Sprout! The Connecticut College Sustainable Food Initiative

The Conference

2008-04-06T13:46:00.006-04:00

Our conference was yesterday and it was a tremendous success. Each panel (and panelist) was very informative and interesting. The panelists truly displayed their passion for the issues that they talked about. I think everyone left the conference feeling much better informed and still optimistic about where we can go even in the face of so much adversity.

Many people came to the conference from Connecticut College and New London. People also really enjoyed the free Sustainable Lunch featuring local and organic: soups (Mangetout in NL), cheese (Beaver Brook Farm), apples, honey (CC Professor Stuart Woroneki), and bread. There was also fair trade and organic coffee from Bean & Leaf in New London along with some other drinks and baked goods. The live jazz, organized by Brent Thomas, was the perfect touch on a delicious meal.

A special thank you is deserved for all the students who have worked so hard this semester to make this event a reality and to many other members of the CC community, from Dining Services, who donated time and materials, to all of the departments and offices that made donations to this cause. Thank you!

Below are a few pictures from some of the panels and from the lunch. ** The conference was also videotaped so if you are interested in a DVD of the conference please send us an email.

Food with Though: an interdisciplinary conversation about food and agriculture

2008-04-02T08:51:00.013-04:00

**The food conference is this weekend! I have uploaded the schedule of events. I hope to see you all there!**

Movie on Friday, April 4

7pm-9pm: King Corn - This documentary is about two friends who follow corn into the food system and what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat and farm.

Panels on Saturday, April 5

10:00-11:15: Sustainable Agriculture and the Community (Ernst Common Room)

Panelists:

• Bryan Connolly: Bryan is professor at the University of Connecticut and a former professor of Connecticut College. He is a renowned local agriculture expert. Bryan will discuss definitions of sustainable agriculture and its practical implementation.
• Art Costa: Art is a director of Re-New London, a broad organization working towards the localization of New London companies, educational opportunities, and community outlets. Art will speak towards the type of work that Re-New London does and why community unification efforts are important and possible.
• Brent Thomas: Brent is a senior Government major at Connecticut College. He will speak about farm subsidies and the formation of industrial agriculture.
• Arthur Lerner: Arthur is a co-founder of F.R.E.S.H. New London. F.R.E.S.H. works to implement and guide practical, agricultural & gardening projects in New London as a way to educate and empower citizens towards personal wellness, community health, and environmental stewardship. Arthur will discuss the importance of local, sustainable food and the relationships it fosters among farmers and the surrounding community.

11:30-12:45: Panel on the Health of Humans and the Environment (Ernst Common Room)

Panelists:

• Katie Jeffrey-Lunn: Katie is a local nutritionist for FitNutrition, LLC in Mystic, CT. She specializes in nutrition counseling, her presentation focuses on the health of organic and local foods.
• Bart Staub: Bart is an ayurvedic consultant from the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. He will be talking about a holistic approach to health and nutrition as well as eating with the seasons.
• Tammy Collier: Tammy is one of the Connecticut Chapter leaders of the Weston A. Price Foundation which focuses on restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism.

2:00-3:15: Panel on Social Justice and Human Rights (Ernst Common Room)

Panelists:

•David A. Canton: David is an African Studies Professor specializing in 20th Century American Social History, the Civil Rights Movement, and Urban History. He'll be talking about Martin Luther King Jr. and the Human Rights movement.
• Manuel Lizarralde: Manuel is a Connecticut College Botany Professor. His talk will focus on the production of ethanol involved with producing food.
• Davis Lewis: David is an owner of Flavours of Life, the fair trade store in New London. He is also a very active member of the New London community. He will be talking about fair trade.

Our Table at the Fiddleheads Market

2008-03-29T16:01:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, March 29th we had a table at the Fiddleheads Market, which is a winter/spring farmer's market that just started up at the Fiddleheads Food Co-op every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am-2pm. It is a great place to go every week to find delicious local and organic produce from area farmers...and it's wonderful environment too with live music and happy people.

At the market we sold some lettuce and lemon verbena tea. Both were very popular and the lettuce sold out in only 20 minutes! We were also advertising for the upcoming food conference. We are hoping to have many people there from CC and the New London Community.

Below are a couple images. One of a view of the market and another of Heidi Cook at our table. Brent Thomas was also there at the market to help out.

what's possible

2008-03-24T16:27:00.003-04:00

As the signs of Spring appear around us with blooming flowers and chirping birds, our garden continues to thrive. Having returned from Spring Break, I went today to check out the status of the lettuces planted in the Fall...they live. All of the many varieties of lettuce that we planted survived the winter with no maintenance. It seems remarkable, but what this proves is that anyone, with hardly any labor, can have lettuce to eat all winter long. All that is needed is a little wire and some plastic covering (even a shower curtain would work). This little experiment of ours was a success and next winter I can only expect that we will be able to improve our modest harvest.

Below is some freshly harvested lettuce (my dinner tonight) and another image of lettuce growing under the plastic covering.

Happy Spring!

