Reflections 4 - Organic Farm

Before the Activity:
Some of the vegetables had already grown and were visible but it was summer time and we had to trust our classmates on our plans of watering the plants during vacations.

During the Activity:
I went a couple of times to water the plants and because I live far away and had no means to drive directly to the school as other classmates I had to take a 35-40min train trip and then a 30min hill-up walk up to the school with the sun burning my insides all along. Not a pleasant experience. However, I felt grateful other classmates went even more times than those they were expected too and not only that! The EFL (English as a First Language students) also helped us during summer to water the plants because during the summer courses of the EFL the teachers asked the students if they could help us a little.

After the Activity:
It was no bed of roses, certainly, but some classmates did see this "summer plan" as an opportunity to enjoy the beach and completely forget about our vegetables growing back in Bilbao. Some students did not cooperate at all, even when they lived very much closer to the school than most students. When we went back to the school after the summer holidays, most plants were rotten and bugs were constructing nests for their dearest.

Something went awfully wrong in the organization or in the cooperation of those in charge of the project. The organic farm is a project which I started and it does not feel very good to see it tumble this way. Generally, everybody seems to have gone to the organic farm when they were supposed to during summer. This means that the problem was mine porbably because I did not organize well how much time should we leave between watering the plants. It may well have been that even though everybody went during their assigned dates, this was not enough to keep the plants healthy and dried out during August (a month where most members including myself were out of the city in vacations).

If I would do the organic farm all over again I would change a fundamental thing. I honestly cannot believe that everyone in the organic farm did what they were supposed to do and came to school to water the plants during the dates that were assigned. Therefore, from the beginning if I was to do this again, I would clearly ask those who wanted to join the organic farm not to join if they are not fully willing to make the organic farm a productivr activity, not just a check in your CAS report. This would filter out those who were not willing to work for the organic farm, leaving as members the true workers.