The UT Harvest Market is a program that we've just started where we have five student interns that are working at the Organic Crops Unit here.
The students really do everything. They chose the varieties. They designed the plot and the layout,
so they had to learn about proper plant spacing and how to make the rows. They installed the irrigation.
They fertilize. They weed. They monitor for insects, pests and diseases.
They harvest and have all the post-handling production there and then sell out the market.
So they really are learning how to do everything.
To coordinate the interns is somewhat interesting because many of them are coming from
they have some farm experience. Some don't have any farm experience at all.
So we kind of have to balance that out where someone may know how to harvest garlic,
someone may not. But we want everyone to equally learn.
Getting together with some, a diverse group of students but still like-minded,
we have this one higher purpose that we all work together for. Then just kind of sharing ideas, working
through them together, running them off each other. The collaborative process is really a lot of fun.
Every Friday afternoon from 2 to 4, we head down to the UT Gardens, we're in the Friendship Plaza.
We have our student-run Harvest Market. So we sell produce there to students who are on campus, faculty and staff.
Chef Antun from the UT Culinary Institute will be giving a cooking demonstration at the Market.
So we'll have some of our fresh produce and he'll use it to cook up something great.
Obviously working with customers is really great. Taking the fruits of our labors to the people. Shaking their hand
letting them know who grew their food. That's kind of the fulfillment of this grand idea we have or that I have when I came to work here.
The interaction of the market is the best time because we're finally able to take what we've been harvesting
that week and actually put it into someone's hand and talk about what we have going on in the program as well as what we're growing
and just continue to talk about the program and support our program and educate the general public.
It's a full effort each week. By Friday, it all just kind of culminates in the afternoon and we're very pleased
that at the end of it, everything has worked out well.