Abigail Anderson

Me in front of a huge pile of oyster shells at the MeTompkin Bay Oyster Co. facility. Many of the other interns and I attended the AgFS In-Service and MACAA conference where we took a tour of their aquaponic operations

Since my last post I have done more work in the Urban Farming Research Clinic and

have been surveying the development of the crops that we are growing. At the beginning of last

week, we prepared the field the previous week and planted the pumpkin seeds. Now, the

pumpkins plants are already showing from the ground and are continuing to grow rapidly. The

sweet corn plants are also following the pumpkins in their rapid growth. Our crops in the high

tunnel are growing fast as well. This week I helped my mentor and his colleague put up trellises

as support for the tomato plants. In the work at my office it is very important to take pictures and

videos of our work on the urban farm and the progress we’ve made. With these pictures and

videos, we post on a blog and an Instagram account.

Through this internship, I have learned that communication is very important in any

career you want to pursue, and it is also a personal goal of mine to improve my communication

skills. During my internship, there was a time where I had to have efficient communication with a

coworker to complete a task. My mentor gave me light work one day, so my coworker came to

me and asked me if I would be willing to help her with logging training hours for camp counselor

training for the 4H office. Before giving me the task to work on, she gave me background on the

work that 4H does and how the task fits in with the work that she does. I agreed, and she went

to her office and returned with a folder full of dated sheets with names written on them. Before

she left me to log the hours, my coworker explained why these logs of the training hours were

so important to not just 4H, but to the kids that were going through all of the training to become

counselors. She further explained that it’s important to log how many hours of training that each

future camp counselor had completed, and how many hours of training they still needed to

complete. Understanding the background and stakes of my work made me understand how

important it was to be completing this task as accurately as possible, with little fault to

Many of the sheets I was given were written by hand, and I had trouble deciphering the

handwriting of some of the signatures. When I had this problem, I marked it on the sheet and

asked my coworker for help. She was very open to any questions or concerns that I had and

helped clean my confusion.

Later in the day, I had finally logged all of the sign in sheets from the folder my coworker

had given me. Because I had asked her questions when I had them, and not let them linger, I

was able to complete logging the sheets before the end of the day and in a short amount of

time. Once I handed her the completed folder of logged trainings, she thanked me and was

relieved that I had finished a task that was on her to-do list for a long time. This experience

helped put into perspective how communication with others, done efficiently, can help improve

the quality of work. I also saw how clean communication and openness with others when working 

together helps tasks be completed more efficiently. I will take this experience and try to

apply it in other places during the rest of my internship.

This is a picture of me helping my mentor and his project assistant set up a drip irrigation system in our cut flower field.

When I was working in the cut flower field I found a butterfly resting on a zinnia flower. I see many pollinators on the flowers in the field when I’m working there.