When the campus of San Diego City College shut down in March 2020, students and faculty were kept in the confines of their home for over a year of online learning.

But for student Bobby Uribe, the downtown campus remained a classroom and work space. 

Majoring in agriculture, Uribe joined the City Urban Farm garden program to further his knowledge on agriculture production around a year ago.

The City Urban Farm, which is overseen by a volunteer program known as Seeds, could not come to a halt without losing most of the plants and what they produce during the pandemic. Someone had to stay behind and tend to it.

Seeds was founded to get agriculture students out of the classroom and into a garden full of flowers, fruits and vegetables for hands-on experience. With four different locations including the main farm site, the orchard site, the S flower beds and a rooftop greenhouse, City College’s agriculture program has a lot to offer students. 

Uribe, along with a few other select students and faculty, have made sure that City Urban Farm continued to stay vibrant, bright and healthy throughout the pandemic. 

“We need to rotate the types of plants we have in the garden based on the season.” Uribe said. “A bacteria in the marigold roots will go after some of our vegetables like broccoli if they aren’t rotated seasonally.”

Uribe also described a 30-pound watermelon volunteers recently harvested from the garden, which he estimated took about two months to grow. 

Seeds is not accepting volunteers at this time due to COVID-19 restrictions. 

For more information on the garden program at San Diego City College, please visit the Seeds at Urban City Far page at https://www.sdcity.edu/community/seeds/index.aspx.