By: Dillon Boggs, senior, biological engineering
My name is Dillon I am a biological engineering major, and I am an intern for The Student Farm at Penn State. My first farming experiences came from growing up on a farm, and living less than a quarter mile away from my Uncle’s dairy farm. I also worked on an organic farm for a summer while I was in high school. Something has always brought me back to farming even though I always hated working in the fields. However, as time went on I started to miss working in the fields, and eating farm fresh food. I mostly missed the fresh food, but it taught me an important less about quality and the importance of a small farm.
Dillion Boggs watering the new seedlings in the greenhouse. Photo: Dillion Boggs.
I joined The Student Farm at Penn State as an intern because I was excited about an opportunity to learn more about how small, and sustainable farms can be a viable alternative to large factory farms. The Student Farm is a perfect opportunity to because while it is only one acre the amount of food we produce is downright impressive. I also wanted to see just how much work went into maintaining a small vegetable farm. As it turns out maintaining a small farm is about as intensive as working on a larger scale organic farm.
Dillion Boggs with the Student Farm’s new seedlings. Photo: Dillion Boggs
My previous experiences really prepared me for work that goes into growing food, but not the satisfaction seeing our plants grow. It is a very exciting time for us at the farm because the seeds we started in March have germinated, and they have started growing tall and strong. I am especially excited to see all the seedlings get transplanted into the fields and watch them grow throughout the season.
Growing plants isn’t all that we do at The Student Farm. My main role at the farm right now is prioritizing the space we have at the farm, and the space we have for storage on campus. That includes building shelving space, making floor plans for our storage space, and building storage for interns and volunteers on the farm. Besides using my prior experience in farming there is still a lot to learn. For example, I have never seen raised beds on a farm, but for one acre farm the beds are raised up from the ground around them to provide better soil moisture, weed control, and warmer soil.
Dillion Boggs working to build new shelving, and organizing the storage space for the Student Farm. Photo: Dillion Boggs
These are just a few advantages of raised beds. There are so many different things which should be done to maintain healthy crops, and I am very excited to learn about them and see them in action. I recently tore my ACL (you can see the brace in the pictures), and am still very excited to see what the season can hold for me, and for The Student Farm at Penn State.