Vision

As part of outdoor education plan for this year, the students have come up with ideas on how to
expand our current garden area by a significant amount over the next year. We’d like to develop a tall
grass prairie garden in the back field of our school, plant some cattails in the rock river, add 6 more
garden boxes to our front vegetable garden, plant 5 fruit trees and expand our medicine garden area
by double the size. We would also like to add a few large rain barrels, a pump for each and a hose,
and two compost bins, as well as bird feeders and bird baths.

With the funds from LSF we hope to work on expanding our medicine garden in order to attract a
greater quantity of birds, butterflies, bees and other insects. As well as critters seeking food and
shelter. As this is an expansion of our current medicine garden, we will be connecting with a
knowledge keeper to share the importance of several medicinal plants and how we can harvest them
sustainably and use them to create sustainable products such as salves, teas, soaps. . By creating
this enlarged medicine garden, we will be assisting students in furthering their reciprocal relationship
with the natural world and support them in becoming stewards of the land.

Action

The front of our school has an existing circular medicine garden which contains a beautiful maple tree as it’s centre. In the fall we pulled everything out of the garden, as unfortunately, it had become predominantly grass and weeds. We re-imagined the space to become more of a tall grass prairie area with a variety of medicinal plants such as sage, tobacco and sweetgrass, as well as hyssop, yarrow, milkweed and much more. In addition, we wanted to grow the size of it by adding a smaller circle to one of the sides for additional plants. This would allow for an increase in plants for the many birds and insects in our area, as well as provide us with flowers to use in projects such as making salves, dyeing fabrics and flower pressing. Teas could also be made from some of these plants.

A few weeks ago we were finally able to begin our work (weather in Winnipeg has been less than favourable this past month). Grade ¾ students once again weeded the area, as it had once again been taken over. Stacking stones were purchased for the additional garden wall and soil was ordered. Some of our grade 5 students helped with the moving of the stones, and a community volunteer helped us to build the circle itself by putting down cardboard and lawn fabric, followed by adding sand and the stones themselves. Once the soil was delivered, grade ¾ students and their grade 8 buddy classroom from a neighbouring school helped to spread the soil across the new area as well as the existing garden. The students then each gathered plants to add to the areas. We decided that the new area would be a wild strawberry patch, with lots of room for the vines to travel. We were gifted plants from our neighbouring school’s greenhouse, as well our Learning Centres greenhouse (AKI), and also from Canadian Wildlife Federation. The students set off to work, and in total over 50 plants were added to the garden. We also added a bird feeder to the maple tree for bird friends to partake in.

Once we looked at the finished project, we realized the the circle with the addition has taken the shape of a turtle. Our hope is to continue adding new spaces/turtle fins and tail in the coming years.

Over the course of the year, as we discussed this project, students have learned about the importance of reciprocity in our daily lives. They are learning about the food web, and how one milkweed plant can play an integral role in our ecosystem, and supports so many living creatures. We also discussed how we can become more sustainable, by growing these plants for both food purposes (teas and syrups), but also for art (pressed flowers and dyeing), and medicinal needs (including salves and tinctures). This inspired the students to want to grow the good in our existing garden area. They want to ensure that the wildlife frequenting the area find what they need in our garden spaces.

Reflection & Celebration

We are thrilled with our new area and we can’t wait to share our hard work with our fellow students and our community in the coming weeks. We are also excited about what we will see popping up over the summer, as students take walks/bike rides by the school, as well as, all of the flowers, insects, birds and other animals awaiting our arrival in September.