| DCF QUARTERLY
NEWSLETTER
SPRING 2023
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Multicolored Sweet Williams blooming in our pollinator garden
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Hellooooo Duke Campus Farm friends!
After a brief (read: a couple years) hiatus, our newsletters are back in full swing! In addition to our weekly CSA newsletter, which we send out to CSA members and post on our social media, we are restarting our general newsletter and sending it out on a quarterly basis to keep y'all up to date on farm goings-on. Each newsletter will be a combination of a seasonal recap and a forecast for what's on the horizon at the farm. This season includes an introduction from our Field Education Manager, Izzy Brace, an update on all things curricular from our Director, Dr. Saskia Cornes, and some sweet farewells from graduating student crew members. We're excited to bring friends and community members back into the fold of all the work we're doing!
Happy reading!
Love,
The DCF Team
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Mark your calendars, because DCF has lots in store!
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May 17, 3-6pm: Spring Plant Sale. Swing by the farm for an informal seedling sale on Wednesday, May 17. We will have tomatoes and assorted flowers. Cash only, pay what you can sales.
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May 18, 8-11am: First summer Community Work Day. Work Days over the summer switch from Sunday afternoon to Thursday morning (8-11am) to beat the heat. Join us for some or all the morning to work alongside our summer crew and tend to crops for CSA.
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August 20–25: Project Farm-to-Table. This will be the second year of our orientation programming for incoming undergraduate first-years. Students will spend the week exploring the role they play in the food system, and getting to know Duke's campus and programs, including the Duke Campus Farm.
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September 11–November 16: Fall CSA runs for 10 weeks! Keep an eye out for sign-ups at the end of the summer. This year we are offering both a full share (every week for 10 weeks = 10 boxes total) and a half share (every other week for 10 weeks = 5 boxes total).
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September 16, 7-10pm: Fall Contra. In case you missed Spring Contra, or you came and are already ready for the next one, mark your calendars for our Fall Contra Dance - an evening of live fiddle and keyboard, nonstop dancing, and hot cider. No dancing experience required!
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Want to stay in the loop about farm events as they come up? Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for updates on all things DCF!
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Early spring CSA boxes, all planted, harvested, and packed by our Field Education Manager and our stellar student crew.
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We are excited to announce that this season on the farm we will be experimenting with a full season of cover crop in our oldest section of the farm – our Home North field – which has been in production since we broke ground in 2010. The crops we seeded here provide green manure, add nitrogen back to the soil, and help improve soil structure so we don’t have to supplement with nearly as much compost and organic fertilizers. Cover cropping in agriculture is over 3,000 years old (
Building Soils for Better Crops)! Our seed mixes include a diverse assortment of grasses and legumes, all of which have unique benefits to the land. In the cool months, we sowed a mix of cereal rye, crimson clover, winter peas, and daikon radish. This summer we will be seeding a mix of sunflowers, sorghum sudan grass, buckwheat, and Iron & Clay peas. We will be collecting data and studying the effect of this experiment year over year on the farm in conjunction with Professor Dan Richter’s lab and Orange County Soil and Water Conservation District
In other exciting news, we will also be expanding our partnership with Root Causes’ Fresh Produce Program. This program provides fresh produce to over 300 patients in the Duke medical system. Our farm crew will be joining Root Causes' crew to run weekly home deliveries to 40 families in the Durham community. We hope to continue to collaborate with Root Causes as both our organizations grow and mature as part of the greater Duke institution.
Thank y'all so much for being a part of the farm community! We are eager to share more of our world with you and hope to see you around for a Community Work Day
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We’re bringing small groups of stakeholders together in a participatory planning process called a charrette, to better understand how DCF can best serve our communities. Reach out if you’re interest in joining a charrette this fall!
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We've been hosting a handful of courses to round out the year – from medical students in “Moral Movements in Medicine” to first-year students in “Trends in Nutrition.” This month, faculty from across the world will join Professor Dan Richter and DCF Field Education Manager, Izzy Brace, to talk Critical Zone Science with Dr. David Liu’s Mangrove Fellowship. Inspired by our learning journey to campus farms across the northeast this winter, our work with facilitator Erin McClarty, and with support from a Duke Intellectual Planning Grant, we’ve also been engaging faculty stakeholders, old and new, in our strategic planning process. And later this summer, we’ll be working with a Duke Story+ research team. This cohort of undergraduate and graduate students will build on the work of previous DCF DukeImmerse students, Floey Zhao and Cam Lavallee, to create a self-guided tour of the farm that will make the stories behind DCF’s plants, practices and people more visible as part of the Growing Histories project.
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Spring Contra Dance Recap |
Contra Dance at DCF is officially back in action! After a couple years off, we jumped back in the swing of it, rather fittingly, on Earth Day! The intermittent downpours didn't deter the festivities, and as soon as the music started, the skies cleared up for a killer sunset and starry night. The dance featured Mara Shea on fiddle, Dean Herington on the keys, and Eileen Thorsos as caller. Check out the photos taken by some wonderful first year volunteers, and be sure to keep an eye out for Mara, Dean, and Eileen at local Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Durham community contra dances, including the annual Spring Dance Romance. Couldn't make it to the DCF Spring Contra? No worries! We will be holding a Fall Contra on September 16! Scroll down for a reminder of both Contra and other upcoming events.
