Students grow garden, give back

BATAVIA, Ohio - While most students are just about to finish their classes, take their finals and think about their upcoming summer vacation, some are thinking of others and how to feed them.

Biology students have been waiting for eight weeks to get started on their community garden project. But with all the rain, the UC Clermont College students have had to detour the garden, but not their mission. All the food they grow will go to local food pantries.

Just down the hill from campus the students, digging deep with boots and gloves on, will for the second year plant loads of tomatoes, peppers, melons, herbs and cucumbers.

"This year the Community Garden is eight times as big as it was last year," said Dr. Krista Clark, UC Clermont biology professor. "The yield will be donated to nine food pantries to feed the hungry in our community."

Last year the smaller garden produced 381 pounds of fruits and vegetables.

“We’ve done a lot of different strategies, planting more plants in a smaller area. We’re going to be doing some square-foot gardening in our raised beds. We’re putting our rows a little bit closer together.”

"The fresh foods produced by this garden will hopefully help many families get through a difficult time," said Clark. "It's rewarding for us to be able to give back to our community."

And vet technician student Holly Berling agreed.

“We get to donate all the food and stuff to local food banks, families in need and it’s a great experience to be able to give back to the community.”

This is the garden project’s second year and it started with land that wasn’t being utilized.

“We had this piece of land that we couldn’t put a building on. It’s actually five acres in total and had just been kinda sitting here and I thought, well, why don’t we take that over, it would be a perfect place because there’s so much sun.”

Her students get to get out of the classroom and enjoy that sun, all while planting, doing good for the community and learning a thing or two about science in the process.