did you hear?
Researchers consider there is now little chance that coral reefs – which are built by living creatures, and support up to a third of the world's marine biodiversity – will survive the next 50 years. They are threatened by rising sea temperatures and increasing acidification, triggered by rising carbon dioxide levels (The Guardian).Membership in the Garden is available to all members of the Transylvania community, present and past - and is renewable for each annual growing season. From the outset we have thought of how to involve our Northside neighborhood in our activities - but we need to give our energies first to learning how to keep an urban garden thriving over a number of growing seasons.
In March 26, 2009, a small group of faculty, staff and friends (including Eva Csuhai and Anthony Vital, project initiators) began to dig. Together they planted a young quince tree.
On April 2, 2009, we held the garden's first organizational meeting. At the second, we set ourselves up with our constitution, filling the leadership positions.
During May Term 2009, Dr. Csuhai ran her interdisciplinary course, The Garden of Transylvania, in which students do the basic work needed to establish an urban community garden and engage in exploring the culture of gardens.
Below are updates we added to this page as we progressed - and here is the link to the picture galleries.
One important related development took place away from campus. First Lady Jane Beshear unveiled the Governor's Garden in Frankfort on July 2. This garden too is flourishing, as the Lexington Herald-Leader reported not long after. (Kim Rodgers, the story's writer, is a Transy English Major, interning at the Herald-Leader over the summer.)
With our Garden at Transy we join the community garden movement in Lexington. An article in the Herald-Leader (July 25, 2009) looks at some of Lexington's gardens - and advertises the 3rd annual Community Garden Tour, organized by Jim Embry of Lexington's Sustainable Communities Network. And, thanks to Eva Csuhai, we have spread the word of our garden among the national community garden movement. On August 6-9, Dr. Csuhai attended the American Community Garden Association Conference in Columbus, Ohio, where she presented a poster describing the establishment of this garden of ours, a garden on an urban, liberal arts college campus.
UPDATE - April 27
When our April 27 meeting ended - we went to the garden and explored its progress, the plots laid out, ground tilled and ready (almost), the shed underway (thanks William!)
The last row of the community section, furthest from the gate - we gave to radishes….
And then we began to assign the personal allotments….
We now have a Blog and a Wiki site for our members: the garden in all its dimensions is coming to be!
UPDATE - May 15
We now have a schedule set for supervising and volunteering in the Garden for the whole of the '09 season!
On Monday May 18 we hold our Dedication ceremony - and there surely will be pictures! - which we will post along with others from the Garden in our Garden Archive. (The link to the archive will be from this page.)
We will keep updating you with our news.
UPDATE - July 9
The Garden flourishes!
The May Term course on the Garden proved a great success - and since the end of the academic year teams of volunteers (and volunteering supervisors) have kept up the planting, the watering, the weeding.
We've started harvesting! - beans, peas, squash, zucchini, and a variety of herbs.
And then there's the fun we have while we're doing all this. To quote an email from one of our members: "the community aspect of the garden is also very much a success. My wife and I brought our 7 month old son, Ian, and had dinner there last night" - and were joined by other members and their guests dropping in, helping out, hanging out....
This way to the promised picture archive pages!
300 North Broadway