Siena’s on-campus gardening efforts are growing in more ways than one, reaping educational, emotional and nutritional benefits for the College community.
What started as two planting beds behind Rosetti Hall has now expanded to five, built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers during the pandemic months. If Siena’s student growers get their way, the College’s crop output will continue to increase. Medicinal herbs grown there are used in a nursing class on holistic pharmacology, and gardening related projects are part of a class on environmental ethics.
To celebrate this success and promote the gardens as a peaceful community space, an open mic night was held among the beds on October 7. Plants were shared for people to take home. Also, a gardening club for students is in the works this semester for those who want to learn how to tend plants for food and medicine and stay connected to nature.
Erin Spence ’22 worked on the Siena gardens over the summer and was also involved with Albany Victory Gardens in the city’s West Hill neighborhood as part of a capstone project on urban farming.
“It’s a great hands-on experience for everybody,” she said. “We’re not experts – we’re all still learning, and everyone is welcome to help out.”
Sela Scarangella ’25 said she’d like to see the addition of more gardens and possibly a greenhouse on campus.
“Food grown right here on campus is as fresh as you’re going to get,” she said.
The gardeners, who also include Bryan Spence ’24, Matt Donovan ’24 and Abigail Sheridan ’22 said the new club can help Saints learn how to grow houseplants, herbs, flowers and veggies. Seeds are being saved for future plantings.
Donovan noted that the College was founded in 1937 on the site of a former asparagus farm.
“So, in way, were helping the college return to its roots, literally,” he said.
Nora Mills Boyd, Ph.D., assistant professor of philosophy and Donnean Thrall, N.D., R.N., AHN-BC, assistant professor of nursing, are co-faculty advisors for the gardens and use them as a laboratory to provide practical experience in the classes they teach.
“We want Siena students to gain an appreciation for the Earth and plants and realize the benefits of connecting back to the land,” said Thrall.
Her introductory holistic pharmacology class explores herbs such as lemon balm, lavender, echinacea and chamomile, which have been safely used for centuries by many cultures to soothe the body and mind. She said herb use has greater medical respect in other countries, and that nursing and medical scholars here are trying to advocate for safe and widespread use in the United States.
“We’re opening the door for greater acceptance and discussion about healing plants, many of which have been scientifically proven to be effective,” she said. “Our nurses will be educated to encourage their future patients’ health care teams not to dismiss them as a path of healing. There are multiple ways of knowing how to heal.”
Boyd uses the gardening experience to help inform her course on environmental ethics.
“We are in crisis now with the environment, and having students learn directly about how the Earth works is key to opening the door to solutions” she said.
Siena grows several types of heirloom tomatoes, as well as kale, green beans, corn, squash and cooking herbs. Some of the produce is sent to be used in meals in the Massry dining room in Snyder Hall.
“It’s a small operation,” said Boyd, “but it demonstrates the principles of growing your own food in a sustainable way and building a relationship with the land.”
Zoey Hall ’22 enjoys the nursing class from the perspective of a student – and a patient. She started using healing herbs a few years ago to treat some health issues.
“Even though I have been using herbs myself for a while, I was surprised at how much I didn’t know,” she said. “I think it’s important for nursing students to study this because it opens up new avenues of treatment for patients.”
Her Irish great-grandmother was very knowledgeable about herbal healing, and to keep up the family tradition, Hall’s father James has been asking his daughter for her class notes each week so he can study the subject as well.
Alan Koppschall ’22 is in Boyd’s environmental ethics class, and will be building a small greenhouse to extend the campus growing season for kale and other winter vegetables.
“I like the practical approach of the course,” said Koppschall, who has worked on a regenerative garden in Orange County. “Often philosophy hides itself in the ivory tower of academia, but in this class, we are able to put into action what we learn in class, and engage directly with the environment.”