Students in ENVS 230 “Sustainable Agriculture” had an exciting lab day on Wednesday: our first harvest of the spinach we have been growing in our experimental beds since the beginning of the semester.
First, check out the progress of the garden as a whole (compare to planting time five weeks before):
We are striking a balance between scientific experiment and aesthetic pleasure.
First, the science. Students carefully measure the length of the longest leaf of each plant:
Then harvest and fill up bowls of nearly perfect spinach leaves:
But it’s not all work and no pleasure. We also have a blind taste test to see if we can discern differences between spinach fertilized with five different fertilizer types:
And finally we just eat salad!
And to think, you get credit for this!