Buffone Garden Day 2

WA Environmental Science students spent a second class period harvesting crops and preparing the local Buffone Garden for winter. There was a surprised siting of a hawk atop of Rader (photo below)

Creating urban gardens for food production is a potentially transformative act in terms of community building, broad and dynamic virtues of cultivating growth, decreasing carbon emissions and run-off pollution, and biological/ecological field study opportunities, among other benefits.

Neighborhood Garden Work

Environmental Science students from the class of 2012 spent the morning harvesting crops from the Charlie Buffone Garden on Aetna street. The garden is a community garden managed by Oak Hill CDC. Produce from the garden is donated to neighborhood residence.This past summer members of the WA community tended to the garden and ES students will spend some time here harvesting as well as using the garden as a means for studying agriculture in Massachusetts. Soil for the garden came from Worcester residents’ yard compost, which is formed at the Worcester Recycling Center on Ballard street. The class has asked the question what can be grown in state? On Aetna street tomatoes, corn, squash, beans, peppers, cabbage, eggplant, lettuce, pumpkin, cucumber, herbs, and more can grow. What nutrients do these foods supply? What are the benefits of planting corn, beans, and squash together? Where did this practice originate and why? What conditions are needed for the plants to grow? What type of soil? The soil for the garden came from Worcester residents’ yard compost, which is formed at the Worcester Recycling Center on Ballard street. Climate change has been addressed as a major environmental concern by the class, how does producing food in this manner effect carbon dioxide emissions (the primary green house gas -GHG-), aslo known as our carbon footprint. Click on the agriculture page above for more information on agriculture and the lessons the Buffone Garden has to offer.