What is PICA?
The Program in Community and Agroecology (PICA) is an educational and residential program focused on experiential learning, sustainability and food systems. All UCSC students are welcome to participate in the garden workdays and workshops offered. PICA residents have the opportunity to grow their own food together, share meals together, and explore ways to live more sustainably. PICA is located at the entrance to the Village at the UCSC campus, right across from the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS).
Through PICA, students from a variety of majors have the opportunity to study agroecology and apply their knowledge to everyday activities within their community.
Check out our Instagram, Facebook or personal PICA website to stay updated for garden workdays and upcoming sustainability workshops.
PICA Community Garden
The Garden
The Foundational Roots Garden, which lies adjacent to the B-quad of the Village, is at the heart of PICA. Visiting classes, and wandering students alike come together in this garden to grow food, cultivate healthy soils, and sow hand collected seeds, all the while learning about nature through their personal experiences. Formerly an old rock quarry, the PICA B-quad Garden has become a place for students to learn about sustainable food systems and building healthy soil.
In the A-quad garden we also have our urban garden demonstration site, a rainwater catchment system, a herb spiral, a cob oven, a permaculture keyhole bed, a native plants garden and terrace beds.
The Greenhouse
The A-quad garden is also where the PICA greenhouse lives. In the propagation area, students learn about germination, seedling care, transplanting, and seed saving. During the winter especially, it becomes essential to start new plants indoors. The seeds stay warm and sheltered in the greenhouse until it is time to send them out into the garden.
The Compost
Located at the farm, our vermiculture composting system is a joint effort between PICA and the village residents. Village residents divert their food waste from the landfill into collection buckets in their buildings. These buckets are gathered weekly and added to the composting system. The goal of this partnership is to achieve complete food waste diversion in the Village Community. Currently, all buildings in the Village are actively engaged in the composting program. The process of converting food scraps and other organic matter back into a usable soil amendment is an important and vital step in sustaining the soil and community.
The Kitchen
Providing more direct links between students and the food they consume is one of the goals of the PICA program. Organic vegetables are harvested and cooked by PICA students, herbs from the garden are incorporated into fresh-baked breads, and desserts may feature fresh fruit from trees planted by students in past years.
