With Earth Day celebrations approaching, two farmers markets at the Arboretum’s organic gardens on the Tempe campus on April 22 and 29 will promote locally grown food and sustainable eating.

 Among the crops the markets will have available will be corn, squash, arugula, cilantro, dill, parsley and two of the most abundant crops grown on campus — Medjool dates and sour oranges.  The dates and sour oranges will be sold fresh from the morning’s harvest on Earth Day, or will also be available in 8-ounce packages.

 In September, student volunteers began pulling weeds to prepare and recondition the soil on the organic garden grounds at the Arboretum, located in the south courtyard at the Social Sciences building.

Volunteers spend about 2 hours a week taking care of the garden, art graduate student Wesley James said.  The garden is a good way for students to support a local food source, he said.

“The reason we started gardening there was because the environment there was for locally grown food. We choose not to use artificial fertilizers or chemicals,” James said.

 Barrett, the Honors College’s student residents of the Sustainability House have also volunteered to help with the organic gardens. 

A goal of the organization is to instill ideas of sustainability into the minds of the members, so it becomes a part of their lifestyle, said chemistry junior Matt Kast, in an email.

 “[Farmers markets] offer customers some of the most sustainable food possible.  Organically grown vegetables that never have to be transported have incredibly small carbon footprints,” he said.

Farmers markets are a way to help teach people where the food comes from and how it is grown, education that West attributes to healthful food cultures, Kast said.

 The markets will be the first the Arboretum produces from its gardens, said Deborah Thirkhill, program coordinator for the Arboretum Grounds Services. 

The hope is to not only have the markets available to ASU students and faculty, but also to the outside community, and to see what there may be a growing demand for at a farmers market, she added.

 Composting operations had to be set up to complete each sustainable garden.  To fertilize the organic gardens, the Arboretum provides several styles of raised planters and spiral beds. 

 One of the spiral beds has a composting worm tower, which consists of a gallon bucket drilled with holes.  The bucket is sunk into the top of the raised spiral. 

 Red worms are used as the composting worms and are fed kitchen scraps.  The worms are free to move through the garden soil and come back up into the tower to feed. 

 Thirkhill said worm casting is one of the best and safest complete organic fertilizers to use in a garden.

 Because ASU produces about 12 tons of green waste each month, the Arboretum has been trying to “go green,” she said.

 It partnered with Ken Singh Farms in 2007 to compost the organic waste that is produced on campus.  Thirkhill said this saves ASU money versus having to spend $70 a ton to throw all the waste away.

 “We generate waste and turn it into something else,” she said. “It’s a cycle.”

Reach the reporter at kellie.parisek@asu.edu.