Misha

Earth Tub Composting Update

2008-03-17T20:28:00.004-04:00

We are now composting in ALL OF THE DINING HALLS ON CAMPUS. This semester we have added Harris, Knowlton, and Smith dining halls to the list of places that we pick up food waste from. We now get hundreds of pounds every day and we are rapidly filling the tubs. After a slight learning curve from students and staff, the idea of composting is now catching on, and people are very enthusiastic about the amount of waste that is now being diverted from the piggery. The first batch of compost is going to Sprout and the second batch will be going to FRESH.

There was also an article recently published in E (the Environmental Magazine) with a section on the composting project featuring Tyler Dunham and Misha Johnson. Click here.

Below, Alana Harris and Mike Seager transport food waste from the dining halls to the Earth Tubs, and a look inside of one of the tubs with newly added food waste.

Maple Syrup March Madness

2008-03-17T19:07:00.007-04:00

In late February, just a couple weeks before Spring Break we started to tap some sugar maple trees for sap. This project came to fruition with the guidance (and some extra materials) from Jim Luce and the initiative of Brent Thomas and Liz Wall. We tapped about a dozen sugar maples and then just before break we tapped a few red maples, which yield a sap with slightly less sugar content, so it takes more sap to make the same amount of syrup. For sugar maples it takes about 40 parts sap to make 1 part syrup. It takes about 12 hours to boil down the sap, which we have been doing in the kitchens of the dormitories Abbey House and Earth House.

This whole project is tremendously exciting and it allows us to continue our goal of showing what is possible in the area that we live in. Maple syrup is a sustainable alternative to imported refined sugars. And of course it is DELICIOUS!

Below, Brent Thomas and Eric Dooley-Feldman gather the sap from some trees and then filter and boil it in Earth House.

Yearly Report and February Update

2008-02-12T11:08:00.000-05:00

Please follow the link below and click on "Yearly Report for 2007" to check out a summary on what happened this past year and what we are looking ahead to for this new one.

http://sprout.conncoll.edu/wheelbarrow.htm

We have hit the ground running this semester and are working on having many events including a conference focused around food issues in early April. I will write again soon with more details on that and our other projects.

Done for the Year

2007-12-17T22:05:00.001-05:00

As finals are wrapping up for students around campus so too have we been tying somethings up with the garden. We had our last workday a couple weeks ago and now the only thing out there are the lettuces, which are still surviving under the thick layer of snow and ice that now coats the campus.

We're currently looking ahead to next year and working out where the garden will be going. Over the winter break I will be publishing our yearly report. Below are a couple pictures with some Sproutees from our last meeting of the year and some mizuna under cover in the garden.

Happy Holidays,

Misha

Garden Update

2007-11-26T10:17:00.001-05:00

While the garden is mostly asleep for the winter we are still working on a few projects. The winter lettuces are doing very well, and were very popular when delivered to the dining hall a couple weeks ago. If all goes well we should be able to continue to harvest them for quite a while longer.

The spearmint is still growing strong, though it will be harvested soon. And will hopefully be delivering some lemon verbena to Bean & Leaf café in New London quite soon.

We are also working on the shed. It is coming along quite nicely. This is our main project right now. The goal is to have it finished by the end of the semester.

Composting Project Opening Ceremony November 19th

2007-11-26T10:08:00.000-05:00

On Monday November 19th we had the opening ceremony for the composting project. Many students, faculty, and staff came down, and there were news crews from the Day and Channel 3. Tyler Dunham and I made short speeches and introduced CC president Leo Higdon, who spoke about the importance of this initiative for the College and the New London Community. We then did a demonstration and a ceremonial "Dump 'n Grind" (as the ceremony was called).

The event was on the Channel 3 evening news:
mms://streaming.vmsnews.com/media/wsxtemp/9142908D-BE95-4392-8A06-9E50047AC021.wsx

It was also featured in the Day newspaper:
http://www.theday.com/re_print.aspx?re=8ac304eb-4a40-4cb0-83ba-d07d0b78d525

And on the Connecticut College homepage:
http://aspen.conncoll.edu/news/3867.cfm

If you have any questions or comments about the project please feel free to send us an email.

Real Food Conference @ Yale and Recent Workday

2007-11-04T19:51:00.000-05:00

Saturday and Sunday Liz Wall, Stephanie Blennerhassett and I went to the Real Food Summit at Yale. It was an event organized for the purpose of bringing together people from universities all around New England to discuss the ideas and projects that we all have. There was a mixture of speakers and smaller discussion groups based around different issues that are trying to be tackled in the sustainable food movement. It was a time for sharing ideas as well as hearing those of others. Every school (47 in all) had a different context that they were coming from but each had something to offer, whether it was advice or a novel idea. The conference also gave a sense of being part of a greater movement that is happening not only in New England but also across the country and around the world. I think we all learned a lot and personally I've come back with ideas flowing like Niagara. I, and I think Liz and Stephanie too, would love to share what I learned with all of you as well. We will hopefully do that at the meeting next week. We also picked up some really interesting materials that we should be able to use this on campus to educate the student body and create a more sustainable dining system...As always feel free to contact me with any questions.

