Magazine: Organic Times

Check out my article in the Organic Times Magazine created completely by WUR MOA students! Page 9.

Would you like smeerwortel, bieslook, or sla?

Like many internationals, I talk to my family back home quite often. One of the things that always makes me laugh is how my family explains what I'm doing at Wageningen. “She's doing something with agriculture…at a castle I think,” is my mom's current response. You see, back in October I took on the task of working in a castle garden for my internship, and while for many months my work was limited to research and garden plans, I didn't really understand the scale and just how physical working in the garden would be.

Landgoed Zuylestein is in Amerongen, about 10 miles from Wageningen and about a 35 minute bus ride each way. The acre “moestuin," or market garden ,is just a small fraction of the 160 hectare facility, but believe me it's enough when you are used to sitting in class all day! I'm typically on-site four days a week around 8.5-9hrs each day. The goal of my project is to test different composting, mulching, intercropping, and companion planting methods (agroecological practices within a historical context). For example, we're doing deep bedding sheet mulching in one area, lasagna beds in another, companion and intercropping for pest management, and (hopefully) a Victorian mushroom bed.

With only three weeks to go, I'm not sure if we will get everything done in time, and if we do, I'm not sure if my second round of soil sampling will show any differences, but I can definitely say that if someone in the future asks me to help with their “garden,” I'm going to double check the dimensions first!

As with most internships, there have definitely been some highs and lows. Shoveling horse dung in the rain or coming in and seeing all the new cabbage plants eaten by snails were definitely lows, but finishing the deep mulching area or running the garden alone for two weeks or giving my first tour of the facility all seem to help balance the scales.

Looking toward the future, I'm pretty confident the biggest garden I personally ever want is ten meters square or less, but how often in life do you get to say you ran a castle market garden? And for the people who keep bugging me about my horrible Dutch language skills…when I leave I will be able to say several hundred words…all vegetables!