Starting From Nothing - Life as a Hawken Farmer

HAWKEN FARM & GARDEN

Through my senior project, I'm intending to optimize the land we have around Hawken School in order to minimize the amount of damage we are doing on the earth. I have always been interested in sustainability and the idea of being natural. The students’ education and their health, the teachers, the environment, and the whole surrounding community. I hope to accomplish a garden that is well established in the spring that can bring back agriculture to the Hawken campus. I hope to give a jump-start to the Hawken farm program and optimize the essential time for planting, raising and developing crops and animals. I also hope to explore and develop a plan for a garden that is thought out and well researched. Through this, I hope to get more institutional support from the Hawken Community.

            Another main focus of mine is raising and taking care of chickens. I want to explore and record the problems that may arise, so that in the future it can help the Hawken community be more prepared. A special thanks to Mr. Wes Wilson for being my sponsor for senior project, he is helping Liam Green, Nate Hunt, Stuart Farmer and I to get our project and goals on their way. We really appreciate him taking his time to meet with us and work with us! Every morning we meet with him, and he helps give our meetings a backbone with planned out goals and plans. Also, a special thanks to Ms. Clark, who has been working so diligently all year to work on promoting and starting the Hawken Farm, not only with her own time and working with me, but with her Food and Agriculture class.  

Day 1 and 2

April 30, 2012  and May 1, 2012

On Monday, unfortunately I was sick so I missed the first day of senior project. The second day was a fabulous start. I worked with Liam to transplant seedlings that have been overcrowding and needed more space. We also worked to clean up the science lab area so that each plant rack could be underneath the heat lamp to promote growth. Later during the day I worked in the garden, cleaning up the area, and preparing for the coup to be built. 

We made our own planters out of newspaper which served well in housing our seedlings. 

This is where we have started our seeds and are preparing them for future plants in our garden!

The magical watering can that has miracle grow to feed the plants. 

I also built a sign out of scarp wood that spelled out Hawken Farm. Liam is focusing on bees for his project. He had a hive donated to him this week which is awesome! In 9-10 business days we will have a hive coming from Kentucky (donated) and we bought 9,000 bees today. Adding bees to the project is just another great aspect and different way for students and the community to get involved.  My main goal during senior project is to take care of chickens and research/promote sustainability in schools. Four weeks ago, I received one dozen chickens in the mail. I got a phone call from the post office at 5:00 a.m. saying my chicks were ready for pick up, so I rushed over to get my new babies. The last four weeks have been quite life changing, having a dozen infant chicks in my kitchen, requiring consistent and diligent care. Unfortunately, three of the chickens died from stress of traveling, which is common, but the nine I have left are all doing well! In one of my future posts I will talk about what its been like to care for the chicks and what it involves, including research information I've been acquiring.