Horticulture student designs ‘campus kitchen garden’
July 29, 2009Contact Information:
Tina Buxton, Horticulture Department
479-575-2603, cbuxton@uark.edu
Howell Medders, Division of Agriculture Communications
575-5647, hmedders@uark.edu
CAMPUS KITCHEN GARDEN — Horticulture major Shana Ricks developed an organic kitchen garden in the Horticulture Display Gardens "to show people you can grow things in a small space and that it can look really nice and provide a lot of vegetables."
GARDEN PLAN — The garden was designed with eight squares, from south to north: Squares 1 and 2: Phaseolus coccineus ' Scarlet Runner' beans. Square 3:Lycopersicon lycopersicum 'Golden Jubilee' tomato and Beta vulgaris 'Bull's Blood Beet.' Square 4 : Lycopersicon lycopersicum 'Arkansas Traveler' tomato and Beta vulgaris 'Rhubarb Swiss Chard.' Square 5: Abelmoshcus esculentus 'Red Velvet Okra' and Rosmarinus officinalis 'Rosemary.' Square 6: 'Red Velvet Okra' and Ocimum basilium 'Globe basil.' Square 7: Capsicum annuum 'Orange bell pepper' andSquare 8: Capsicum annuum Ornamental Pepper 'Explosive Ember' and Solanum melongena var. esculentum 'Ichiban eggplant.' Border is Zinnia 'Star Golden Yellow' and Ocimum basilicum 'Red Rubin basil.'
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A “campus kitchen garden” has sprouted on the University of Arkansas campus in what was formerly a grass island bordered by Maple Street and the Rosen Center for Alternative Pest Control sidewalk and parking lot.
“The idea is to show people you can grow things in a small space and that it can look really nice and provide a lot of vegetables,” said Shana Ricks, a horticulture student who created the garden as an internship project.
Ricks said she is using all organic production practices for fertilization and pest control. Organic materials include compost from the City of Fayetteville and fish emulsion organic fertilizer. Diatomaceous earth has been used to help control insect pests, mainly flea beetles on the eggplants and scarlet runner beans.
Ricks is a summer intern working for Tina Buxton, who maintains the Horticulture Display Gardens and other landscaping on about an acre of grounds between and around buildings housing faculty of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences and the U of A System’s Division of Agriculture.
Ricks developed her green thumb in the Dunbar Community Garden project, http://www.dunbargarden.org/index.html, in Little Rock. She started working in the garden at age 14 and was hired to help with the project for several years before coming to the University of Arkansas to major in horticulture. The Dunbar Community Garden was started in 1992 and is used in the curriculums of Dunbar Junior High School and Gibbs Magnet Elementary.
Ricks attended Pulaski Technical College for two years. “I decided I liked growing things and transferred here last fall,” she said, to pursue her interest in gardening as a career. She is a third year student and the daughter of Dora Ricks and Gary Hickman of Little Rock.