Write a 200 word reflections about your expectations prior to volunteering, what you learned, and how the experience changes your views or how you will apply this knowledge in the future! Post as a comment.
Due: 1 week after volunteering
Write a 200 word reflections about your expectations prior to volunteering, what you learned, and how the experience changes your views or how you will apply this knowledge in the future! Post as a comment.
Due: 1 week after volunteering
I am really glad we were able to go to Oxford today to visit their farm. Touring the Oxford farm today was such a fun and unique experience. It was really interesting to hear about all of the ways Emory is able to practice sustainable techniques in farming. Methods like crop rotation are so important and it’s great to see our community taking part in sustainability. I thought it was especially interesting to learn about the bees. It was cool to hear about the process and the many challenges of catching bee swarms. I was surprised to hear about how heavy the influence of the queen is, so much so that the entire rest of the swarm will do anything to follow her lead. It was also really great to be able to volunteer there too. Though it wasn’t for very long, it was fun to be able to help out and keep the fields organized to ensure everything would run smoothly. There were so many Oxford students there also volunteering around the farm and it was amazing to watch everyone come together and help out. The atmosphere was so positive and happy, and it really motivates me to continue volunteering and practicing methods of sustainability.
Over this past weekend, the class took a fieldtrip to the Oxford Organic farm in Oxford College. I personally was not expecting a farm anything like what we saw. I thought there would be larger fields of crops and other typical farm things like barn animals. Instead, the organic farm had 8 different locations of 100ft by 100 ft plots of vegetables or other plants. The person giving us a tour told us about how it is necessary for the crops to be rotated each year to prevent disease from taking over the plants and soil. As we have learned in class the practice of crop rotation was first practiced by the Etruscans in Northern Italy.
While volunteering on the farm, we spent about 40 minutes untangling hoses, being careful to not drag the ends in the dirt, carrying hoses from point A to point B to assemble a sprinkler system for one of the eight fields on the farm. When setting a sprinkler it is necessary to set the sprinkler to water well over the edges of the field to ensure every area is getting equal water. It is also better to water the surrounding area than to miss areas of crops and not yield any plants. Overall, I really enjoyed my experience at the farm and look forward to purchasing things grown from the farm at the Farmers Market next week!
The Oxford Farm was different than I expected. I liked learning about crop rotation and other forms of organic gardening. I have to say I was expecting the farm to have animals though. I also was expecting it to be more farm like (meaning more so secluded, larger and away from civilization). I find it very cool that some of the veggies grown at that farm are brought to Emory’s campus to the DUC and Cox Dining Hall. I am glad to know a lot of the food I am eating is organic. It’s also pretty awesome for the students at Oxford that their campus is so close to the farm. They can walk over in 5 min or less and even have class at the farm. I was a little bored when it came to the work we did, just because there really was not that much work to do. We mostly just walked around moving hoses. It was especially cool to see the Oxford Campus because I have not been before. I very much enjoyed that. I also thought that the current head of the farm was nice and intellectual. He clearly knows a lot about organic farming from all the information he told us.
I was very eager prior to volunteering at the Oxford farm. Back at home, I have a large vegetable garden which has tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, etc. One of the biggest things I miss about home is being able to sink my hands in the soil and tend to my garden. For this reason, I had great excitement to go work at the Oxford farm. At the farm, I had the opportunity to help re-run the irrigation system in the planter beds and the fields. I was reminded that irrigation is a very important component to a successful garden. As a result, I took great care in ensuring that I properly fulfilled my duties. At the farm, I learned about the many different varieties of crops that grow well in Georgia. Being from Los Angeles, I was not familiar with many of the crops grown here in Georgia. Certain varieties of vegetables, such as tomatoes, grow better in the humid Georgia climate than the drier Los Angeles climate. This experience makes me want to continue my passion for working in the garden. I am going to use the skills I learned at the Oxford garden in my future gardening endeavours both here at Emory and back home. This experience made me want to get more involved in working in the community gardens here at Emory. I am very glad to have engaged in this experience with my class. There is nothing quite like consuming fresh vegetables and this experience certainly reminded me of the importance in knowing where my food comes from.
This past Saturday morning, our seminar class went on a field trip to Oxford Farm. After sleeping most of the way there, I woke up to seeing the parameter of the Oxford campus, which was not what I expected. The farm and Oxford campus are in a rural area in the middle of nowhere. On the farm, we were given a tour of their land and what they’re growing. While on the tour, I was impressed to see multiple groups of Oxford students volunteering at the farm on a Saturday morning. Another part of the tour that impressed me was when our guide described how parts of what they grow go to the DUC and other dining halls. Using freshly grown vegetables and other foods reassures me that what we’re eating is actually healthy. After touring for about an hour, we helped set up the sprinkler system. First, we helped unravel different hoses to assemble the irrigation. Next, we were taught how to set the sprinklers so they would spray specific areas of the land. In the process of trying to follow the guide’s instructions on our own sprinkler, I managed to get sprayed by my sprinkler three times. After the guide realized that I could not figure out the sprinkler he came to the rescue and set up the sprinkler within seconds. Overall, the trip to the farm was fun, and it was interesting to see the Oxford campus.
