WEEK 2: Gardens, Greetings & Retail, Oh My!

Hey everyone, welcome back to my adventure at KSU…I just finished week 2 and boy, do I have stuff to tell you, so let’s get to it!

BEFORE / AFTER

We started our week planning our ideas for the herb garden, which is located next to The Commons. They have tons of fresh herbs that they use in everyday recipes that they provide for the student cafeteria, such as dill, mint, spearmint, and especially oregano. After brainstorming various composting ideas (with the inevitable help of Pinterest), we decided to make 2 types of composting beds, a vertical bed and a flat bed, that we would create from scratch.  We decided that we would section out an area in the garden to place these two different herb garden ideas so people can learn different ways of .  After scoping the landscape of the garden, we took a few trips to gather our supplies for our exciting new projects! We stopped at the KSU Hickory Grove Farm to gather gloves, hoes, and shovels and then we stopped by Home Depot to look at the various herbs and flowers they offered so we could get an idea for which types of plants we wanted. After arriving back at the garden, we got right to work. Before we could get to the fun, creative stuff though, we had to weed all the unwanted visitors and level out the dirt that was previously just lying there in a huge mound. I learned that aside from the obvious fact that gardening in the peak sunshine hours is a bad idea; I learned that weeding is a very tedious task that involves a lot of labor and patience. All the sweating and digging was soooo worth it when we were able to see the result of our efforts at the end of the day! Below are the before and after pics of our digging escapade.

On Tuesday, we switched gears from the garden and had a chance to work in some of the retail food locations on the KSU campus. The two locations were Jazzman’s, which is a café/bakery style shop and Freshens, which serves a combination of Starbucks coffee, smoothies, salads, crepes and rice bowls…aka all you need to survive in college lol. I started my morning shift working at Freshens and the first thing I had to do was take temperatures of all the hot and cold foods to make sure they were within the mandatory requirements and that nothing was in the temperature danger zone. Afterward, some of the workers showed me the “Freshens way” of how to prepare salads, smoothies, crepes, and rice bowls. It was really fun to learn and by the end of my shift, I was taking customers’ orders and preparing their meals in no time! After lunch around noon, I swapped spots with Sydney and worked at the Jazzman’s Café. One fun fact about Jazzman’s that I really admire is that everything they sell is made fresh EVERYDAY, everything from the fruit salads to the pound cake, and breakfast sandwiches. Another unique aspect of the café is that it has its very own pastry chef, Chef Jerome, who is responsible for all the baked goods they sell. While on my shift, I helped Chef Jerome prepare sugar cookies and breakfast sandwiches. Since my shift at Jazzman’s was at the end of the day, I also helped break down the café by cleaning and sanitizing the dishes. It was a very long day, but I definitely learned a lot. By working in two different areas of retail, I was able to see different preparation methods and perspectives that worked best for each specific location.

Wednesday was a more relaxed workday. We woke up early to go into work at 8am to help out at the transfer student orientation that takes place every Wednesday. We went to sit in and listen to Rob Nolan, the Associate Director of Culinary & Hospitality Services, talk to the parents about the Culinary and Hospitality Services that KSU offers. After that, we ventured back out to check on the herb garden since we had a little time before lunch. We decided we had enough time to work on a small project before our break so we began constructing the flat composting pallet. Using a staple gun, we attached black landscaping fabric around sides and the underneath part of the pallet to mimic a container, so there would be support for the plants once we planted them. After lunch, we worked on the second floor of The Commons with Melissa and Rob to set up and staff the Culinary and Hospitality Services table at the parent resource fair in the afternoon from 11:30am-2pm. Different departments of the university had tables set up in a semi-circular formation proving information to the parents on various topics like parking, health services, ID cards, etc. Our contribution to the fair was informing parents about the meal plan options for both residential and commuter students. We explained what the different options were and what was included with each meal plan option. After work, Syd and I completed our night by jammin’ and planning our weekend adventure to Stone Mountain!

Syd and me at the KSU Farmer's Market :-)

On Thursday, we had another early day, but this time we were scheduled to work on the farm. We arrived at 8am and learned the lay of the land. The farm staff showed us around the farm and where everything was located. We learned how they feed and water the chickens and also got to see the goats. The farm recently bought the 3 male and 1 female goat, so the goats were still very young. Strawberry, the female, was usually a very energetic and loving goat, but that day she looked extremely ill and had to be taken to the vet. :-( After checking on the goats, we moved potting containers from the hydroponic tomato house to the farm’s storage unit to make room and organize the hydroponic house. Right before we broke off for lunch, the farm staff workers and Sydney and I cleaned and disinfected cleaned plastic slabs that were used to separate tomato plants. These had to be cleaned to prevent any contaminants from infecting the tomato plants, because the tomato plants are extremely sensitive. After working on the farm, we had a break in the middle of the day before we returned to work later to assist with the KSU Farmer’s Market from 4-7pm. We arrived at the market around 3:30pm to help set up the stands. While at the Farmer’s Market, Sydney and I volunteered to work on the corner and hold signs for the Farmer’s Market to advertise and to direct people to the market. This was super fun! We were dancing with the signs and singing and acting crazy to try to get people’s attention to come to the Farmer’s Market. We might have looked odd (which is normal for us), but our tactic worked because we got a lot of attention from cars driving by and actually got at least 5 different cars to turn into the market to check it out! YAY us! ;-) After our sign duty was up, we ventured over to the peach stand where we bought the last bag of farm fresh Georgia peaches, which I was soooo excited to try! After work, we went out with some friends to a local bar in Kennesaw called Highlands and enjoyed some brews and listened to people sing (some people screech lolz) karaoke.

