Community garden yields 1,300 pounds of produce this summer

Tomatoes harvested from the Carolina Campus Community Garden. Photograph courtesy of Claire Lorch.

Workers line up to receive produce from the Carolina Campus Community Garden. Photograph courtesy of Claire Lorch.

The Carolina Campus Community Garden is bursting with fresh produce this summer. The long days of sunlight and warmth mean more growth and more to harvest. Summer also means fewer students on campus to volunteer. However, this summer new staff members regularly attend the weekday volunteer workdays. Their presence and hard work has made a huge difference in the workload.

Claire Lorch, director of the garden, extends her gratitude to the hardworking volunteers who have not let soaring temperatures keep them away. One volunteer stops at the Weaver Street in Southern Village to pick up a generous donation of food scraps for the compost piles on her way to attend the Wednesday workdays.

The current garden crops include a variety of tomatoes, mostly Big Beef and Sun Golds; an assortment of peppers; Japanese eggplant; Zephyr summer squash; yard long beans; that Southern staple, okra; Italian and Thai basil; sweet potatoes; purslane; watermelon and green beans. Some of these are ready for harvest now and some of them are still ripening. So far 340 pounds of tomatoes have been harvested, and over 1,300 pounds of food have been distributed to staff in the housekeeping department since June 1.

For more information about the garden or to receive garden updates, please contact Claire Lorch at clorch@email.unc.edu. The garden’s website is http://uncgarden.web.unc.edu/ and the garden itself is located at 236 Wilson Street, which is off Cameron Street between Pittsboro Street and Ransom Street. If you leave campus, pass the Carolina Inn on Cameron and turn left on Wilson Street, you will not have to go very far before you see it.

Story contributed by Arlene Medder, Employee Forum delegate and Administrative Support Associate in Auxiliary Services.