The creation of the HDS garden

Credit: HDS

On a dreary March afternoon, Roy Lauridsen, Harvard Divinity School’s Facilities Manager, stopped me outside of his office. A group of students, he told me, had gotten the idea of putting in a garden somewhere on the grounds of Harvard Divinity School–but most had never done any gardening. Would I be willing to help? I accepted without hesitation.

The idea for the garden came from EcoDiv, a student-run group at HDS. After several conversations about “how great it would be to have a campus garden,” EcoDiv scheduled a meeting to see if there really was enough interest to make it happen. Enthusiastic staff and students showed up, and the Garden Group began. Concerned about sustainability, EcoDiv members saw a garden on campus as a natural extension of their work, a place that would provide education, beauty, and spiritual opportunity, as well as provide food for the community.

We gathered our resources. In addition to the literal seed money that came from Facilities, the Garden Group found help in Bill Weigle and Janet Sherwood from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology greenhouses, who let us use space to start seeds, and Elizabeth Ludwick, the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) landscaper, who chose our location and designed the beds.

A plot of about 800 square feet was selected behind the CSWR. After a ground-blessing ceremony at EcoDiv’s Ministry for Earth Community conference in April, the real ground-breaking began. Landscape laborers from Cambridge Landscaping tilled the soil and delivered loads of compost and woodchips. A few days later, a crew began to lay out beds, add compost, and create woodchip paths. Kama Lord from IT constructed thumbnails on the Green Team’s pages of the HDS Intranet, documenting our progress.

This first year has been a learning year. Like so many gardens, rain was our worst enemy in June. Those trailing pumpkin vines which were to provide bright orange pumpkins for the HDS Oktoberfest never appeared, though we made two seedling attempts. We also learned sadly that our location was shadier than expected. We moved plants around, with varying success.

Yet the garden produced. On Tuesdays, students pick produce and bring it to Community Tea. Last week, a platter showcasing three kinds of tomatoes, green beans, basil, and nasturtiums was set out with a bowl of extra virgin olive oil and sea salt. It will continue until frost, and there is still more work to do. There is garlic and winter rye to plant, potatoes to dig, and compost to turn. We are looking towards next year, with hopes of even bigger plans and better plants.