The Whitman College Organic Garden started in 1997 by a group of students, and was overseen by 1974 Whitman graduate and former physical plant employee Bob Biles, and biology professor Heidi Dobson. The property used for the garden was the site of an abandoned house that the college purchased and tore down, leaving the existing hard-pack clay soil. The volunteers used leftover organic materials from the landscaping crew to enrich the soil, and planted the first cover crop of austrian winter peas that autumn. The group subsequently adopted the Eliot Coleman eight bed rotation method, an aesthetically motivated planting pattern, and several other methods of crop organization throughout the years. For the first 17 years the garden was an independent organization paid for through an existing fund that covered seeds, tools, and 15 hours of paid gardening work weekly. By 2014, the garden became an Associated Students of Whitman College funded club. In recent years the garden has been partially available to classroom activities such as a crop of garlic planted by Susan Alterman’s biology class.