Author: Student Merrimack

A gardening topic that I find very interesting and want to learn more about is the benefits of farming in the city. I find this topic really interesting because farming in the city is very different from farming in the country, and I feel as though it isn’t talked about enough. Farming in the city has another term which it is best known as: urban farming. One benefit of urban farming is the proximity. Since cities are more populated, the local crops that are grown are easily accessed by more people. Also, urban farmers don’t have to worry about paying to transfer their goods because it is all sold to the people who live around them. Another benefit of urban farming is it is accessible to anyone. This means that people of low income have the opportunity to have access to nutritious food that is also at a low price. One of my favorite advantages of urban farming is its ability to build a sense of community. It does this by offering an experience for people to gather together and it benefits all. Urban farming is also very adaptable, meaning that the setting can vary. For instance, one can set up an urban farm in a backyard, on a porch, on a rooftop, etc. It also can vary on the number of people it needs to run an urban farm. An urban farm can be run by a whole group of urban farmers or even just one person. Urban farming also tends to be low risk because urban farmers can just cultivate a garden in their own space instead of having the financial burden of buying new land. Also, there is a huge demand for locally grown food. Many people prefer locally grown food and local urban farmers know the wants and needs of their community that they live in. Overall, urban farming has many benefits that make the city a more healthy and happier place. 

Written by Hannah Brennan

https://puregreensaz.com/benefits-urban-farming/

By: Gordon Pham

These are some pictures I taken when I was at Merrimack College and in my home town. The first picture shows that there is still snow on campus and that the pond is still frozen. What I would like to know about the pond is if any fish or other species are swimming in the frozen pond?

The second picture is show a tree with green fungus growing on the side of a large tree. I researched that the green algae growing on the tree is not dangerous or harmful to the tree. Algae and moss can be a food source and provides energy for the fungus during photosynthesis. During one of my ecology labs, the lab groups wanted to take a nature walk near the woods. This was interesting to me because I thought it was dangerous to touch.

The last picture is a memory last spring when the weather was still warm and I grew small pepper plants in my garage. I had a memory when I would leave the pepper plants out in the sun and adding fertilizer to add nutrients to the plants. Every few hours I would go outside and add water to the pots. I knew that they were ready to eat after the peppers would grow a little bigger and the colors were a dark orange or red color. These are Asian peppers that are very spicy. These peppers are usually used to make Korean Kimchi and they go best with almost any meal.

When I was 16 years old and a junior in high school I went on an elk hunting trip to Noxon, Montana. I was anticipating a week of being in the great outdoors, sharing stories with the other hunters, and spending quality time with my father. Little did I know that my eyes would be opened to a way of living that I didn’t think existed anymore in modern America, subsistence hunting. Many hunters may hunt for sport or trophy, while others just enjoy the outdoors so much they crave feeling connected to it. But subsistence hunters hunt strictly to provide food for themselves and their families. Simply put, it’s hunting for survival. This makes me think of our ancestors as hunters and gatherers and the high stake life that they lived, never sure of their next meal. The people who introduced me to this way of hunting, and for them way of life, were at the time the 20-23 year old hunting guides at the lodge. For them hunting wasn’t a pastime or favorite hobby, it was how they supported their families and put food on the table. Look at it this way. A mature bull (male) elk weighs about 700lbs. Such an animal will yield roughly 200lbs of lean meat. This is enough to last a family of four an entire calendar year. All at the cost of one well placed rifle round or arrow. For reference a 1 pound filet from your local  supermarket costs around $14.

The world we live in today is riddled with environmental problems. From threatening biodiversity loss, to irregular weather patterns, and all the other degradations that come with climate change. It is obvious that people want to help and make a difference, but so often it feels like hunting is overlooked as a legitimate option. I do acknowledge that hunting is not for everyone, and not everyone can hunt. But for those who truly love the outdoors, want to do their part, and are looking to feel a little more wild then the next step is to apply for a hunting license.  

