The SAGE (The Starker Arts Garden for Education) Garden is a unique community garden where volunteers grow healthy foods for Corvallis' hungary. This one-acre organic garden is located on Starker Arts Park. Last year alone they donated over 6,500 pounds of fruits and vegetables to the community.
During our time at the SAGE Garden, we helped harvest 295 pounds of fruits and vegetables and created a 12ft long 4ft high compost pile. We also created a pathway that prepared the garden for the winter season. Our second week at the SAGE Garden we peeled garlic cloves, weeded garden beds, and added organic matter to the soil beds to help prepare for next years growth.
1) The success of this project is directly connected to soil by planting and harvesting fruits and vegetables while sustaining the integrity of the soil. Maintenance of soil quality directly correlates to the yields of the quantity produced in the garden which relates to the success of the project.
2) The soil is the SAGE garden is the Willamette series which is a silt loam. It consists of very deep, well drained soils that are formed in silty glaciolacustrine. Willamette series is a fine-silty, mixed, super-active, mesic Pachic Ultic Argixerolls and is usually found on valley slopes and terraces. The cation exchange capacity is 19.2 cmols/kg and 5 tons per acre per year (websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov). This is important because it is helping to increase CEC and decrease soil erosion through the methods used.
3) No because part of the SAGE Garden's mission is to sustain an organic farm that maintains the integrity and quality of the soil. Many soil preserving measures have been taken to ensure the quality of the soil. Soil amendments through the addition of organic material, composted on site, increased the organic content as well as as well as the water holding capacity and nutrient content of the garden. Soil aggregate preservation was maintained by reducing compaction of the soil by designating pathways through the garden as well as using hand tools. 
5) SAGE garden’s main goal is to give back to the Corvallis community. SAGE is a community garden where volunteers help farm a one acre plot of city land. The food grown is donated to local food banks and soup kitchens in Corvallis, over 8,000 lbs of food was donated in 2010. SAGE also offers summer camps for kids where they learn about ecosystems and how to grow their own food. During the summer SAGE offers a program called To Grow Box. During this six week program low-income community members attend weekly gardening and cooking classes to learn how to prepare healthy food.
6) SAGE garden soil
• Series: Willamette
• Taxonomic Class: Fine-silty, mixed, superactive, mesic Pachic Ultic Argixerolls
Willamette is a mollisol described as a deep, well drained soil formed from silty gaciolacustrine deposits. The slopes range from 0 to 20 percent with a mean precipitation of 45 inches and a mean annual temperature of 52 degrees F.
