Campus club’s proposal to expand approved by student government

by Michelle Snider

Lauren Jelks, interim president of the Friends of the Laney Garden Club, scored a win at the ASLC weekly meeting Feb. 7, landing approval to fund collaborative upgrades to the Laney Garden.

The club presented a detailed proposal to the ASLC to provide a student community space based on advanced gardening techniques, enable disability access and provide fresh fruit and shade with newly planted orchards. Expanding the Laney Garden, located between E building and the Estuary, will assist Laney students and the community in obtaining food sustainability while encouraging learned engagement in agricultural techniques.

The Club has been working for nearly a year with the carpentry, welding, and architecture departments to make the upgrades happen. “I’m really grateful and excited that we got approved. The projects we’ll be working on are going to last far beyond our time at Laney,” Jelks said in an email to the Tower. “I’m happy Friends of the Laney Garden and the ASLC are helping to create a legacy of food security for students and the greater community.”

The garden club will partner with the Laney Student Engagement Cohort to expand the Laney Garden, utilizing open land near the estuary with pre-contact indigenous gardening techniques. These are agricultural techniques used prior to the arrival of Europeans on the American continent.

The new orchard space will include seating, provided by Laney’s welding and carpentry clubs, and will be placed under the new fruit trees, which will eventually provide shade for Laney students. The club’s proposal suggests a plan to recruit volunteers to help build the orchard.

Renovations of the Laney Garden will also include four raised beds. One of the raised plots will be open to community members with disabilities, making gardening accessible for those in wheelchairs.

The garden club will construct a fence, clear out weeds, build an additional gate, and create signs throughout the new garden. This will allow more students and community members to participate in it.

The Laney FabLab gifted a 10-piece wooden greenhouse frame that it built on campus for the garden club. The structure will be used to create the greenhouse dome. The new space will enable the garden club to start new seedlings in colder weather and germinate new plants before old plants are removed. This will save the gardeners money and time.

According to the Friends of the Laney Garden Club proposal, the club prefers to use earth-friendly cultivating processes, avoiding the use of all synthetic pesticides and herbicides. “We try to use organic practices in the garden so that we can create a sustainable cycle of food security at Laney,” Jelks said. “We’re trying to minimize environmental destruction caused by pesticides and synthetic fertilizers so that the garden can still function at its best for the next 20 years.”

Pergola plants will be efficiently added, utilizing the garden space. Varieties like viney flowers and fruits will increase curbside appeal to attract pollinators such as bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

The garden club proposal states that, with more plants to maintain, garden club members will gain different levels of experience they could not have achieved before.

Michelle Snider is a Tower staff writer.