I take a lot of inspiration from the guides I met on that  trip. But being a college student in eastern Massachusetts makes it a little difficult to follow this archetype of subsistence hunting. I hope to one day be able to call myself a subsistence hunter and truly live to hunt and hunt to live.     

Written by: Jack Gotta

Growing up in my hometown in Connecticut the farming lifestyle was very foreign to many. It is rare to see sights of rural lifestyle such as stretched out acres of land or animals roaming. Yet somehow when we traveled just 30 minutes away from us to Grandma’s house it was like we entered a different world. Pulling into her driveway never ceased to amaze me as a kid. Peacocks, showcasing their beautiful vibrant feathers would walk right up to us, welcoming us as we got out of the car. As I entered the house the view took my breathe away every time. Through every angle of the house, the windows that spanned the entire rear, gave a glimpse of the backyard: a small piece of farming paradise. The hundreds of acres of land were home to horses, cows, ponys, chickens, goats, rabbits, you name it, my grandparents had it all.

Grandma’s house served as a symbol of togetherness for my family. It was the place we usually all gathered as Grandpa never liked to leave the animals for long, and it was the place my cousins who live far away always stayed. However, even though we were together it was the animals that brought out some of our best memories as a family. As the animals were raised on the farm, so were we. Just as we had milestones in our everyday lives, we had milestones on the farm as well. When we reached a certain age, we could learn how to horseback ride. When we had something to celebrate, we got to release pigeons into the air. When the baby goats were born, we each got to claim one and had to learn how to take care of it. Through growing up in this environment, I was taught many lessons about all kinds of animals, what they eat, how they sleep, the different sounds they make, etc. But what I cherished more than the lessons were the bonds I created with my grandparents and the newfound appreciation for my food. Every time we had a sleepover at Grandma’s, I would wake up the earliest in the morning just so I could walk down to the chicken coop with Grandpa and collect the eggs for breakfast. It was sort of him and I’s special thing we got to do together. I remember thinking how cool it was that I could taste the food on my plate and just by looking out the window could see directly where it came from. Everything we ate at Grandma’s tasted better, fresher but most of all made you feel more connected to it as you knew the story of where it came from.

As we got older, so did the animals, and so did my grandparents. The animals slowly began to die off and it became harder and harder for my grandparents to take care of them with their age. The farm eventually declined until there was nothing left and my Grandparents sold their land and eventually their house on it as well. Even though the farm is gone, the memories from it never will be. We will continue to sit around the table every holiday and tell stories of the time I got bucked off the horse into the chicken coop, the way my little brother would cry every time a peacock approached him would cry “no peacock no peacock”, or how my sister fell so in love with one of the bunnies we brought it back into our own home. These are stories I know will live on in our family. We will always look back at the farm and cherish our experiences as well as appreciate the things we eat and the animals they came from.

Pictured : My siblings and I with some of the animals 🙂

Robert Cleary

I moved to Meeting House Road the summer before my first year of middle school. For the first few years, the old white colonial that my bedroom window faced always seemed lifeless. Rumors of the house being haunted even circled the naive brains of my fellow neighborhood friends and I. I’m not sure anyone occupied it for some period of time. Then, during my high school years, a family of four with two big dogs moved in. Little did we know what kind of transformation our backyard view would undergo. It all started with a few small white planters filled with assorted vegetables and herbs. The neighbors were beginning a multi-year project of building a backyard organic farm. About a year after the planters came a chicken coop. These feathered friends would roam their backyard and occasionally find their way into ours. I remember the sounds of waking up and hearing their clucks to start my day. Soon after came more and more planters, a white farm fence, and a fully operating local organic farm.

