Hello All!

Last quarter on the beautiful sunny morning of Saturday October 26th 2019 marked the R’Garden’s first annual Fall Harvest Festival and pumpkin patch. “First annual”?? We know! We don’t want to come off too overconfident but it seems like the first one was a hit! Several guests inquired about the future plans for the renewal of the event and we hope that the next one is as fruitful as this years’! Now, we’d like to take this opportunity to answer some more of the questions we often received throughout the day of the harvest festival. 

Q: Has the R’Garden always been here?

A: Yes! Well no, but we get the implication of the question! The R’Garden was established in 2012 by students who wanted to create a space for holistic sustainable farming and find a way to combat food insecurity. So we have been here for a while, tucked away in our cozy little corner of campus. 

Q: Do you have other events like this here?

A: The R’Garden is host to a couple events throughout the year. Native American Student Programs’s “Native Jam Night” is the biggest event that we’ve had in the past. We also put on Dig n’ Dance, which you could consider our spring quarter community event. The Fall Harvest Festival, however, has been our biggest event to date! We’re so happy that the turnout was as numerous as it was, and we hope to see some faces return for other events we host in the future. Additionally, the R’Garden is a free space for organizations to host events and we will gladly welcome any groups that would like to host functions in our event space in the future. 

Q: Did you grow these pumpkins yourselves?

A: Yes, they are organically home grown pumpkins. As an organic urban farm, we pride ourselves on our small scale sustainable farming practices. Our pumpkins were planted and grown with love from early July all the way into the week before the Harvest Fest. Our pumpkin yield was almost overwhelming; it took weeks to harvest the last of the pumpkins. Impressive, we know. ;-)

Q: How can I get more involved here?

A:The R’Garden has regular monthly volunteer Saturdays where we all join together to knock out a single pressing task at the garden. We also have a (currently full) community garden where UCR students, faculty, and Riverside community members have their own personal garden plots to homegrown their own vegetables. If you’d like to get involved but cannot commit to a volunteer day or plot, you’re always welcome to email us at Rgarden@ucr.edu and we will gladly work with any community members who are interested in volunteering on weekdays during the garden’s regular hours of operation (8am-5pm).

Finally, I’d like to include a few words of thanks. The campus’s Green Campus Action Plan org generously provided our event with vegan meals to attendees to uphold our commitment to lowering our carbon footprint. Our pumpkin patch wouldn’t have been a success without the help of our amazing community members who contributed their time and talents to make our program a hit! Dining’s cooking demonstrations, R’Kids Trunk-or-Treat, NASA’s help in facilitating the pumpkin patch and our bevy of tabling organizations all contributed to the welcoming community atmosphere and facilitated a fun learning environment for campus outreach. At over 500 pumpkin sold and over 1,000 guests in attendance, we’re happy to declare our first pumpkin patch a success and we hope to see you again for the next one!

                                                                   -R'Garden Team