Tucked beside the looming Observatory Hill dining hall is a quaint garden, bursting with vegetables and towering sunflowers and often unseen by many first-year eyes. Just as constant as the rush to and from dorms, however, is the work that goes into the University’s Community Garden.
“What keeps me coming back to the garden every time [is knowing] I’ve left something [there],” said second-year College student Caroline Herre, a Community Garden leadership member. “It will always need my help and attention, and it’s always my responsibility to be there to continue the life within it.”
The garden’s goal is simple: foster a space that allows people within the University to plant and harvest food. Though the gardeners are mostly University students, anyone in the Charlottesville community is welcome to help, keeping alive Thomas Jefferson’s words, “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, no culture comparable to that of the garden.”
“Thomas Jefferson envisioned all University students [would] be gardening, which is crazy to think about,” said third-year College student Emilia Gore, also a Community Garden leadership member. “There are a lot of different ways that people can get involved other than just gardening and farming.”
The Community Garden hosts a number of potlucks throughout the year where, Gore said, “everyone can come together and enjoy [the harvests, bringing together] a variety of people [from] the University.”
The Garden also hosts workshops on skills from canning to pickling to finding alternative methods to utilize vegetables.
“We’re currently trying to harvest all of the peppers and then pickle them,” said third-year College student Becca Hinch, another Community Garden leadership member.
The group has historically used its harvests to foster goodwill within the University community — on all levels of the administrative spectrum. At one point when pumpkins were in season, the members decided to give one to University President Teresa Sullivan.
“We all signed a letter and put it on her porch with a pumpkin that said, ‘Happy Fall,’” Herre said.
Otherwise, anyone who works in the garden is welcome to take his or her harvests with them. The Community Garden donates the leftover produce to the Haven, a local Charlottesville homeless shelter, or the local soup kitchen.
“People come here for a lot of different reasons,” Hinch said. “My favorite thing is to see people get really excited about how things grow.”
To Herre, the garden was “absolutely love at first sight,” and she knew instantly she wanted to get involved.
“It reminds me of the little things, and how beautiful everything is,” she said. “I can lose myself in the garden. The gardeners who come to help out are all so different, and I learn so much from the people I’m around.”
Gore emphasized the garden’s openness to all interested.
“Some people come out to garden once a year, and some come every workday,” she said. “There isn’t any expectation or crazy commitment. People come here because they love it.”
Anyone interested in the Community Garden is encouraged to stop by one of their workdays, held on Sundays from 4 p.m to 6 p.m. The group is also hosting their Carvin’ in the Garden event Oct. 27, which provides students with an opportunity to carve pumpkins harvested from the Garden.
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