Year Five

Our Team

Our Year In Progress

First Annual "Welcome" Bouquet Event

2024 UMF Garden Fall Open House

2025 UMF Garden Earth Day Open House

Our Team

The UMF Garden was delighted to add three individuals to their team this year. Emma Towers has joined us as the second Special Projects Assistant Student Worker.
Michelle Navarre and Rosemary Baker joined us as Master Gardener Volunteers as part of the UMaine Cooperative Extension's Harvest for Hunger Program and the Master Gardener Volunteer program. Master Gardener training participants must complete 40 hours of volunteer service in a community garden, and our two gardeners chose UMF!
- Michelle Navarre works on the UMF campus with the Adult Completion Program.
- Rosemary Baker works locally in special education and has earned her Master's degree from UMF in Special Education.
Last but not least, we continued working with our other student worker, Psychology Major Sophie Therrien (Class of 2025), and our wonderful UMF Campus and Community Garden Director, Professor Gretchen Legler.

Our Year In Progress

At the beginning of this 2024 Summer, we added student worker Emma to our team who took over all social media accounts and has fit in perfectly with the rest of the crew. Our weekly garden meetings have proven to be extremely successful, where we daydream about projects for the garden and set up our weekly schedules.
So far this summer alone, we have successfully restored a bird bath for the pollinator bed, implemented a "harvest hutch" for produce, and built an organic composting section.
During the Fall 2024 semester, we planted a brand new garden bed, experimented with planting cover crop seeds for the soil over winter, and implemented informational signage about the garden.
We successfully hosted a Fall Open House which was designed and run by Professor Gretchen's ENG 100: Seeds of Change class. Students hosted various stations during the open house including a scavenger hunt, fall greeting cards, a poet's corner, a tea station, a leek and potato soup sample station, and a "make your own" dorm garden.
This growing season we harvested roughly 215 lbs of produce, marking our highest amount yet since the establishment of our garden! This year, all produce was left out on the Harvest Hutch for students, staff, faculty, and community members to help themselves to. Our heartiest and most flourishing produce harvested includes about 80 lbs of cucumbers, 52 lbs of tomatoes and 34 lbs of onions!
Professor Gretchen's ENG 100: Seeds of Change Spring 2025 Class quickly got involved this winter by doing winter seed sowing and planting seedlings as well. Check out Sophie's Blog for pictures!

First Annual "Welcome" Bouquet Event

at New Student Orientation

With the help of student workers Sophie and Emma, Master Gardener Volunteers Rosie and Michelle, Garden Director Gretchen, and last but not least Connor Fahey, Orientation and Transition Programs Coordinator, our garden was able to pull off its First Annual "Welcome" Bouquet Event.

We were able to give away roughly 60 flower bouquets to brighten the dorm rooms of new students moving in, and welcome them to Farmington.

A special thank you goes out to Connor Fahey for incorporating us into orientation events, and to all the donors who graciously added to our flower collection!