Today we had another work day (that Baylin ran). He and a few other people fixed up the cold frames that have been set up and are now covering some of the head lettuce. The beets, cover crops, hot peppers, and loose leaf lettuces are still going strong as well. The tomato plants were also taken out and are hanging upside down outside Earth House. Evidently we can leave them hanging upside down for a few months and the tomatoes will ripen. The shed also got worked on this week and the walls are continually looking better. Keep up the good work everyone!

October 21st Workday

2007-10-23T18:36:00.002-04:00

This workday was tremendously successful. We had a nice large group show up and it allowed us to do many of the important things that needed to be done before a frost comes (although it probably wont be coming too soon). We weeded the new Fall and Winter lettuces, cleared out a lot of the built-up leaf litter and rocks, broadcast more buckwheat, cleared so more land to expand the garden, and laid down more compost. The Fall and cover crops are coming up really well (The rye is the "grass"-looking plant in the pictures. The buckwheat and a couple of the loose-leaf lettuces are also pictured). Everything is certainly made much easier by the fact that it is not cold yet. Other crops like our tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers are still alive but not producing as much fruit, possibly because of the diminished amount of light reaching them. It's all still delicious though.

Recent Workdays

2007-10-09T21:52:00.001-04:00

We've had quite a lot of workdays recently. We've been bagging tea, broadcasting cover crops, tending to our Fall crops, harvesting, and gathering compost for the garden. It hasn't been raining much although it is supposedly in the forecast, and the weather (although uncomfortably balmy) has allowed our tomatoes, eggplants, zucchinis, beets, and herbs to keep on growing strong.

Sustainable Dinner on October 3rd

2007-10-09T20:00:00.001-04:00

Dining Services, with the initiative of Kristine Serwinski, hosted a Sustainable Dinner. The meal set outside of JA, was catered by 5 local farms that have been providing foods to the dining halls. Sprout was also there talking with people about our club while also educating students about local, organic, and sustainable agriculture. Many students showed up to enjoy the delicious local feast. They also filled out surveys, learned more about the individual farms, and talked to farmers.

Harvestfest and More...

2007-10-01T20:20:00.000-04:00

A lot was done this past week for Sprout. We sold pumpkins, zucchini bread muffins, jars of tea, salsa, and tomato sauce for Harvestfest (everything was homemade). Our table was very popular and almost sold out of everything. It was a great fundraiser for us.

This Sunday at the workday we planted the rest of the lettuces (for a total of 6 wide beds), and we will continue to plant successions of others as the Fall progresses. The cover crops will also be going in the ground this week.

And the Earth Tubs arrived on Friday! We will probably start composting right after Fall Break.

September 16th Workday

2007-09-16T18:39:00.002-04:00

We had another great workday today. We finished weeding the entire garden area inside the fence, so that we can now plant some cover crops for the winter. We also harvested some eggplants, zucchini, hot peppers, tomatoes and all of the herbs (lemon verbena, spearmint, lemon balm). We received a request from the Blue Camel Café for some herbs so they should be showing up there in about a week after they are done drying. We also harvested and removed all of the corn plants so that they may dry and we can save the seeds.

We also planted our first succession of lettuces for a Fall crop. We will be planting more in the coming weeks.

3rd Annual Sproutfest! @ Earth House

2007-09-15T20:23:00.001-04:00

On Friday we hosted Sproutfest! It is an annual event held at Earth House for faculty and staff of the college. It serves as an opportunity for us to raise awareness about our projects among the CC community beyond the students. We spent the entire day cooking (with as many ingredients from the garden and/or organic ingredients as possible) at Earth House.

We made: vegan pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin pie, cucumber soup, focaccia, baba ganouj, eggplant parmesan, veggie/fruit juice, and zucchini bread. We also served a big dish of our delicious cherry tomatoes (see picture). I think people really enjoyed what we made.

We also gave them a tour of the garden and an explanation of what we are growing and some of our future goals.

Thanks so much to all who came and to those who made some delicious food for our guests.

September 9th

2007-09-09T17:08:00.000-04:00

We continued the work on the garden this week doing a lot more weeding and cleaning up of the whole area. The plants are looking much stronger this week since they've been cleaned up and watered all week. Many of the fruits are weighing down on the plants. We will certainly be harvesting a lot this week.

We also started up work on the shed once again. We have finished the rock base and are now starting to place glass bottles on top of those to build up the walls (they will serve as windows to provide natural lighting to the shed. Once the walls have been built up enough we will build a wooden frame on which to place the roof. We're hoping to finish it this fall.

First Workday of the Fall Semester

2007-09-02T21:58:00.001-04:00

We had a very successful first workday in the garden. We had a large group that was able to work hard and efficiently. The garden had a lot of weeds so we spent the bulk of the day weeding around the bases of the plants to give them some breathing room. We also harvested a large amount of gourds and pumpkins. We have many peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, zucchinis, and corn that a looking beautiful and ready to eat. We should be having a larger harvest soon for the dining halls. We also set up the drip hose to water the plants, which are looking a little low on water.