By Kim K
Hello everyone! It’s Summer again (okay, not technically, but soon) and you know what that means…Middlebury College Organic Farm Interns are getting dirty in the garden. We’re gearing up for a season of planting, weeding, shoveling, picking, eating, cooking, and learning. This blog is a way to share our experiences with all of you as well as a way for us to remember such a rich and fulfilling summer. Maybe next year’s interns will be able to find helpful, meaningful, or completely random tidbits in our posts and build off of them. The really amazing thing about gardens is that they span time. You build up your garden looking both to the past and to the future for guidance. It takes long-term planning, commitment, and trial-and-error to build up the right kinds of soils and crop rotations that will work best. They are true “connectors,” connecting people, plants, insects, animals, weather, life, and death. Take a moment to muse over this point the next time you’re in the garden wiggling your toes in the dirt while munching on a [insert veggie of your choice here] –we certainly have been, and it has been so nice to slow down and really appreciate what we are doing. And, you know, the special thing about our garden/farm (whichever you prefer) in Middlebury is that it’s inherited. Everyone who has ever worked in it is connected to everyone who will ever work in it. It’s a wondrous thing to be given something into which so many people before you have put countless hours of love and it is a great feeling to know you building on that foundation for others. I think this blog will serve as another element of the garden’s ability to connect us all.
How ‘bout some introductions? I’m Kim and I’m a senior here at Midd (scary thought). I guess I should not be surprised of how much of a foodie I have become; as a 5th grader, some of my favorite shows were Iron Chef and Good Eats—not your typical elementary school fare. During high school I was known as the go-to baker and I dabbled in the kitchen for some of our dinners. When I came to VT, though, my interest in food became multidimensional as I started to look more closely at our food system. I was (and still am) drawn to local food systems and healthy food—healthy to eat, healthy for the land it is grown in, healthy for the economy, and healthy for society. So what could be more appropriate than to explore these ideas by taking care of a garden, growing food for myself and others? Just about as local as you can get. I love knowing exactly what goes into the food I’m eating and it will be great to get a better understanding of the production side of food. I think a lot of our country has lost touch with our food system (Oh the horror stories about kids thinking that spaghetti grows in the ground in its supermarket form) and I hope to change that in some way even if it is just to be one more informed person.
Anyways, I am super excited to be here for the Summer with such a great crop of interns and advisors. If you’re around, be sure to stop by the farm or by Weybridge house because I’m sure we’ll be cooking up something good (literally and figuratively).
PS: hope you like puns ; )