Slotnick, Joshua H.

English

University of Montana

University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana University of Montana Course Syllabi, 1990-2010 Fall 9-1-2009 EVST 390.01: Supervised Internship - PEAS Joshua H. Slotnick University of Montana, Missoula, joshua.slotnick@umontana.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/syllabi1990-2010 Let us know how access to this document benefits you. Recommended Citation Slotnick, Joshua H., "EVST 390.01: Supervised Internship - PEAS" (2009). University of Montana Course Syllabi, 1990-2010. 757. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/syllabi1990-2010/757 This Syllabus is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Montana Course Syllabi, 1990-2010 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact scholarworks@mso.umt.edu. EVST 390 Autumn PEAS Aug 31 – Oct 29  2 credits c/ncr  Instructor Josh Slotnick, 239-6993, joshua.slotnick@mso.umt.edu Assistants: David Victor, 515-401-2959, Crystal Wolf, 206-200-7864, Jeff Turman   Background on the farm  The PEAS farm is the result of a partnership between EVST and the non-profit Garden City Harvest (GCH). GCH supplies the operating expenses to run the farm, and EVST sends the labor, in the form of students and a teacher. GCH’s primary missions are to grow high quality food for low-income people, and to offer educational opportunities in ecological food production. In addition to the partnership in the PEAS farm, GCH also manages two other neighborhood farms in Missoula and 7 community gardens. The Missoula Public School district owns the land and leases the property to the City of Missoula.  The City then subleases to GCH. The farm has been in operation since 1997, and has been in the Rattlesnake since 2002.      What you will do You will be involved in all of the following activities CSA Harvest The PEAS farm operates a 90 member CSA. A CSA is like a magazine subscription, but instead of receiving a magazine once a month; our CSA members get an allotment of produce each week from the beginning of June to the first week of October. We harvest for our CSA on Mondays and Thursdays. The members come and pick-up their food between 4:30 and 6. On Mondays 23 households get their food at the Garden City Harvest Office at McCormick park, we pre-box these shares and a volunteer drives them down to the office at 4:00, the remaining 28 Monday households get their food at the farm. All the Thursday CSA members pick up their food at the farm. Some of the CSA members have also purchased flowers, so we will harvest flowers as well as vegetables on harvest days and make bouquets.  Food Bank Harvest In addition to bringing the CSA leftovers to the food bank, we custom grow 3 crops for the food bank: onions, winter squash, and carrots. We will do these harvests in September/October. We will harvest, and then cure, thousands of pounds of onions and squash. The carrots we will wash and bag, and then send to a cannery in Deer Lodge. The food bank will then give the canned carrots out throughout the winter. We do onions and winter squash because the food bank can store these crops without refrigeration.    Chickens and goats We have 225+ laying hens at the farm. We are offering a CSA egg share this fall in addition to the vegetables. We will help care for these birds, that means feeding Tuesday and Wednesday mornings during the veg. CSA harvest season, and gathering eggs and watering again on those afternoons. The goats are here to clean up some of the knapweed in the chicken paddocks. Right now they only need to be watered twice a day. We will do that Monday-Thursday.   Gleaning We operate a service to Missoula whereby will come to a person’s yard and pick their unwanted fruit. “Gleaning”, means a second harvest, after the best has been picked. In this case, nothings been picked and we come in clean up. We began doing this a few years ago, focusing on the rattlesnake, to reduce the potential for negative bear interactions in the neighborhood. We have since spread across the town –we’ll pick apples anywhere. We bring good-looking apples to the food bank, the beat up ones we save for our cider pressing/pumpkin carving event the Saturday before Halloween. We typically go on gleaning runs on Tues/Wed afternoons. Zach Johnson is our Gleaning Coordinator.  Irrigation and Weekend watering As long as the weather stays warm, irrigation is relentless. You will help to set up pipes, fuss with the drip irrigation in the field south of the parking lot and in the greenhouse, hoophouse and orchard. We will need some help these first few weekends, if you can help with that you can buy yourself some free time during the coming week.  General farm maintenance We will pull weeds, plant cover crop, help with compost, pull up drip tape, store supplies for next spring, do all the necessary tasks for keeping the farm running this fall and setting us up for next spring.   Other programs and people you will see on the farm  Ethan Smith Ethan is GCH’s Facilities Mangager, he watches over the infrastructure at all the neighborhood farms, and he is the main person responsible for our orchard and composting operation. His home base is the PEAS farm and you will see him often. He also teaches a graduate course in Agro-ecology and is a great resource.    Alex Keenan  is our caretaker. She lives in the apartment above the barn. The farm is a public space, it is ours, and it is hers. If an ethic of respect pervades all our actions we can continue to live in relative harmony.   Laurie Strand and Youth Harvest Laurie runs GCH’s Youth Harvest program. She has overseen the work of a handful of Missoula teens at the farm all summer. Some of these kids will continue working at the farm this fall. On Mondays and Thursdays YH also has a mobile market, they drive off in our big red panel van and set up markets at a handful of retirement homes in Missoula.  Jason Mandala and Community Education Shortly you will begin to see organized hordes of children descend on the farm. Jason and GCH’s Community Education program, host these field trips for hundreds of Missoula schoolchildren. Jason also teaches the EVST course, Practicum in Sustainable Ag. Education. The students in this course lead many of the field trips and get the opportunity to learn some hand-on instructional skills.    Heather McKee and Chickens Heather is responsible for the chickens in the paddocks and the egg share CSA. You probably will see her messing with those birds.  Wed. Afternoon Class. Wed. afternooons all the students in Fall PEAS come to the farm. In this linked section class I will talk more in depth about what we are doing at the farm and why. Attendance is mandatory.  Grades This is an internship course. You must only have scrupulous attendance and build an enthusiasm for the work and you will receive your credits. If you can’t make it at your section time, call me. Having a paper/test in another course is not a suitable cause for missing the farm.        

EVST 390.01: Supervised Internship - PEAS

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1756&context=syllabi1990-2010

EVST 390.01: Supervised Internship - PEAS

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