Start date: Fall 1996
Managers: Davis Archer, Chuan Hao Chen, Rebecca Hume
Description: The Market Garden at Dilmun Hill has been the primary project on the farm since its inception in 1996. Each year the summer managers, with help from a diverse volunteer base, plant and manage a vegetable plot and herb garden, totaling approximately 1.5 acres in size. Because the focus is on experiential learning and exploring methods of sustainable agriculture, many heirloom and unusual varieties are planted instead of standard commercial crops. The market garden utilizes organic production methods including intercropping, companion planting, and floating row covers. It provides sustainable agriculture education and outreach to Cornell University and community members through these practices. The produce is marketed through various venues on Cornell's campus and the Dilmun Hill farm stand is open twice a week during the growing season to provide produce to the Cornell and Ithaca community. Additional produce is given as compensation to volunteers and donated to local food banks. Since much of Dilmun's soil fertility comes from Cornell-generated compost, the farm maintains a fairly sustainable local nutrient cycle. Frequent work parties provide volunteers a convenient opportunity to help on the farm.
Start date: Fall 2008
Managers: Wren Albertson-Rogers, Kelley McCrudden
Description: Our beautiful perennial forest garden is a self-sustaining, colorful sanctuary of seasonal and cyclical plant guilds complementary with the farm's established infrastructure and crops. The holistic permaculture design offers a diversity of saleable edible, medicinal, and ornamental plants to demonstrate multiple sustainable agriculture models. With increased access, informational signage, and equal opportunities for peer involvement, the low maintenance, vibrant garden provides year-round educational opportunities for students and community members from multiple interest groups.
The Growing Mosaic Garden is intended to demonstrate the importance, place, and accessibility of permaculture theory and design at Dilmun Hill and Cornell. The project evolved from an independent study during the fall of 2008 and is currently being implemented. Project activities include tree row maintenance of the TSF agroforestry site, with which the Growing Mosaic Garden is interconnected, raised bed construction, plant species cultivation, and permaculture education and outreach.
Dilum Hill received two grants from the Towards Sustainability Foundation to further the student-led permaculture and agroforestry site, now called the Growing Mosaics Garden.
Grant application 2009 (pdf)
Grant application 2008 (pdf)
Start date: Fall 1996
Manager: Chuan Hao Chen (Alex)
Description: The newest berry patch was designed by Kelley McCrudden and Lindsay O'Hara in the Summer of 2008 Sustainable Agriculture Scholars program in the Horticulture department of Cornell. While the garden was designed to produce berries that were capable of producing natural dyes, McCrudden and O'Hara also planned for the berries to be used for consumption. The garden was constructed and planted over the 2008-2009 school year, and one summer manager was designated as the caretaker. The project produced a management report which is actively used. Future managers will continue to care for the berries, consolidate the berries existing on Dilmun's site, and extend Dilmun's berry production capacity.
Start date: Spring 2009
Managers: Davis Archer, Chuan Hao Chen, Rebecca Hume
Description: The front entrance of Dilmun is home to several gardens intended to welcome visitors to Dilmun and to provide opportunities to experiment with a mix of edible crops and plants cultivated for uses other than food production. These gardens include the sign garden, the herb garden, the strawberry beds, and the flower garden by the barn. The gardens, except the herb garden, were built during the summer of 2009. The herb garden was a project initiated several years back, and the current herb garden is a restored version of the old garden. The flowers bring beauty to the Dilmun front entrance and are also offered at the Dilmun Farms Stand, and the herb garden invites exploration, provides a nursery for horticulture and permaculture experimentation, and complements the market garden in its production. The gardens are actively maintained by the market garden managers.
Start date: Fall 2008
Managers: Bonnie Cherner , Leigh Kalbacker , Melissa Madden
Description: Prior to 1960, orchards across the United States were sprayed with pesticides that included many heavy metal compounds, including lead arsenate. Lead and arsenic are both fairly stable in the soil and persist for long periods of time. Many of these old orchards are no longer in production and are now used for other purposes, such as crop production or residential areas. These soils contain elevated levels of lead and arsenic that can pose a threat to human health through ingestion, inhalation or contact.
Bonnie's research focuses on managing contaminated soils for safe vegetable production on a scale applicable to a small farmer or home gardener using low tech and low cost strategies. The research process includes conducting soil tests and tissue tests for the vegetables grown in areas on Dilmun Hill which are currently under investigation. For the summer of 2009 the experiment involves measuring the uptake of heavy metals in carrot, lettuce and pepper plant tissue. The experiment is also testing the effect of four different treatments on the soil - compost, peat moss, straw mulch, and bare (native) soil control. Tissue tests and soil tests will be conducted over the course of the summer to look at changes in metals in the plants and soil. The next phase (summer 2010 and beyond) includes investigating heavy metal uptake by plants in raised beds covering contaminated soil.