Tom Erler and Darcy Dauble are two long-time rare plant monitoring volunteers with a breadth of experience to share with our 38 recently trained monitors! During the monitoring season you will catch Tom searching for rare plants across the state, anywhere from the San Juan Islands to Douglas County. His day job is with the King County Noxious Weed program. Darcy Dauble is a retired librarian who can be found botanizing the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington. 

Horsetail, a plant that Seattle area gardeners love to hate. Have it in your garden? You have likely been fighting it for years. But this plant is more than just a weed. Field horsetail, Equisetum arvense, is a tenacious perennial native to the temperate and arctic regions across the northern hemisphere, including the Pacific Northwest.
In early spring I often encounter visitors wondering about the otherworldly-looking reproductive stems of field horsetail. 

As an African American woman who has worked in public gardens for the past eighteen years, I often experienced firsthand the need for greater diversity. The lack of inclusion in the workspace is not an issue exclusive to public gardens, but it should be noted that many public gardens in the United States were founded by white people and many are primarily staffed by white people, despite being located in communities of color.

3.30.22

Around The Farm

by Annaliese Youngs, senior, Public Health Global Health Major, Food System Nutrition and Health Minor, UW Farm Education Intern, Winter Quarter '22
 
With the season changing and spring just around the corner, the UW Farm is busy starting crops.
With average the last frost date of April 6th in the Seattle area, there are a variety of methods the UW Farm uses to get a head start on spring planting. 

Ferns are unique in that they do not flower or produce seeds, but instead reproduce vegetatively or through spores. If you’ve ever seen dark brown dots on the bottom of a fern frond – those are spores! Spores are most often found on the underside of fronds in clusters called sori.
1)  Woodwardia fimbriata                                                           Giant Chain Fern

This species is the largest fern native to North America and is found on the coast in moist coniferous forests from British Columbia to Baja California. 

University of Washington Bothell (UWB) and the University of Washington Botanic Gardens (UWBG) at the Washington Park Arboretum (WPA) partnered this Winter quarter with two community based learning and research BES 495 student interns. Here are their BES 495 project blogs:
Planting Projects at WPA by Jessica Rouhana, BS in Conservation and Restoration Science 
Two projects were focused on: Rhododendron Glen and the Lightning Tree. 

by Dannette Lombert, Food Security Lead, AmeriCorps Member
The UW Farm is Springing into the Season!
Happy Spring Equinox! Over here at the farm, we are well into the spring season. Our days are filled with starting seeds, transplanting, prepping beds, mulching, and harvesting. Now that the season is picking up with our seeds showing their true leaves and hardening off, we have added more volunteer shifts! 

3.23.22

Around The Farm

by Dannette Lombert, Food Security Lead, AmeriCorps Member
The UW Farm is Springing into the Season!
Happy Spring Equinox! Over here at the farm, we are well into the spring season. Our days are filled with starting seeds, transplanting, prepping beds, mulching, and harvesting. Now that the season is picking up with our seeds showing their true leaves and hardening off, we have added more volunteer shifts! 

Learn about Environmental Justice and how the UW Farm works to create a just community.

3.16.22

Around The Farm

by Elizabeth Theirl, fourth-year undergraduate majoring in Neuroscience and Geography, UW Farm Environmental Justice Intern
 
What is Environmental Justice?  
It is established that one’s geographical position can result in disproportionate levels of exposure to harmful environmental toxins and contaminants, as well as differences in accessibility to resources and outdoor spaces. 
The field of Environmental Justice aims at addressing this inequality by redistributing both the environmental burdens and benefits among all members of society, regardless of age, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity.