Princeton University students tend a garden
By Katie Wagner Staff Writer
A four-month stay at a Vermont farm during the end of Ruthie Schwab’s junior year of high school sparked a curiosity in her about something she’d never thought about before — what she ate.
In Vermont, Ms. Schwab studied at the Mountain School of Milton Academy, where her curriculum included feeding and taking care of livestock, such as cattle, sheep and chickens. The meat was delicious, she said, and she liked knowing exactly what she was eating each time she sat down for a meal in the school’s cafeteria, Ms. Schwab said.
After living that way, she said, she couldn’t help wondering what she was eating when she returned to Connecticut, so she started producing some of her own food.
With her two friends that attended the Mountain School, Ms. Schwab created an herbs and vegetable garden on a local farmer’s unused land. Now as a junior at Princeton University, Ms. Schwab is working on another garden project, she initiated and coordinates at the university.
On a small piece of land between the university’s golf course and Forbes College, Ms. Schwab tends to a variety of tomatoes, basil, lettuces, edible flowers and other foods, whose seeds she planted last spring.
Throughout the summer, Ms. Schwab worked on the garden with Ben Elga, a Princeton University senior, as part of an internship funded by the Princeton Environmental Institute.
Diana Bonaccorsi, another student from the university, did some part-time work on the garden this summer as well, receiving money through the university’s Office of Sustainability, which oversees the entire garden project.
Ms. Schwab said she hopes to get students from various student groups involved in the project to raise awareness about how people’s decisions impact the environment and to ensure the garden continues being maintained after she graduates.
The garden Ms. Schwab is currently working on is a pilot garden for a much bigger garden she plans on growing on a 1.4 acre piece of university property located off Alexander Road, slightly north of Forbes College.
”We’re just trying to find out what plants grow well here and what the university’s dining services need,” she said.
Already, Ms. Schwab said edible flowers from her garden were used as garnishes for one of the university’s special event dinners and that on Wednesday night students dining at Forbes College ate pesto sauce containing basil from her garden.
How other plants from the garden will be used by the university has not yet been determined, but Ms. Schwab said the garden will primarily serve as an educational tool rather than as a dining services food supplier, because of the large volume of herbs, lettuces and other produce the dining halls use.
Ms. Schwab has a variety of plans for her project, including a November garden and greenhouse design contest for university architecture students and a sustainable farming lecture and cooking series.
Ms. Schwab said, she’s already talked to local gardeners and farmers about her project and hopes to have some of them speak at the university this winter.