Vegetable and plant seeds start to spout in USF SP Garden Club’s garden.
Keeley Sheehan
Managing Editor
The USF St. Petersburg Gardening Club began planting in the newly constructed Bayboro Garden behind the Piano Man Building on campus.
The Gardening Club broke ground on the garden on Nov. 15, and completed construction before winter break. The club held its first open gardening session on Fri., Jan. 14.
“Rather than have a ribbon cutting ceremony or anything, we just decided to get to work,” said Christian Coffey, club president.
They used seed packets for many of the vegetables planted, which include instructions and tips for planting the different types of vegetables.
“We don’t have a lot of experience growing the exact varieties that we have,” Coffey said. “We haven’t grown peas before so we decided to go from packets.”
The group planted basil, cilantro, cucumbers, carrots, red beets and peas, among others.
“We should see some sprouts in the next two weeks, and hopefully some vegetables in the next 60 days,” Coffey said. “We’re going to have planting at least two to three times a year, and we have to water three times a week.”
Members of the Gardening Club attended a conference in Georgia last semester to learn more about maintaining a successful garden. They learned about vegetable families and which types should be grown together, and crop rotation.
“A lot of it was Georgia-specific [but] we learned some general knowledge that we didn’t know before,” said student Bernadette DiBlasio, who attended the conference. “We kind of fine tuned it.”
“We started a compost bin with advice from the conference,” Coffey said. “It really went a long way. It was a nice, short conference, but it taught us quite a lot, and it really brought the group together.”
Coffey hopes that the garden will produce a good harvest.
“Having a great harvest would be really good to prove ourselves and show that we’re not just some floaty group,” he said. “We’re here to stay and learn, and hopefully teach.”
The group hopes to have students from local elementary schools come to campus and learn about gardening, and also hopes to volunteer at local schools.
“We want to expand the garden and have a green house eventually,” Coffey said.
Coffey wants to see the garden become more sustainable.
“Right now it’s on tap water that comes right out of the building. We’d like to get a rain collection barrel to collect our own water,” Coffey said.
Student Rhea Ray also participated in the first open gardening session. She and DiBlasio both got involved with the garden after hearing about the idea from Coffey.
“We supported [the idea],” Ray said. “We were going to do a garden in the dorms and we ended up over here instead. I feel like this is just as good.”
Student Government approved funding for the Bayboro Garden last year, and the Gardening Club took on the task of managing it. Coffey said that the project is “a little under budget.”
“We saved about $800 on the construction of the project,” he said. “We had already saved about $4,000 by getting outside contributions.”
Students interested in learning about gardening can attend open gardening days, which will usually take place on Fridays and Saturdays for about four hours. Visit www.usfspgardeningclub.com for more information.
Photo by Nikeya Williams
