out with the old, IN with the NEW

For some reason the hobby of gardening only appeals to the older generation. And as life becomes more complicated by the innovations in the technology and software industries, our generation has never caught on to our grandparents or parents time in the yard. Simply put, why would we spend a sunny afternoon digging through dirt and tending soil if we could go to the nearest mall or entertain friends? And to add to that, gardening just isn’t in the category of what makes people ‘cool’? As nature changes and adapts through evolution, our generation needs to bring back the importance of urban agriculture at a local level.

My uncle has established a store called Terrain (at Styer's), which is located in Concordville, Pennsylvania. The store is the latest brand of the Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and Free People family. With the young, trendy college student being the target market for Urban, my uncle hopes that with the introduction of Terrain, Urban’s shopper will help keep the garden community alive. When entering the store, one feels as though they are in a state of a natural high. Shop for eco-friendly growing supplies or even locally sourced and prepared artisan food at their cafe.  There are around 50 more stores planned to go up across the United States over the next few years, so don’t hesitate to check it out. Continue the movement and represent the sustainable eco-lifestyle! Showing off what your garden produces to your friends is cool. Providing people with locally grown fresh produce will add to their day and enhance a contagious sense of community within their souls.

I am looking forward to the upcoming summer months and harvesting our many crops. I am also extremely excited about my research and experiencing the taste of gardening in three local domains: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Avalon, New Jersey; and Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

Thank you so much for making this course the most enjoyable I have had in my undergraduate career. I look forward to my relationships with all of you growing in the future. No pun intended.

           

On a side note:

Since I will be at Lehigh over the course of the summer, feel free to visit our garden and take anything with you! Also, I will be spending various hours of the week at Horns. John offered me a job, so if your hungry maybe you can even bring some of our produce and they can add it to your order.

If you are interested in a television series, I highly recommend Aftermath: Population Zero on the National Geographic channel. The series features how scientists speculate the Earth, animal life, and plant life would recover if humans abruptly vanished and left everything behind, untouched. This series goes hand-in-hand with the book I chose to read at the reminder of the course, The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.