Welcome to the Garden

Compost Bins

The Starker Arts Garden for Education (SAGE) is an organic garden situated on a one acre plot located in the southwest of Corvallis. The SAGE garden is broken down into six plots, with additional space for composting, equipment storage, community meals and an area for chickens. The compost area contains large piles of yard debris with traditional composting, as well as vermiculture which is conducted in a worm box, where worms are fed food waste, coffee grounds and other organic matter to create a nutrient rich soil. The garden is tended by volunteers and funded by donations. It produces over 40 types of vegetables and other edibles, which are donated to the South Corvallis Food Bank and soup kitchens. For more information visit http://corvallisenvironmental.wordpress.com/edible-corvallis-initiative/sage/

Hey, let's face it folks, it doesn't get any more down to earth (soil?!?) than this. The process of gardening – or farming – is a direct link between soil and humans. Growers use plants to collect nutrients from the soil and air, putting them into a form that we as humans can use: fruits and vegetables. Tasty! Performing the process organically allows us to reap many of the benefits of conventional methods without the harmful side effects that chemical fertilizers and pesticides can cause. We went to the SAGE garden with a few predefined goals: First, we were there to collect soil samples for analysis; second, to learn how the SAGE garden functions; and third, to lend a hand to a worthy cause. And if the weather was any indicator, we were also trying to get ourselves sick, but that wasn't really an intended goal....

            The collection and analysis will be explained in more detail below, but the basic mission was to collect soil samples from across the garden and analyze them to give the SAGE garden staff an idea of what each section's nutrients and pH are now, so they know what they need to do to improve it. The analysis was carried out at Oregon State's Central Analytical laboratory (CAL).

Worm Bin

            Our jobs for the time we were at the garden consisted of weeding the plots, turning and building compost, and feeding the worms. Oh, feeding the worms isn't a euphemism, nobody died! Rather, it consisted of removing the covers for them, hand-digging small holes around the box and placing an assortment of the materials mentioned above in those holes and re-covering the box. Simple get-your-hands-dirty goodness.

Worms!

The major points of what we learned about the SAGE garden are above, but it bears repeating that this is a highly community-focused, VOLUNTEER-DRIVEN organization (hint, hint) that is carrying out an organic, hopefully sustainable project. In other words, these are good people, trying to do good things – both for other people and the Earth. So if you've got some time, head over to the garden. I'm sure Jenna and the crew would love to see you there!