Evergreen's Organic Farm
Evergreen's Organic Farm recovers from tragic fire
Give Online to help us Rebuild!
Dear friends and supporters of sustainable agriculture,
Recently, we informed you of a substantial loss suffered at Evergreen's Organic Farm: On September 14, an arsonist struck Evergreen's Organic Farm, setting a fire that destroyed a greenhouse, our tool shed, and most of our hand tools.
Since September, we have witnessed an inspiring response from our friends and supporters. Working with The Evergreen State College Foundation, we put out a call for contributions to help us rebuild.
Nearly 100 alumni, staff, faculty members and local business people responded with gifts totaling more than $10,000. In true Evergreen fashion, people gave according to their abilities, with gifts ranging from $5 to $1,000.
These initial gifts provided enough money to rebuild the entire greenhouse, including tables, seeding trays and our drip irrigation for next year. Here's an update on current activity at the farm:
- We began reconstruction at the end of October.
- Once the greenhouse is complete, we'll start work on the tool shed.
- We are still quite busy on our normal late fall activities on the farm: cleaning up the fields, cover cropping, preparing our new chicken coop and getting ready for winter.
The organic farm engages in community supported agriculture, works to achieve better, more sustainable farming methods, and serves as a teaching space for students learning to develop a more beneficial way of working on issues of food, nutrition, landscape use, and preserving natural habitat and biodiversity. These are issues of critical importance for anyone who cares about what they eat and wants the world to produce not just more food, but better, more healthy food.
If you are considering a donation to the farm, we have set up a special account.
Give online or send us a check to:
The Evergreen State College Foundation
2700 Evergreen Parkway NW
Olympia, WA 98505
Include a reference to organic farm in the memo line.
Call Chris Hanger at 360-867-6322 to learn more.
About the Organic Farm
The Evergreen Organic Farm annual crop production area comprises 38,000 square feet, just 5,000 square feet shy of an acre. The perennial crop production area is in addition to this. The production from this area is sold to Aramark, from a farm-stand on Red Square every Tuesday and Thursday from 11am to 5pm during the growing season, and in CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). All of the excess is given to the Thurston County Food Bank and local charities, or composted.
Proceeds from the sale of the crops are used to finance farm projects and purchase seeds and equipment. Two of the greenhouses, the cooler, compost shed, farm fencing and orchard are just a few projects made possible from farm sales. Another use for money generated on the farm is to fund student projects. Many of these projects are related to horticultural aspects of food crops.
The farm production area is divided into sections that are used to delineate cropping areas for specific types of crops. The farm practices a strict five year crop rotation. The rotating of crops creates plant diversity over time as opposed to plant diversity in space. The rotation has four general crop categories with each category occupying a given space for one growing season.
Crop rotation is just one method the farm uses to maintain diversity in the field. Other methods employed are the use of undersown ground covers and inter-cropping different types of vegetable crops. Creating diversity in the field is one of the cornerstones of sustainable agriculture. Diversity provides non-toxic, sustainable crop protection against plant diseases and insect pests.
Give Online to help us Rebuild!