Our collection of rocks for the garden

Ted's Montana Grill

Friday’s schedule was similar to Wednesday. We woke up early to go into work at 8am to help out at the freshman student orientation that takes place on Fridays. After listening to the various speakers in the Bailey’s student auditorium, we went to the herb garden to work on one of the small projects we had planned. Syd and I had the idea to paint the rocks we gathered from weeding and leveling out the garden earlier in the week. Once painted, we would spell out the letters KSU on the ground in front of our composting examples as a fun way to show school pride. We had just enough time before our lunch break to collect and wash the dirt off the rocks so they would be ready to paint the next time we went back to the garden. Like Wednesday, after lunch we worked on the second floor of The Commons with Melissa and Rob to set up and staff the Culinary and Hospitality Services table at the parent resource fair in the afternoon from 11:30am-2pm. After work, we decided to have a chill night in since we were registered to run the Dream Dash 5K the next morning with Melissa and a couple other people from The Commons. We decided to get dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill, which is a restaurant known for its bison burgers as well as its sustainability efforts. Owned by Ted Turner, Ted’s Montana Grill uses all farm fresh ingredients for their hand-prepared American-styled dishes. They do not have any frozen foods or microwaves, which is great news for a nutrition major! The experience here was great! First and foremost, the appetizer was homemade pickles. ‘Nuff said. Just kidding, but seriously they were so crunchy and you could tell they were so fresh! I ordered a veggie burger with onion rings for dinner and HANDS DOWN it was the best veggie burger I ever had in my life. If you decided you want to check out Ted’s, I would 100% recommend trying the veggie burger! I would without a doubt go back in a heartbeat to order that again.

Saturday was a fun-filled, overall amazing, day! We started our day running the Dream Dash 5K in downtown Kennesaw. The weather was really nice and thankfully not hot or humid during the race. My time for the race was 23:54, which to my surprise landed me in 4^th place for my age group! After the race, there were stands providing bagels, fruits, sports drinks etc. to help the runners replenish after the run. After the 5K, we packed our things together for a day trip to Stone Mountain. Stone Mountain is about 45-50 minutes away from KSU and is definitely worth the drive! It’s $10 parking for all day admission into the park. Hiking up Stone Mountain was interesting because it was quite literally made of stone. It was super steep but generally a pretty easy climb – it took us only about 35 minutes to climb from the bottom to the top. Once we got to the top, we took some pictures and enjoyed the view. Then, we walked down to a small area off the main trial on the side of the mountain to lay out our towels, unpack our things and have lunch. We spent ALL afternoon tanning, listening to music, taking pictures, dancing and doing yoga poses. After laying on the mountain for 4 hours straight, you could imagine we were burnt to a crisp! (well Sydney more so than me ;-)) After jamming out to Reggae on the whole ride home, we got dinner at The Commons. After dinner and our usual nightly activities, we went out with some friends and well you know the rest ;-) … #turntdownforwhat?!

After the Dream Dash 5K

Me doing some yoga ;-)

Me on the top of Stone Mountain

Some spices at the Spice Mill in Marietta

Homemade Insect Repellent

Since we had a super busy day Saturday, we 
just took it easy on Sunday, slept in a little and then visited Marietta Square to check out the weekly farmer’s market, which is only about 15-20 minutes away from campus. It was a quaint little area that had little cafes, antique shops, unique stores, and, of course, the farmer’s market. Parking was relatively easy to find and there wasn’t much traffic at all, which is always a plus! On our way to the market, we spotted an awesome Herb & Spices shop called Marietta Spice Mill. From the outside it doesn’t look like there’s much inside, but when you go in you smell the aroma of what we later found out was over 200 different assortments of organic and non-organic herbs, spices, salts, peppercorns, and various blends. You could weigh out the amount of spice that you wanted and pay accordingly, which was nice. I got the Cajun seasoning, ground rosemary, a garlic popcorn seasoning, and a smoked salt made from alderwood. Since the business has only been open for a month, the man provided us with a free sample of the allspice seasoning as well, as thanks for supporting his business. After visiting Marietta, we relaxed in our room listening to music, made a homemade insect repellent spray from mint leaves, orange peels, and alcohol to use on the farm, and ordered Chinese for dinner from Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant, which was cheap in price, but tasty on the tongue :-).

So far my time here at KSU, and Georgia in general, has been really awesome and I know it's only gonna keep getting better! So stay tuned for the many adventures that are bound to happen in week 3 of my time here at KSU!

Later, 

Natalie