own vegetables.

The organization started soil preparation on the lot in March but just recently started planting.

Since it’s so early in the process the land seems barren, but Saunders has great hopes for it in the future. Currently they have planted blackberries, pole beans and onions, but they plan to grow more as the year progresses.

“We will be planting tomatoes, asparagus, broccoli, and pretty much any and every vegetable that can grow in Missouri,” Saunders said.

Margherio said while they might still donate food to the food bank, a lot of it will end up going right back to the volunteers and Sustain Mizzou members.

“We’re going to take a different approach with the garden this time,” Margherio said. “We are going to have a lot of the food go toward the people who work on the garden and toward Sustain Mizzou events for our members to enjoy.”

Saunders said Sustain Mizzou also plans to hold a big harvest festival in the fall where they will serve volunteers and the community products from their garden.

Saunders said Sustain Mizzou members have been learning more about organic farming in the past few months by attending classes he teaches.

The classes are offered every other week and have been available since February.

Margherio said the classes help volunteers learn what kind of soil is good for gardening, how to dig beds properly, where to plant crops to get the most nutrients and the benefits of rotating crops.

Saunders said one of the things members learn is the importance of eating seasonally, which decreases energy waste due to ground shipping of nonlocal food.

Saunders said having your own garden is extremely beneficial in many ways.

“Urban agriculture is key to our sustainability because people become more connected to how and where the food is produced,” Saunders said. “It also cuts down on pollution, because transportation costs and energy is greatly reduced.”

Margherio said anyone who wants to volunteer at the garden is welcome to come, not just Sustain Mizzou members or MU students.

“We want to educate as many people as possible about gardening so we encourage anyone who wants to learn to come out and volunteer,” Margherio said.

The community garden is only one of many events in which Sustain Mizzou participates.

Saunders said they also organize in the Tiger Tailgate Recycling at football games, the local food drive, stream clean-ups and the promotion of bike transportation.

Margherio said next year Sustain Mizzou will continue to focus on education, especially educating the community about Missouri’s natural environment and how to conserve it.