Happy Harvest

On an unseasonably warm late April day, with temperatures soaring to 80 degrees, a troop of student volunteers converged on the Bryn Mawr Community Garden for the annual spring planting event. 

Wielding shovels and garden trowels, they planted seeds and seedlings that will eventually become a summer’s bounty of tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, and kale. They tucked in eggplant, green beans, squash, and strawberry plants; sowed watermelon and sunflower seeds—and more. All of that produce will, as always, be made available for free to the campus community, and the garden will become a lush place of beauty as the growing season goes on. 

Since it was launched nearly 15 years ago, the Community Garden has become a beloved spot on campus. Leila Byerly ’25, one of three coordinators who help maintain the garden and recruit and support volunteers, says part of the draw “is the personal fulfillment you get from working with your hands, being outside, digging in the dirt, and seeing things grow.” 

Seeing how many people want to get involved has been gratifying to her, says the biology major. “We get emails from students and even from staff saying they think this is a great thing we’re doing, and it brings them some level of joy just to see that it’s happening.”

It was Maiya Zwerling ’13 who first broached the idea of a community garden to fellow members of the campus environmental club, ���������� Greens. That was in 2010, and the first-year student found in the Greens “a great group of people who were excited about moving the idea forward.” Zwerling founded the garden with the help of Avery Martin ’12, Kristina (Kronauer) Schwartz ’13, and Kayla McDaniel ’12. (Frankie Leech ’16 later came on board to help keep the garden going as the founding group approached graduation.)

Another key player in the project was then-Assistant Director for Grounds Ed Harman. “I can’t overstate how important he was in getting the garden started,” Zwerling says. “There was a really lovely relationship between staff and students when I was here, and it was great to work so closely with Ed and his staff to realize the [garden] space for the campus.” (Facilities Services continues to support the garden by supplying tools, mulch, seeds, seedlings, and other supplies, as well as the help of the grounds crew with watering and other tasks.) 

The group found an ideal location for their garden in a spacious spot between New Dorm (then Haffner) and the Wyndham Alumnae House parking lot, where it now occupies three large raised beds, one small one, and an in-ground plot. “We wanted a high-traffic area close to one of the dining halls,” recalls Zwerling, who went on to earn a master’s in public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is now on the faculty at the law school. 

“One of our long-term goals for the garden was to supply one of the cafeterias with our produce,” says Schwartz, one of the co-founders, and now a veterinarian in Fall City, Wash. “I remember being very proud when we were able to bring some of it to one of the kitchens, but I’m sure it wasn’t very much.” 

While the garden did establish a relationship with Haffner Dining Hall and Batten House for a time, ultimately it could not supply the quantities needed by Dining Services. Still, it produces enough for students, faculty, and staff to occasionally stop by and pick fruit or vegetables.

“I remember being very proud when we were able to bring some of it to one of the kitchens, but I’m sure it wasn’t very much.” 

Contributing to the garden’s enduring presence on campus was its founders’ decision to approach Director of Civic Engagement Ellie Esmond for help in 2012. 

“They were having trouble with continuity,” says Esmond, “so they asked about the possibility of creating a position within the Civic Engagement Center for a paid community garden coordinator who could work during the academic year and also during the summer, when the garden really comes alive.”

That formal relationship with Civic Engagement certainly helped post-pandemic, when, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 exodus from campus, the garden remained dormant for several years. 

“Though the garden belongs to everyone, it does need leadership,” Esmond says. “Having student coordinators take responsibility in a formalized way has helped keep it going.”

Taking the lead on a reboot of the space fell to geology major Hannah Cosgrove ’25, who accepted the post of garden coordinator in their sophomore year. To restart the garden, Cosgrove relied on advice from Filomena Micolucci, a member of the housekeeping staff and a master gardener who has for years maintained her own raised bed next to the community garden. Cosgrove also received abundant help from then-Associate Director for Grounds Dawn DiGiovanni. “Dawn was a really strong resource for me in terms of getting plants and everything I needed,” Cosgrove says. (DiGiovanni, who recently retired, developed a course called “Naturally Dirty” that ran for two semesters and allowed students to receive Physical Education credits for learning to garden.) 

Cosgrove spent the summer of 2023 tending the newly revitalized plots, and harvesting produce that they would leave on a low stone wall next to the garden for community members to take. 

They also posted signs alerting visitors to what was ripe for picking. 

“I think we’ve come really far in terms of starting the garden back up from almost nothing, and I’m really excited to see how it continues to develop.” 

Also part of the garden coordinators’ work during the school year is planning special events, particularly during the late fall and winter months, aimed at connecting more students to the garden. To that end, they schedule workdays, end-of-season garden cleanups, interest meetings, and spring planning meetings at which students can contribute ideas. In the depth of winter, they might host a movie or a craft night. In early April, they ran a fruit tree pruning workshop that featured some hands-on learning courtesy of the three apple trees that flank the garden. 

“You’re just trying to keep people engaged and continue to pass down the oral knowledge of the garden, that it exists, and that it’s a place where you can collect produce when it’s in season,” says garden coordinator and environmental studies major Mariel Haberle. “I think we’ve come really far in terms of starting the garden back up from almost nothing, and I’m really excited to see how it continues to develop.” 

For her part, Zwerling is pleased that her idea has endured. She recently had a chance to see the Community Garden on a visit to campus for Reunion. “It was great to come back and see that it’s still thriving.”