Antajia Sanders (left) and Nina Hartwig start the first harvest of the summer by picking kale at the campus garden in front of UWM's Physics Building. Hartwig graduated in 2021 with a BS in conservation and environmental science, and is currently pursuing a master’s in freshwater science from UWM. She also helps to run the Student Supporting Agriculture Program. Sanders is third year conservation and environmental science major and is a campus garden and composting assistant. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Lindsay Frost joins Sanders and Hartwig in the first harvest of the summer. As operations manager for the Office of Sustainability, Frost oversees operations for UWM’s surplus, recycling and garden programs. Over a decade ago while a student at UWM, she served as one of the first sustainability interns and helped in the early days of the surplus program. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
In addition to the campus gardens in front of the Physics Building, there is an even larger garden on the Sandburg Hall grounds with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and an on-site composting site called the Hoop House. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Antajia Sanders shows off the first squash of the season. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Produce in the gardens includes potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, kale, zucchini, summer squash, peppers and radishes. Even within these plants there is diversity: For example, there are three different kinds of tomatoes growing in the gardens. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Some freshly picked radishes. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Nina Hartwig, Mya Walczak and Antajia Sanders pick summer squash together. Walczak is a visiting student from UW-Stevens Point learning from the Office of Sustainability. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Hartwig and Sanders hold up Panther Pails. The pails allow individuals to collect food scraps at home and bring them to the UWM composting operation. Grab a clean bucket at the Sandburg Garden Hoop House and drop it off when it is full. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Hartwig and Sanders add organic materials from Panther Pails to the compost pile in the Hoop House. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Hartwig and Sanders and Walczak rinse and weigh the produce that they harvested. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
After Harwig and Sanders prepped and packaged the produce, they dropped it off at the UWM Food Pantry. The food pantry is currently located in the Golda Meir Library while the UWM Student Union is under construction. When the union reopens, the food pantry will be located off the UWM concourse on the first floor. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
The food pantry gets produce not only from the UWM Food and Garden Club but also other donations from the community. During summer, the food pantry is open on Wednesdays from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
UWM’s Milwaukee campus is home to classroom buildings and residence halls, of course. But it’s also home to dozens of gardens and a fruit orchard.
Those gardens and orchard help supply the UWM Food Center & Pantry with hundreds of pounds of fresh produce. They’re tended by the UWM Food and Garden Club and the Office of Sustainability.
At the other end of the cycle, UWM composts in order to keep food scraps out of landfill. Two programs create some 200,000 pounds of compost each year.
