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Campus Garden is a plot for sustainability

  • Campus Garden
    Campus Garden  Students create a garden plot to promote sustainability on campus.  
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For now, the campus garden tucked away behind the campus dining hall is small. Even the goal of its creators—to produce one locally grown salad at the cafeteria before the end of the semester, according to Zack Miller (’08)—seems only mildly ambitious. Long term, however, the garden represents only the latest push by William and Mary students to move the campus toward greater environmental sustainability.

The campus garden was inspired by larger farms at colleges such as Yale and Tufts. Miller and other members of the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) conferred with Phil DiBenedetto, director of Dining Services, and members of the College's gardens and grounds division to plan and execute the project. The garden was plowed and mulched in the fall of 2007, and students started seedlings in the biology department greenhouse in February. 

Eventually, SEAC hopes to start a campus and community educational farm, teaching about sustainable agriculture and the farming process. For the short-term, members are looking for one "green" meal.