On September 7, the Green Office celebrated the Summer Launch of our exciting Community Garden, welcoming around 60 new students to our outdoor space filled with untapped potential! 🌱 As one of the five Circularity Projects managed by the Green Office at the Sustainability Hub, this garden is thriving this year, thanks to the enthusiastic efforts of passionate students from all UM faculties.
The Sustainability Hub, or the Hub, is a designated space at Maastricht University Tapijnkazerne for collaboration and knowledge exchange amongst many student organisations and initiatives. The Hub’s establishment aims to support students who want to actively engage with one or more of our sustainability strategy pillars: Climate, Circularity, and Community. The Hub is managed by the Green Office, which oversees the five Circularity Projects housed inside and outside the building, including the Community Garden. Read more about the Hub here.
The Community Garden is an exciting project that began slowly this past year with a handful of dedicated students. They built two plant bed boxes from wood pallets and filled them with currently thriving potatoes, radishes, beetroots, and some leafy greens. They sowed many seeds - tomatoes, leeks, carrots, and herbs - that grew successfully inside the Sustainability Hub, but these all were lost when the Hub was closed during this past summer. The original goal of the garden was to bring together UM students and Maastricht locals familiar with farming and reconnecting with nature to share their knowledge with a wider community. As many of these original students have graduated, it was time to rebuild student interest and determine the project’s future trajectory.
The Green Office held a Community Garden Summer Launch on September 7 to create a fresh start for a new crop of students. With a potluck dinner, plant pot painting, and a seed bomb workshop guided by KAN, the event garnered nearly 60 students new and old from various faculties. We were extremely excited by the turnout, as it was a fantastic sunny day for outdoor crafts and snacks. Many students had no previous knowledge of the Green Office, the Sustainability Hub, or the Community Garden, so this was a great opportunity to discuss the many ways students can participate in tangible sustainability initiatives at the university. And, of course, we love providing a space to make new friends.
At the launch, our Whatsapp began collecting many new members, now with 56. Within a week, a subset of students met to consolidate ideas for cultivating the garden and new community. A few days later, a picnic mixer with pizzas took place to further solidify plans for the upcoming months, including more plant beds, foraging and herb drying workshops, and an Autumn Harvest Festival. A committee is soon to be established with students assuming roles based on interest and previous experience - some want to focus solely on monitoring the plants, while some want to coordinate community-centered events, for example. Though the Green Office provides finances, supplies, and physical space for the project, it seems that students are taking charge of making the Community Garden their own, and we can’t wait to see it flourish.
If you are interested in attending Community Garden events or helping to expand the garden, you can join our WhatsApp.
