In the early 1970s, a UF student organization, the Environmental Action Group, was motivated by the first Earth Day to show that healthy garden crops could be grown without the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. A small garden quickly grew to 200 actively worked plots on three acres of land on Radio Road. Then, in 1995, UF planners decided to replace the garden site with student housing, and a new site for the gardens, now called the UF Organic Gardens Cooperative, was approved on pastureland on SW 23rd Terrace. Three years later, UF installed a gate, access road, and a well, and gardeners laid out plots and installed irrigation lines. The first garden plots were cultivated in fall 1998.
OBJECTIVES:
To teach and learn organic gardening principles, the use of non-residual pesticides and natural fertilizers, and how to achieve a natural balance between material put into the garden and material removed.
ORGANIC GARDENING PRINCIPLES:
The building of soil fertility through the use of natural fertilizers such as manures, compost, mulches, and powdered rock. ONLY natural pest controls may be used.
WE ARE A COOPERATIVE:
The Gardens are run as a cooperative, with costs, benefits, fun, and work shared among the members, each of whom has a voice in the administration of the Gardens. There are no paid staff and no office hours; all of us are volunteers including those on the leadership team. All gardeners need to be willing to contribute their skills and/or labor in order for the Gardens to function.