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Farewell, graduates + Emily!
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Spring is always a time of transition, and this season we bid farewell not just to our graduating student crew members, but to our beloved Program Manager Emily McGinty.
Emily helped to launch the farm as a first-year student at Duke, and her 13 years subsequent years of work at DCF merited a never-before-seen farm extravaganza! We gathered family, friends young and old, early farm supporters, past crew members and farm managers, and neighbors to commemorate all that Emily has offered to this space. During an open mic, one friend noted that he had reconnected with dear friends who he hadn't seen in quite some time, and was delighted to realize that Emily was the common denominator in their friendship. This is surely true for many, as Emily is a skilled community weaver and finds ways to introduce and knot people together. We were also able to celebrate Emily's accomplishments earlier in February, when Emily received one of Duke's highest honors, a Duke Presidential Award! We will miss her so dearly, but are excited for her to rest before taking the next step, whatever that may bring.
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Our current Director, Saskia Cornes (left) shares a warm reunion with DCF's first farm fellow, Sarah Parsons (right).
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| Left to right: Emily Sloss, Emily McGinty, and Lee Miller- the powerhouses who made the farm happen in 2010!
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| Family and friends joyfully celebrate Emily at the Presidential Award Ceremony in Page Auditorium.
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As for our student crew...while some grads will stay as helping hands over the summer, others are moving away and starting their next phase of growth. We are so proud of all that they have accomplished over their years here, and for the love, dedication that they have all brought to our community.
Scroll to read a bit about each of our graduates and what they're up to next!
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Natalie Owens (she/her), MTS '23
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My name is Natalie Owens and I am the Student Farm Manager at DCF. Apart from working at the farm, I have spent the past two years in the Divinity School working to complete a Master of Theological Studies with a certificate in Faith, Food, and Environmental Justice. I just finished my thesis project on fig trees in Ancient West Asian contexts and how their fruit was a symbol of both hope and peace.
My passion is the intersection between food and religion, and I dream of ways to intersect the two in a tangible way that cares for both people and the land. Therefore, my dream is to open a farm-to-table cafe in Richmond, VA with family land. Farming with the DCF team has been incredibly rewarding and beneficial for making my dream a reality.
I am looking forward to joining the amazing Alumni network of DCF!
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Hi everyone! My name is Amy Yoon, and I am graduating from Duke with a degree in my self-created major, "Critical Food and Agricultural Studies." The farm has been such a core component of my studies in food systems, and I have met some of the best people I know at Duke through the farm! After graduation, I will be teaching English in Colombia with Fulbright for a year. I hope to return to the U.S. and be more involved with labor and land justice work in agriculture, and in efforts to develop cooperative farms.
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| Amy Yoon (she/they), BA '23
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Reema Garabadu (she/her), MEM '23
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Hello newsletter readers, my name is Reema Garabadu and I’m finishing up my time at Duke receiving my Masters in Environmental Management. Hopefully, I’ve met some of you by now during workdays, or while you’ve come into the farm for a CSA box over the last few years. I’ve treasured starting my time at the farm shortly after arriving in Durham. This one acre space has been an important place for growth and community during a challenging few years of grad school. And, it’s further instilled my desire to continue working with people, land, and food. While I’m still unsure of my next steps, I’ve grown fond of Durham as my home and hope to continue strengthening our local food systems through my work, and frolicking around the Eno, the farmers market, and Tobacco Trail for play. I hope this season change brings sweet summer days for you all, too.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ Reema
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Hi! My name is Sara Haas, and this semester I am wrapping up my time at Duke with Bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Environmental Science and Policy. Since I began working at the Duke Campus Farm my sophomore year, it has been the anchor of my time here at Duke. I have been so fortunate to spend many hours chatting about life’s trials and tribulations over freshly picked collards, marveling at baby moles in a compost pile, or taking a coffee break in the sun. My time at DCF fostered my passion for regenerative agriculture and sustainable food systems, the areas in which I plan to focus my career. I will carry DCF’s lessons of environmental stewardship with me throughout my life, but most importantly I will always feel grounded by the sense of community and belonging that this place has given me.
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| Sara Haas (she/her), BS '23
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Kaitlyn Elliott (she/her), MEM '23
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Hi, my name is Kaitlyn Elliott, and I am a soon to be graduate of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke. After graduation I plan on staying in the area to work for the US Geologic Survey (USGS) on different water quality and quantity projects. I will also be continuing to work at the farm this summer through the work trade program. I am so thankful for the community I have gained from the Duke Campus Farm, it has created an environment that exudes love and respect for the land as well as for one another. I am looking forward to seeing where the farm goes in the future!
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Our joyful Contra volunteers on their way into the farm to help set up.
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