As the semester winds down, so too does the growing season, which will soon mark the end of market days on campus until next summer, said a Marshall representative.

Amy White, the sustainability manager of the Sustainability Department, said that despite the growing season coming to an end, there is still plenty of work to do on the student garden.

Each year, the student garden produces 2000 pounds of fresh produce, which volunteers and staff harvest the day before and given away to students for free on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Student Memorial Center, White said.

Accessibility to fresh produce that is sustainable is a main focus of the student garden, and the produce almost never goes to waste. Any leftover produce from market days finds a home with University staff.

Volunteers are always a big help to the student garden, White said, and she has been very happy with the number of volunteers lately. 

“We’ve had 137 people come into the greenhouse and the garden just to tour or hang out or, you know, pot some plants because a lot of people like to do that just in the month of October,” White said.

“About now is when that starts to end,” White said. “We still encourage students to come to the garden, hang out. We’re putting in the hammocks and Adirondack chairs there in the student garden that you see across campus.”

However, White said that there is still work to be done on the garden while waiting for the growing season to start again.

“So, there’s always something to do,” White said. “This kind of downtime in November they used to clean up and analyze all of the data throughout the year and come up with a plan for the coming year.”

Only once January comes around does planting begin again, volunteers and staff plant seeds in the greenhouse alongside propagation of the plants so they are ready for transplanting into the student garden in the spring around April and early May.

It is around this time that students interested in gardening at home can go pick up plants themselves to transplant into their own home gardens.

“Students can go in the springtime and get tomato plants or cucumber plants, whatever they want to take home and plant themselves,” White said. “They also then put those same plants out in the student garden, and it takes another month or so before we can start harvesting.”

That means that roughly half of the market days throughout the year take place over the summer, which may discourage some students from stopping by and picking up fresh produce. White said, though, some students on campus still come during the summertime.

“Everyone’s welcome at market day,” she said. “You don’t have to be in classes. You can just come.”

Luke Campbell can be contacted at [email protected].