MISSOULA — The week of Earth Day is a great time to start growing things for spring.
As part of the University of Montana “Earth Week,” students spent Thursday afternoon volunteering at the Iron Griz Garden — an urban agriculture area that provides local produce for campus dining.
Planting at the Iron Griz Garden began in 2016. Located on South Avenue near the UM golf course, most of the produce and cut flowers grown in the garden go to the Iron Griz Bistro across the parking lot.
Other yields are brought to the Food Zoo, a dining hall on campus, or the UM Bear Necessities food pantry. The garden produces over 3,000 pounds of produce every year, according to garden manager Stasia Orkwiszewski.
“Everything that we grow stays on campus,” she says. “So the most anything has to travel is less than a mile down the road to get washed and then it's at its destination. So it's all super healthy and super fresh.”
Orkwiszewski has been managing the garden since its inception eight years ago. She joined the project because of her passion for local food production.
“It's just important for our resilience as a community to have a strong local food system– having strong local food systems will make our community healthier,” she says.
Campus dining staff and ASUM Sustainability hosted a volunteer day on April 25, 2024, to encourage students to come get their hands in the soil and learn more about UM food production.
McCormick has worked at the Iron Griz Bistro for three summers but attended the volunteer event to learn more about where her restaurant's produce comes from.
“Help me understand more like how our food is grown, how we go from the south of the parking lot to that south of the parking lot,” said volunteer Molly McCormick.
The students spent the afternoon digging up weeds and planting mustard grass.
Chris Holstine plans to intern at the garden this summer, so he decided to volunteer to learn more about his future job.
“Having food that goes directly to a place? So cool,” Holstine says. “And just having students and faculty for the university involved in it I think is really neat.”
The gardens accept volunteer help anytime. More information can be found at https://www.umt.edu/dining/locations/iron-griz/.
