Marsh v Farm

This week the Sustainable Agriculture class studied beyond the Redwood farm. As student farmers, we spend almost all of our time either learning directly on the farm itself or learning about the farm in our classroom. We have grown accustomed to our own one beds and the different species around us, but what about the different types of ecosystems that we haven't been exposed to yet? Mr. Stewart introduced us to the marshland that is just a short walk away from the Redwood farm. We spent around 10 minutes observing different types of species that occupied the marshland, such as Salt Wart plants and Mud Hens. There were many different animals and plants that we've never seen before. We then went back to our more familiar farmland and observed the different species that we have been working with for the whole semester. We compared what we saw on the marshland to what we saw on the RHS farm. There were some things that we saw in both ecosystems such as bees and Fennel plants but there were more differences than there were similarities. We then asked ourselves how we could have the RHS farm mimic nature more. Although many species would have a difficult time adapting to a new ecosystem, we concluded that one way to make the Redwood Farm mimic nature more would be to add an aquatic aspect somewhere on the farm. It may be difficult but over time we can slowly add new things to the farm to make it more diverse and include different species from different ecosystems! -Nina