. . . Gardeners . . .
Once you've gotten your hands in the dirt of a garden, you have become a Gardener.
. . . Gardeners . . .
Once you've gotten your hands in the dirt of a garden, you have become a Gardener.
Who's in the Garden?
The garden is designed and maintained with the help of garden interns and volunteers. Interns are from all different academic disciplines. Some have experience growing food but many do not. Any student with an interest in learning to grow food should consider an internship!
Professional Staff
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Nick Tamayo Nick received his bachelor’s degree in history from UC Davis and spent over three years as a student worker at the UC Davis Student Farm. At Pacific, Nick is most excited to continue working with the dedicated and passionate students that spend every day tending the Ted and Chris Robb Garden. |
2019-20 Robb Garden Interns
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Samuel Gomez Samuel is a Stockton native. He enjoys applying what he has learned in his horticulture classes to the Ted and Chris Robb Garden. He has used permaculture principles to transform the orchard area, mastered sheet mulching, installed drip irrigation and grew a heritage variety cucumber (Mexican Sour Gherkins) in the garden this summer. |
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Philomena Jombo Philomena has roots in Nigeria and the UK and came to Pacific to study biomedical engineering. She has a particular talent for raising vegetables; her garden beds are beautifully designed, well-tended and have been very productive. Philomena is a Walter Robb Scholarship awardee and attended Ecology Action’s 2-month Grow Biointensive Summer Internship in 2019. |
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Harmen Kaur Harmen has been with the Pacific Garden Program for two and a half years. When she first started, Harmen worked as an administrative intern for the program, improving the expense accounting system. She designed and tended the working flower beds and loves to invite students to explore the wonders of the garden and taste some of its edible flowers. |
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Vivien Mial Vivien hails from Texas. She views her studies in the sciences and studio to art as the perfect combination of science and design that lends itself well to gardening. Vivien reinvigorated the herb spiral and the strawberry spirals near one of the garden entrances. She is a Walter Robb Scholarship awardee and attended Ecology Action’s 2-month Grow Biointensive Summer Internship in 2019. |
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Jonel Ochoa Jonel’s gardening experience began when she would help her grandmother with small tasks at home. Last year she decided to sign up as a garden volunteer and introduced fellow gardeners to a watermelon drink made with the juice from watermelon she grew. In her spare time, Jonel enjoys aquascaping her aquariums and thinks it is quite different from gardening. |
2018-19 Robb Garden Interns
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Lilian Alcain is blooming right where she was planted - she's a Stockton native, studying Geological and Environmental Sciences at Pacific. Lilian was originally hired as our Volunteer Coordinator, and has helped us establish a viable volunteer training program this year - she has registered and trained 16 new volunteers! But she was itching to get her fingers in the soil, so at the start of the spring semester, she shifted some of her hours to garden work. She has proven to be utterly unafraid of hard work and absolutely brilliant in the green thumb department. |
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Philomena Jombo has roots in Nigeria and the UK, and came to Pacific to study Biomedical Engineering. Philomena has a particular talent for raising vegetables; her garden beds are beautifully designed and well tended, and have been very productive. She's making the transition over to summer vegetables now, but you can still see her bumper crop of big bulb onions that she planted last fall. |
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Harmen Kaur has been with the Pacific Garden Program for two full years now. Last year she worked as an Administrative Intern for the program, and she revolutionized our expense accounting system with her custom-designed set of interconnected spreadsheets. But like Lilian, the green growing things of the garden called to her. This year, she was put in charge of our Working Flowers Project, in which she transformed a desolate patch of compacted soil into a verdant patchwork of flower beds, each one featuring flowers whose beauty is also functional. She also mastered the art of clever drip irrigation configurations. Harmen plans to stick with the Robb Garden next year, and she'd better - we need her energy and creativity! |
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Kyle Kha is a Pharmacy student from southern California. Kyle claims to have had no gardening experience when he joined us, but he handles seeds and seedlings like a pro, and puts ingenuity and creativity into his garden bed designs. After getting a bit of woodworking experience at the start of the year when he helped Prof. Dan Kasser finish the composting boxes started by his 3D Design students, Kyle (on his own initiative) undertook to build raised beds in his assigned section. He selected redwood boards from the leftover stockpile, coordinated with Prof. Kasser to cut his boards to length in the studio, and installed the beds on his own using corner joining stones we bought for him. |
