Although I am about a month behind on posts, it has been a productive time getting everything together. Hello, my name is Amanda Wilkins and I am a junior in horticultural science from N.C. State University. It is a curious, simple story about how I came upon this project. At the beginning of December I got an e-mail from a previous professor asking about student interest in a project at the Duke Lemur Center. They wanted a student who could coordinate an organic garden to feed lemurs. Although I have another job, there was something about this that sparked my interest and I could not help myself. I immediately e-mailed Dr. Jenny Campbell, from the Department of Biology at N.C. State, and we began the application process. Before the end of the semester, I was on the job.
Before Christmas break started, I met with Lari Hatley, development officer, and Charles Welch, conservation coordinator, to go over the project over at the DLC. Basically they received a $5,000 grant to build an organic vegetable garden to feed the lemurs. Their goal is to offset travel, food and carbon costs by having to ship in less fruits and vegetables and also deal with the waste that is generated from food preparation.
There was a level area where they want to put the garden and they’d already received top soil and chicken compost. They had an area marked off for the deer fencing. Deer tracks were obvious all over the plot and would definitely cause a problem without a fence. They also already had some composting bins and a water catchment system to catch water off the nocturnal lemur enclosure.
There is also another area where Charles has already planted blackberries, raspberries, plums and figs. Winged sumac is also in the plan for these areas because many of the lemurs love winged sumac leaves and the leaves freeze easier.
I also had the opportunity to meet with some of the lemurs. I have to say the Coquerel's sifakas are my favorite. They remind me of the days when I used to watch Zaboomafoo. It was also the first time I had seen them up close. You can tell lemurs are smart, even if you’ve never seen the research the DLC has done. Check out this video from CNN if you don’t believe me.
After the initial meeting, I was inspired to work on the plan for the 20’ by 30’ plot. I got a list of veges (coming soon!) and went to work over my break. I will post the rudimentary plan soon! Check out the photos in the mean time!
