Organiculture

  Pictured here is team member Destany. She was in the green house in the middle of watering some marigold seeds she just planted. This photo was taken Monday September 26. Due to the uncertainty of hurricane Ian, we decided not to continue planting anything else in our plot. We have delayed in the fear of potential damage to our crops. After the hurricane blows over, metaphorically and literally, we will continue moving forward with our plantings. 

  Both team members Nicole(black hat) and Destany(pink hat) can be seen spreading the cover crop seeds. On the left side hairy vetch was placed. On the right we placed rye grass. We went with rye grass since it will not grow that tall.  After the seeds were spread, then team member Joshua F. Can be seen raking the soil with the freshly placed seeds.   

  This photo was taken by team member Lauren. Both team members Lauren and Destany took some time from their weekend to get some planting done. In total they planted more tomatoes, nasturtium, strawberries, and basil. They concluded that we do not have enough space for the bell peppers we originally wanted. They also concluded that we may have enough space for the herbs we were interested in planting. 

 Team member Joshua P. can be seen making measurements on the first row. He was doing so in order to correctly calculate the distance needed to plant our chosen crop. The other team members were standing by as Joshua made the measurements. The holes were then placed accordingly to accommodate for the measurements. The crop we chose for this area was corn. 

  1. Agroecological Design : Our first and primary goal is a well-designed farm. Accomplishing this directly improves our ability to meet our 2nd and 3rd goals listed below. 2.  Crop Yield and Quality : This will be determined when it comes time to harvest 3.  Economic Viability : By keeping track of associated resource and material costs, we’ll be able to get an idea of what our target pricing will be. We can then compare this to average cost of organic goods. It will be hard to extrapolate this to a larger trend, since the size of this garden is limited and as a first-time situation for many of the group members we may find that we have to fine-tune and adjust our approach; which can possibly increase costs.       4.    Social Impact : Our hope is to be able to produce enough, that we can donate some of          our produce at the end of the semester. We can hypothetically evaluate this to be at some point past our break...

Team member names on the left from front to back : -Destany D. -Lauren J.  -Nicole M. Team member names on the right from front to back:  -Joshua P. -Joshua F.