Veggin' Out at UW-Stout
student compost helps campus garden grow
Student workers at UW-Stout’s campus garden – aptly named UW-Sprout – make sure sustainability and natural are more than just buzzwords.
Forty hours a week during summer, they nurture plants while on their hands and knees, eschewing power tools. They pull weeds; no chemicals are used. Mulch around the plants is free from a city program.
When it comes to delivering the garden’s bounty weekly to the 17 shareholders in Menomonie, the three summer employees – Katie Ankowicz, Christina Hammerstrom, and Connor Hobart – use only natural energy as they pedal their bikes around town with boxed produce in tow.
This summer, the second year of the operation on north campus, students have gone the extra mile to make the garden even more sustainable and natural. They have been biking to the homes of five fellow students and collecting their compost. “We thought it would be a good way to get compost and to get other students involved in the garden,” said Ankowicz, of Madison, garden manager. She is majoring in environmental science with a concentration in plant science innovations.
Once a week, garden workers pick up compostable items – leftover food and other biodegradable items – that the off-campus students leave in a bucket outside their apartments. The fresh compost is dumped onto a compost pile when workers return to the garden. It takes about a half-hour to make the compost run.
Eventually, the compost pile will break down and become the “black gold” gardeners covet as a way to enrich their soil while completing a natural cycle, from ground to table to ground. The garden has one fully decomposed pile of compost ready to spread while another compost pile, which includes the fresher organic material collected this summer, won’t be ready until next year.
Garden workers hope to expand compost pickup to more students in off-campus housing in the coming years to help the garden but also to spread the word about composting and living a more sustainable lifestyle.
Garden workers also are looking into continuing compost pickup year-round. “A lot of people want to compost but don’t know how to do it or where to bring it,” Ankowicz said. “We’re trying it out, and next summer we hope to build the program. It’s been easy. We’re building our compost pile, and we get some exercise.”
Students also pick up spent grains weekly from Real Deal Brewing, part of the Raw Deal restaurant on South Broadway Street, for composting.
Along with three paid student workers, UW-Sprout Campus Garden welcomes students and local residents interested in volunteering. In exchange for their help, volunteers can take home some produce.
The garden, with about 40 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and flowers, covers 3,000 square feet –one-fifth of an acre – on a university lot on Fourth Street West behind Red Cedar Hall.
The garden was created to teach students about sustainable food production and to enhance the campus culture regarding sustainability, ecology and healthy eating, but it’s also being run as a business, with shareholders paying an annual fee in exchange for produce.
Produce from UW-Sprout is not certified organic, but the garden follows organic growing methods, Ankowicz said.
To see a UW-Stout video about the garden, go to https://youtu.be/axj09xuqqSo. For more information about the garden, go to www.facebook.com/uwsprout or email uwsproutgarden@uwstout.edu.
