2/3 UMass Permaculture Documentary Series. UMass students create vegetable garden outside Franklin Dining Commons. Photo by Don Treeger / The RepublicanUniversity of Massachusetts students work on the low maintenance garden outside the Franklin dining commons on the Amherst campus.
AMHERST – On a gorgeous fall afternoon, a handful of students were out in front of the Franklin Dining Commons at the University of Massachusetts with rakes in hand making magic. They were in the process of transforming what was once a green lawn into a garden that next spring could produce about 1,000 pounds of vegetables, according to Ken Toong, director of auxiliary enterprises. And they were doing this all without cost, with work from student-volunteers committed to the cause, with compost from the campus, with cardboard from the dining hall, with wood chips from the campus as well.
The idea to create a permaculture garden here came about from students about a year ago and was approved by the university in the spring. “For them to give us this place to grow food is really a big deal,” he said. UMass Permaculture. The UMass Permaculture Initiative is changing the way students interact with their food and surroundings with the creation of on-campus permaculture gardens.
Started in 2010, this initiative has brought together students from all academic realms, as well as faculty, staff, and community members to convert underutilized grass lawns on the campus into edible, educational, and biodiverse gardens. The Franklin Permaculture Garden, located on a quarter-acre plot adjacent to Franklin Dining Commons, is one of the first student-led permaculture gardens on a public university campus in the nation that supplies food directly to its campus dining services.