The class trip to the Oxford Organic Farm was such a great experience. At the farm, we got to learn about how it operates, what it grows, and where the produce goes. During the tour, we learned some interesting facts about organic farming as well as some techniques to get the best produce such as the practice of crop rotation. It was also great learning about some of the harmful diseases that are found in Georgia that can hurt the crops, but there are also many different measures to prevent the crops from going bad.
It was also a great hands-on learning experience where we were able to help set up the irrigation system. Our work that we did as a class helped the farm in a meaningful way. Having extra hands around a farm can truly make a big difference.
Overall the experience was a memorable one. Going out to see the Oxford campus is an added bonus, there is a different, slower, vibe that cannot be found at the Atlanta campus. People should definitely make the trip out to Oxford to see the campus and work on the farm.
Last weekend the Italian seminar class took a trip out to the Oxford Organic Farm to continue our studies in sustainability and healthy eating. At the farm we were shown different farm plots, beehives and logs for growing mushrooms. The farmer explained how crops are rotated and why, what grows and cannot on the farm and the water usage of the farm. We concluded our trip by working on the farm’s irrigation system.
While I expected the farm to be much larger, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of crops the farm is able to produce and its “waste nothing” attitude. It is clear the team at the farm has a vision for its future including efforts towards improved sustainability and supporting food consumption for both Emory classes and the surrounding community. I think Emory has a very special approach to and focus on healthy dining that I have not seen at other universities and it should make a very big impact in the future.
It was nice to see how close the farm is to the Oxford, which in turn provides the Oxford students many opportunities for hands-on work, to study sustainability, and truly eat the freshest food. I am so glad I was able to go out and see the farm and I would highly suggest this experience to others.
I truly enjoyed our class trip to the Oxford Organic Farm! The farm and Oxford campus was in rural Georgia and not what I expected at all; however, it was incredible to see how over just three years the farm has grown to the size it is today and how it continues to implore sustainable and organic farming methods throughout their eight plots. It was an enriching experience and great to see how Emory really makes a large effort towards a better and more sustainable future. At the farm we were given a tour and shown fields of plants, beehives, mushroom logs (which were wicked cool), and were then explained how they used the method of crop rotation. The farmer was so genuinely enthusiastic when talking about the farm and everything he does on it that you couldn’t help wanting to learn more. Also, it was amazing to see so many Oxford students spending their Saturday morning farming and helping out on the farm. After the tour we were put to work gaining first hand farming experience. The farmer’s helper, also named Emma, helped us move some of the irrigation hoses on one of the vegetable plots while other people helped create a new irrigation system on another plot. Although we never got down in the dirt to do some actual gardening, it was neat to understand how some of the more technical parts of farming works. It was also very cool to learn that a lot of what they grow actually goes to the DUC and into the meals we eat daily. Overall it was a great and unique experience, and I am looking forward to buying some vegetables from the Oxford Farm at the farmers market this week at Emory!
Alex Zolla
I went into the Oxford farm trip not really knowing what to expect. I had never been to the Oxford Campus area before (I had never really been outside of Emory’s Atlanta Campus for that matter), so I was excited to see a different part of Georgia. Just like almost every other day this fall the weather was wonderful and sunny, so being out in the open fields was a little extra pleasant. The farm itself was a lot smaller (square footage wise) than I had anticipated, but considering the amount of space they had to work with, the farm was actually able to grow a lot more food than I expected. The farm had a great set-up of fields, was extremely organized and the head farmer Daniel Parsons really knew how to maximize the space. All things considered, the best part of the trip was how much I learned about the intricacies of what it takes for a farm to be completely organic. I found the use of cover plants, and the use of a crop rotation for each field to be absolutely fascinating, and an extremely creative and complex way of avoiding the emergence of crop diseases. Also because I am interested in ecology, I found the use of some bugs in an ecosystem to prevent crops from being eaten by other bugs to be very interesting for me. The information about how the transport swarming bees into a bee farm was also something that was really fascinating. Overall, the entire experience of visiting and volunteering at Oxford farm gave me a newfound appreciation for the amount of work and thought that goes into organic farming.
Because I was not able to attend the field trip to Oxford’s farm, I volunteered at Gaia gardens for a 2 hour shift instead. There were 5 of us total, and we dug up turnips and cut off the tops and roots from them. It was such a fun time, actually. Theehuman interactions that I experienced during my shifts I think were the most insightful and impactful aspect of my visit. To be able to sit in a circle with others and talk about how your life is going is so comforting. While at first I was speeding through buckets of turnips in order to feel productive, I realized that working quickly was not the point. In order to enjoy the full experience, I had to slow down and engage with those working around me. When I did, it hardly seemed like a job. It was also so interesting to observe the structure of the farm and see some of the alternative farming methods we talked about in action. I was able to see the drip irrigation hoses while I was picking turnips, and I was able to stick my hand into some wonderful, black compost. Exploring the neighborhood was very interesting, as well. It amazed me that these people living in the community put such a priority on sustainability. Even though the buildings were shared, each had it’s own identity, and some even had their own little gardens out front.