This farm does not fit the mold of what you may typically visualize. The farm is located in an everyday suburban neighborhood on a half acre piece of land. You may ask why they would choose to farm in such a small, populated area. We wondered that too, so my parents asked them. The answer they gave is very intriguing, being that they wanted their kids to live a “normal” suburban life while also sustaining their passion for organic farming. Seeing their once barren backyard turn into a thriving farm full of life was very rewarding and I am excited to see what they have in store for the future. As someone who hasn’t been exposed to that type of living before, it was very eye opening to watch them engage in such a lifestyle. 

In high school there was one day each spring when the seniors would go on their trip and the rest of the school would go out and do community service. My junior year we decided to go to Whiting Farm and help them with some chores around the farm. When we arrived a few minutes after nine I immediately noticed the chickens running around clucking happily. After I stopped gazing at the chickens I looked around and noticed two giant greenhouses, it was only a minute before we were being shown inside. As I took a step inside I noticed these beautiful plants growing in rows, there were also others hanging from the ceiling. As I listened I learned that  these beautiful pink, yellow, speckled red plants in rows were called poinsettias. It was amazing to see the variety and the beauty of these plants. They had another greenhouse which had a huge variety of flowers and other little succulents inside but the poinsettias really had my attention.

https://www.facebook.com/WhitingFarm1930/videos/4106931852672580/

After getting to look at these wonderful greenhouses we split up into groups to begin our work. Half of the group split up and went to fetch the chicken eggs and clean the pen, I was overjoyed to realize that my group would be digging up and tilling some land that the farmers were going to plant tomatoes in. We took out the roots and rocks that we found and threw them off to the side and by the end of the day we were left with a large space of soil where the workers were going to begin adding compost and creating little trenches for the seeds. I was excited to have participated and gained a little more knowledge in something I had very little experience in.

Written by Eli Thibodeau

Kyle Templeton

2/23/21

Garden Memoirs

Blog Post #1

From age’s one to five I lived in Monica hill New Jersey on about 3 acres of land. We had a considerable greenhouse along with a large garden that ran up the right side of our property. The greenhouse was about 10 feet long and 7 feet wide with 8-foot ceilings. We took advantage of all of the space and it was always cluttered with tons of plants and gardening tools. There was shelving that wrapped all the way around the upper layer of the greenhouse. We mostly had cactus and succulent plants up there because they don’t require frequent watering along with various potting buckets and trowels. Summer was my favorite season while living in New Jersey. We had so many plants and flowers growing on our property it brought all kinds of life. From butterflies and bees to birds and turtles so much wildlife was attracted to the garden. We grew buddleias and moon flowers which are shown in the third picture. You can see that the third picture was taken at night time. This is because moon flowers only open at night due to them mostly being pollinated by night-time flying insects.

We also grew tons and tons of tomatoes in the greenhouse. We would always start by sprouting the seedlings in aluminum trays and then we would transfer them to 5-gallon buckets with a support rod once they were big enough. The awesome thing about a greenhouse is that you can grow all year round and not just in a few select months. The sun’s raise get absorbed through the glass roof and walls of the greenhouse and the plants convert the sun energy into heat energy. We use window vents to control the temperature keeping it around 60-70 degrees. Greenhouses are an awesome way to take your gardening to the next level.

Brayden Downing – July 3rd

My family loves Cape Cod, especially during the summer months when it’s prime time for going to the beach, boating, and eating at my all-time favorite restaurant, Chapins Bayside. The area my summer house is in is on Ridgevale Beach in Dennis, MA, but over the summer I visited different parts of the cape and saw a lot of really interesting and pretty areas.

I visited my friend at his cape house over the summer in Hyannis and his neighbor’s had an insane garden with a path lined with flowers that led to a private beach, as picture and below. Every type of flower imaginable covered almost all the space in their backyard and the grass was extremely well kept.

I was amazed to see how well they used their land to create such a scenic area right in their own backyard and it was obvious a lot of work had gone into making such a pretty space. My favorite part was the path to the beach surrounded on all sides by the trees because it was a hidden part of the backyard; the various flowers draw in more attention right off the bat.