Hedeen invites students to garden, hopes it becomes a student-led initiative

A campus rake stands up in the ground this past August. Photo by Jessica Ruf.

On May 16, rows of tables will surround the greenhouse for the first annual plant sale holding around 800 plants including individually labeled red, striped, or oddly-shaped tomatoes; fresh, green broccoli; and fragrant basil.

A month before the event, Kam Hedeen stands in the campus greenhouse using a planting pot as a shaker to sprinkle dirt over basil seeds intended for the sale. The light layer of soil ensures the seeds will grow quickly into a healthy herb.

“One thing is the change in a young plant,” Hedeen said. “When it goes from two leaves to four to six and racing to the greenhouse to see how big they are even compared to yesterday.”

Hedeen spends much of his time in the Augustana community garden as he prepares for the first annual plant sale but said student volunteers are vital to the project.

The Augustana community garden began in 2018 and provides fresh produce for the Ordal Dining Hall and members of the Augustana community. Last year, extra plants were given away to faculty and staff, but this year plants will be sold for one to three dollars each as a sustainability effort in which money can be put into the garden for next year.

“It is meant to take on a life of its own.” Hedeen said. “I am just the initial inertia of getting the ball rolling. I feel like this is going to be like a snowball going downhill: it is really going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.”

As Sustainability Coordinator for Sodexo, Hedeen leads the effort for the Augustana community garden by organizing volunteer workers and digging into the dirt himself.

Along the railroad tracks of Beresford, a nearly-forgotten dirt lot hosted Hedeen’s first garden memories. Five-year-old Hedeen raced after a bunny while his family planted, weeded and harvested food for their home.

He said gardening can help students find patience, develop a healthy relationship with food, spend time outside and even get a good abdominal workout.

“Hedeen is passionate about getting people outside and getting people into gardening and skills people have forgotten about.” Black said. “We do not have to rely on them anymore, so people have forgotten that it is so easy to grow a tomato.”

Although Hedeen currently leads the community garden project, he said student volunteers are vital to the community garden’s vision.

Senior Skylar DeJong, who lives in the GE house beside one of the campus gardens, said his curiosity led him to start gardening with Hedeen last summer. Throughout the summer, he helped with fertilizing, fencing and harvesting.

“It teaches a lot about self-sustainability and being responsible,” DeJong said.

Hedeen said students can get involved anytime by appointment or at weekly gardening times on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. He said he hopes students will take leadership of the community garden, so many more students, staff or alumni will help with the gardening.

“It is about paying attention to things you don’t normally pay attention to,” Hedeen said.

He speaks quickly and enthusiastically about new ways to garden, including the value of beneficial fungi, use of land for energy and permaculture.

“I am excited about it, been excited about it for 10 years, and it’s something Augustana could do to be different and to have it add another flavor to our campus,” Hedeen said.

For six years, Hedeen served 65 families with the first Community Supported Agriculture business (CSA) in his home area, Beresford. In a CSA,  consumers pay a sum to share in the risk of gardening and create stability for the gardener, and in return, they receive weekly produce baskets.

Similarly, the Augustana community garden aims to impact community members not only by providing fresh produce but by sharing in the gardening itself.

“It is really more about how many different people are impacted.” Hedeen said. “So if someone only helps out once the entire season—as long as we are doing that for dozens and dozens of other people, making that opportunity available—that is really where this is successful. It’s about how many people we touch.”