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Vivien Mial hails from Texas. She is a Geological and Environmental Sciences major, but is also studying Studio Arts - a perfect combination of science and design that lends itself well to gardening. Vivien tackled our two garden spirals: the herb spiral and the strawberry spiral. Both needed a tremendous amount of work, and Vivien's labors have turned a weedy eyesore into a charming garden entryway. |
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Jesse Thornton commutes to campus from his home in Lodi, and is yet another Geological and Environmental Sciences major (we love GEOS!). Jesse took Dr. Gray's Spring 2018 PACS 2 course, "Sustainable Gardening," and decided he wanted to come to work in the garden. Jesse comes from a family of gardeners, so he brings lots of ideas to help us improve things in the Robb Garden. He installed a post-and-rail system in his garden beds to support cool season peas and warm season cucumbers, and he's raising watermelon seedlings to add to his beds for summer. |
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Mason Webber Is our only graduate student in the Robb Garden (he's studying pharmacology), and given the demands of graduate study, he has limited time to work in the Robb Garden. But his impact has been anything but limited: he has installed several of the fancy square bed frames you see lining the main walkway of the Robb Garden, and he planted them all in the fall with beautiful arrangements of winter greens. Along with Harmen and Kyle, he helped put the finishing touches on our four sturdy composting boxes. Originally from Alabama, Mason has spent time learning field botany and horticulture in the past. In the garden, Mason has done woodwork, installed beds, and worked with irrigation alongside all of the daily gardening work. |
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Chelsea Lidy was a Fall 2018 academic intern in the Robb Garden, earning Environmental Studies credit in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences. Her goal was to learn how to organically grow food crops in a small space, as her career aspiration is to address food insecurity in low-income communities. She was given two large beds in the Robb Garden that had gone fallow and were badly compacted, and she brought them back to life. Early every morning she could be found tending her crops, inspecting for insects, pulling weeds, and coaxing her young plants along until she had an incredibly abundant crop. "I felt that as my crops were growing, I was also growing as a gardener," writes Chelsea of her experience. "This internship ... taught me how everything works together. I saw the symbiotic relationships in my garden and hope to extend that in my future by having my own garden." |
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Justin Ho is a third-year biological sciences student focused on pursuing a career in medicinal studies. He enjoys spending his free time in nature swimming, hiking, biking, etc. He aims to use his time in the garden to learn about the various vegetables grown in the garden and their individual nutritional benefits. |
2017-18 Robb Garden Interns
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Laura Navarro, Garden Planning & Planting Lead
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Valeriy Shiplov, Irrigation & Technical Lead
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Kripesh Pokhrel, Composting Lead
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Dabbi Alsuhaymi, Farmers Market Lead
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Becca Panarra, Outreach & Communications
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Alaya Hubbard, Outreach & Communications
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Harmen Kaur, Administrative Intern
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Ahmed Othman, Administrative Intern
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2016-17 Robb Garden Interns
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Cheyanne Harris
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Shannon Lucas (Vice-President, Robb Garden Club)
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Laura Navarro
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Sam Salas
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Valeriy Shipilov (President, Robb Garden Club)
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Past Robb Garden Interns
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Ethan Castro
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Jessica Robertson
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Nainesh Tailor
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Matt Bertken
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Megan Fong
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Kevin Ha
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Ariadna Hernandez
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Crystal Lee
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Emily Marien
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Traci Mori
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Daniel Na
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So Park
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Morgan Sato
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Yunsik Sung
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Yun-Hsuan Wu
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