May Fieldtrips
The two days that GROW high school students visited CUH and
the UW Farm were full of sunshine. Students from Susan Barth’s horticulture class at Nova High School and students from Jessica Torvik’s horticulture/ecology classes were introduced to resources for their GROW projects through scheduled tours and activities. Maggie Roses’ science classes from Ingraham focused on working with Lisa
Haglund and Patrick Mulligan on the site prep and plant installation in the
newly restored storm water garden at CUH. 

“It’s really happening!” shouted the small, yet ecstatic, gathering of Farm Partnership* members, as they watched the plow turn the first soil over in the Center for Urban Horticulture’s northwest field. Farm manager, Robert Servine, knows this is just the first step of many to come before the .75 acre farm will be in full production. It’s certainly a major tangible step after months of planning with UW Botanic Gardens and UW campus grounds management, as well as between the 2 Farm Partnership organizations, to get this exciting urban farm project launched. 

Earlier this season as we were getting ready for a new quarter of restoration work in the Union Bay Natural Area, a friend supplied me with her wonderful collection of photographs from the 2004 planting of UBNA’s “blue tube forest”.  It was a pleasure to be given a look back in time to the beginning of this project, as I have only been familiar with UBNA for a mere 2 years.