San José State student plant lovers spent some time in the sunshine at the Campus Community Garden on Tuesday.
The community garden is located on East San Salvador Street across the street from the Dining Commons.
The garden is a student-led initiative founded in 2014 that is run by students that acts as a space for members of the SJSU community to get fresh fruits and vegetables, learn about sustainability and earn service hours, according to its website.
Students gathered around tables, wielding acrylic paint and brushes, with reference images of creatures such as butterflies and hummingbirds.
Christopher Glenn, a third-year ecology and evolution student and program assistant with Associated Students, helps the garden hold its events.
“The idea is that they’ll paint stuff on cardstock and we can cut it out, laminate it, hang it up in the garden,” Glenn said. “They can come back and see it in the future.”
He said the event gave people a place to come and hang out while being introduced to the more not-talked-about topics of pollinators, as well as give them an overall perspective of how important native pollinators are for agriculture and the world.
Native pollinators are important to the environment because some plants are only pollinated by a particular insect or bird, according to a webpage by the Center for Biological Diversity.
Analisa Villanueva, a second-year theater student, painted a bumblebee inside some green vinery she had decorated on the cardstock.
“It feels so calming to be here,” Villanueva said. “I think it’s genuinely such a beautiful space and I see everyone, the community, coming together to come work and I think it’s awesome.”
The SJSU garden has plots that include different farming methods such as the three sisters method, which is an agricultural technique practiced by indigenous peoples that involves planting corn for beans to climb on a bed of squash, according to a post on the garden’s Instagram page.
Esme Guzman, a fourth-year applied nutrition student, made chocolate zucchini cupcakes with edible butterflies on top as well as pineapple-grape fruit skewers for the event while tabling with the Wellness & Health Student Inspired Kitchens.
“We try to inspire and come up with ideas – recipes – for students,” Guzman said. “We’re trying to promote more healthy eating within college students in general.”
WHISK is a program led by nutrition students at SJSU that gives community members the knowledge to have a healthy lifestyle, according to a webpage for WHISK.
The Spartan Food Pantry is another resource available to students to gain access to fresh fruits and vegetables, according to its webpage.
Students can use ingredients found in the pantry to make recipes created by WHISK, such as the recipe for the chocolate zucchini cupcakes that were shown and served to students at the event.
WHISK recipe cards can be found online on another WHISK webpage.
