Week Two with Extension by Heather Knauss

 

Image: Planting pumpkin seeds

We are in our second week now! Yay! I have already done so much and learned so

much and I know that there is so much more that I am going to get the opportunity to

learn. My mentors are so interesting to learn from. Ronald David Myers has worked

here for so long, he’s been here since this farm was run by the navy. He apparently

worked here for nineteen years when it was owned by the navy and he has worked in

the extension office here for many years. Even before all that he lived on the property in one

of the many houses. Gretchen has only worked here for four years but there is still so

much I can learn from her.

Image: Me putting up the moth traps 

A recap of what I did in my first week: I learned about all the plants in the urban farm

and strung up hops bines the first day. The hops once they are harvested will be sent to

the brewing companies the University is partnered with. The second day was a

connection day so I worked on everything I could do from home that day. The third day I

helped to take down the rye which used to be planted everywhere in the field but is now

being used as a cover crop. I also weeded the grapes that day with techniques David

taught me. The last day of the week I worked on some 4-H paperwork which I found

very fun. On the same day I also weeded the blackberries and started getting to work on

the planting plan that we will be posting on the website.

The second week I worked on more 4-H work. We also got the rye down and the

pumpkins planted. The moth traps that are being used for data collection were put up on

Friday and will have their lures put in on Tuesday.

So far this internship has opened my eyes to some new opportunities for my future

career. I grew up in 4-H but I never considered that I could potentially do that for my

career. I also only ever thought of farming on a large scale but urban farming opens up

so much opportunity. This internship is such a wonderful opportunity to learn about

different careers and to gain more knowledge on the subjects I am interested in. Of

course we have not covered everything yet but extension work and farming are

definitely the paths I want to start heading down.