UMass Boston

UMass Boston’s students and staff have a chance to learn about sustainable agriculture and grow fresh local produce for distribution through U-ACCESS.

On a triangular plot of land behind University Hall, a grid of wooden planters rises from the grass. Sprouts of radishes, beans and kale stretch their tender leaves toward the sun. This is UMass Boston’s new community garden, where volunteers will have a chance to cultivate vegetables, fruits and flowers.

“This is our pilot year for the project, and we’re already seeing a lot of enthusiasm for it,” says Janna Cohen-Rosenthal, UMass Boston’s sustainability and resiliency planner.

The garden is the result of a collaboration with Green City Growers, an organization which strives to promote urban agriculture and inspire shared experiences through their gardens. They currently provide urban farming expertise and education to more than 150 sites across the New England region, along with locations in New York, Kentucky and Texas. In Boston, some of their other garden plots can be found at the Boston Museum of Science and Fenway Park.

At the UMass Boston site, four of the eight raised beds were constructed using funding from Grow Boston, a City of Boston program which encourages urban farming.

During the summer and fall, the UMass Boston Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability will host weekly gatherings at the garden, in which interested participants can learn about urban farming and contribute to the garden’s care. For the summer, the meetings take place between 9 a.m. and noon on Tuesdays, but the exact times will vary over the course of the year.

The first 15 minutes of every gathering is dedicated to a discussion of sustainable agriculture, hosted by an urban farmer from Green City Growers, with a focus on the week’s chosen topic—for instance, how to position an urban garden so that it gets the right amount of sun, and isn’t overshadowed by buildings. Afterwards, participants can lower the pest-proof fencing around the garden beds, and start planting seeds, pulling up weeds, and watering the crops. When plants mature, tasks will also include harvesting the produce.

A volunteer plants sprigs of rosemary in the new community garden. Image By: Javier Rivas.

The beds currently contain a wide variety of garden staples, like tomatoes, lettuce, squash and rosemary. There are also some more unique offerings, like an assortment of peppers and an amethyst basil plant. When selecting plants for each site, Green City Growers has to take into account both the local climate and microclimate, the educational goals for the location, and many other factors. At UMass Boston, irrigation and making sure the plants have enough water was especially critical.

Cohen-Rosenthal stresses that no prior gardening experience is necessary for volunteers. “It’s about the experience of connecting with your fellow community members while, growing the plants,” she says, “and we hope that having this garden on campus will inspire even more students to get involved with hands-on sustainability projects.”

UMass Boston students have been heavily involved since the garden’s inception. Last year, students ran a survey to measure interest in the garden among their peers, as part of an Honors College class co-taught by Cohen-Rosenthal and Bala Balachandran, the executive director of the Sustainable Solutions Lab.

Today, some of Cohen-Rosenthal’s student sustainability assistants regularly attend the garden’s weekly volunteer meetings. “It’s been a great experience, watching the beds go in and seeing the enthusiasm from other students,” said Arina Khalil, an undergraduate sustainability assistant who also publishes the garden’s weekly newsletter.

When the crops are ready for harvest, any fruits or vegetables will be distributed through the U-ACCESS food pantry, helping the UMass Boston community enjoy local produce.