Map of the Farm
West Farm
The West Farm is home to the Earth Dome and an orchard with trees from around the world. Many of these trees were planted when the farm was started over 20 years ago, and have grown to impressive size. The Dome was constructed in spring of 2003 and was a rebuild of a smaller earth dome built in 2002. Due to safety concerns, the administration had bulldozed the original, but thanks to an alumni donation it was rebuilt soon after.
The West Farm is also home to our original chicken coop. However if you pass by, you may notice there are no chickens in there. That is because the chickens now have a mobile coop on the East Farm.
Nesook's Garden
Also known as the Grandmother Garden, this space is dedicated to native plants. Started in collaboration with the late Barbara Drake, it is dedicated to plants native to this area - particularly ones that play a central role in Tongva culture. This garden is very much a work in progress. Interested in native plants and helping build a space that honors the role they play in indigenous culture? Contact the Farm Manager.
Compost
This area is where you can find our compost piles. A team of students picks up food scraps from the dining halls each day. Piles are created by alternating layers of these food scraps and layers of leaves from around the farm. This creates the perfect balance of carbon and nitrogen to fuel the microbes in charge of decomposition. By keeping the piles moist and turning them regularly to add oxygen we can have a pile of beautiful compost after a couple months. This process is why we have such wonderful soil at the farm. Years of adding this compost to our beds has made them ideal for growing produce.
East Farm
The East Farm is home to our annual crop production. This includes fifty beds across five plots, a greenhouse, and our mobile chicken coop. This is where our vegetables are grown and thanks to the Southern California climate, we are able to grow food all year round. The produce grown here (as well as the fruit from the West Farm) gets sold at our on campus farm stand, used to cook for farm events, and any leftover gets donated.