2008 Woodie Awards
UNH's Organic Gardening Club digs in
Jim Cavan
Issue date: 10/1/04 Section: Arts & Living
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Close to a dozen cars line the sodden strip between the narrow road and the thick brown fence that serves as the boundary for what is fast becoming the most talked about acreage at UNH. It is an area equivalent to two or three football fields, where by 1 p.m., its warm blooded ploughshares (including five or six leash-less hounds) are hard at work, hammering and tilling and digging and chasing, all to the beat of steel on steel. Stevie Ray Vaughn blasts out the back of a black Jetta and the unmistakable air of collective determination looming gently on the brow-furrowed faces of UNH'S own special microcosm of a bourgeoning organic revolution.
All in all, there are between 15 and 20 people, mostly students, who have come to kick off what hopes to be a seminal year for the infant OGC, and a vindication of sorts for its resident godfather, an energetic baby boomer known simply as "Charlie."
Charlie first appears hunkered over a patch of overgrown grass, sickle in hand, teaching an eager protégé how to properly sheath. Charlie explained the history of OGC- its proverbial roots-providing a keen explanation for what is clearly an upwardly mobile phenomenon at UNH, a mass that has grown four-fold in just this past year, with no signs at all of slowing down.
"The idea is simple," Charlie explained. "Healthy soils create healthy plants, healthy plants make for healthy people, and healthy people make for a healthy planet."
Charlie should know. He is the proud owner and operator of his own organic farm along Route 125 in Nottingham, and his methods and ideals have been noticeably imitated by those students who know him both as employer as well as spiritual contemporary.
While the OGC is still an up and coming club, the seeds for a student run organic garden on UNH grounds were actually sewn back in the '60s, when Charlie began feeding his chicken hatchlings unprocessed organic feed, as opposed to the standard chemically altered swill typically utilized by the Tysons and the Perdues of the industry. After first concentrating on selling organically fed chickens, Charlie diversified, incorporating a wide range of Natural (big N) produce while maintaining a desire to translate his methods into still larger arenas. UNH was such a venue, and the logical point of departure for a potentially explosive movement.
