When you walk around campus, it can be easy to forget that we are in the heart of a capitol city. All of the trees and green space almost make the chaos and the concrete disappear. Our campus is gorgeous, and since we intend to keep it that way, we take our environmental impact very seriously.
[Photo courtesy of the Sustainable Carolina Garden.]
According to the Campus Sustainability Report, there are over 6,800 trees, representing 90 different species on campus. The restored buildings are LEED-certified, and we have over 2.3 million square feet of green building space.
As impressive as that is, we can’t stop there. One student organization, Sustainable Carolina, works closely with the Office of Sustainability to help push us toward a more sustainable campus every day.
One of Sustainable Carolina’s projects is a not-so-secret garden located just behind Green Quad. This garden is called the Sustainable Carolina Garden, and it is cared for by USC students.
It was started in 2007 by Garden Manager, Matt Kip, who wanted to bring more awareness of sustainability and permaculture to USC.
Now we’re not talking about your average flower garden. According to the Office of Sustainability, the Sustainable Carolina Garden is a ‘comprehensive, permaculture-based farm’ that grows food without pesticides or fertilizers.
“The garden is a little wild around the edges on purpose,” says Kip. “Permaculture seeks to mimic natural patterns and relationships to establish systems that harmonize with the environment while providing for human need. So we not only plant rows of crops, we also ‘plant’ the beneficial creatures, like honey bees, lady bugs and lizards, through creating wild flower habitat, brush piles and providing deep straw mulch. We seek to set up as many beneficial relationships as possible, so that what evolves is more a cultivated ecosystem than just a garden.”
The students grow everything organically and sell the produce to local farmers and restaurants and to University Dining Services. They even donate the surplus food to Columbia-area food pantries.
The garden has grown significantly from its original small corner of the lawn, and it is going to continue to grow through student initiatives. “It will get bigger still, as a student project this year is in the works to plant more fruit trees and berries where there is currently lawn on the other side of the orchard,” says Kip.
They even have access to the greenhouse that is also located behind Green Quad. “The greenhouse mostly supports the production of plants for the Landscaping department,” Kip tells us. “We use two small sections of it to grow hydroponic lettuce and start our seedlings in the winter that will be planted out in the spring.”
While the garden’s main focus is sustainability, Kip says it offers students much more than that: “The garden is a stress reliever, a way to meet up with and get to know people, an educational landscape and an experimental space.”
The best part? You don’t have to be part of Sustainable Carolina to get involved. All are welcome!
“Students can check the garden hours on our website and just show up to volunteer,” says Kip. “We also train Garden Guides each semester, who learn about day to day operations and how to manage volunteers.”.
For more information on the Sustainable Carolina Garden, how you can get involved and how you can become a Garden Guide, contact Garden Manager, Matt Kip at kip@mailbox.sc.edu. You can also visit the Office of Sustainability website for more details.