College Garden
Our garden does more than provide produce for our weekly market and vegan café. Greenhouses are the home of vegetable starts and student research. The dye garden supplies natural dye to our Fiber Arts Crew, and our bees produce honey and serve as pollinators across campus. Art students find inspiration in the garden, and science students watch life unfurl here.
An Outdoor Classroom
The garden is three acres of organically raised crops, including vegetables, fruits, cut flowers, and herbs. It makes use of season extension practices such as a heated greenhouse and unheated hoophouses.
The garden also manages a small apiary, chickens, and works to model sustainable agriculture practices. You’ll find that our garden does more than provide food for campus – it also works as a testing ground for our student research.
The Farm General Store sells in-season produce and herb garden products every Saturday from 10am – 1pm!
“I love working at the garden, learning the details about crop rotation and planning, plant families and their needs, selling at market, and raising poultry.”
Alex Lines ’18, Garden Crew Leader
The Herb Cabin
The herb garden is a small section of the garden where we grow mint, chamomile, yarrow, nettles, fennel, echinacea, calendula, bee balm, borage, comfrey, lavender, arnica, passion flower, St. John’s Wort, and more.
The Herb Crew creates lip balms, hand salves, teas and other products, providing extensive learning for crew members on business plans, marketing, customer service, and sales.
Campus-Wide Composting
Warren Wilson composts all of the food scraps collected from Gladfelter Cafeteria and Cowpie Café. Crews collect the compost and processes it through a rotating drum compost digester to break down the food into organic material. The final product of the compost is highly nutritious organic matter ready to be mixed into the beds and fields or used as mulch.
