Vision

To create a community garden for our students and community members to access while learning about sustainability and how to grow their own gardens. We hope to inspire the student body to begin to create their own gardens at home, whether it is vegetables or pollinators etc. We will utilize our older students to conduct the research and teach the younger students, as the future of our planet really does depend greatly on the choices that the young will make.

Action

Create interest: Research and gather materials lists. Grade 7 and 8 students conducted research about sustainability, soil types and how to start, grow and care for a garden. They then taught all the younger students about the importance of this initiative and explained the process in child-friendly lessons and simple language. Plan: determine the types of plants and gardens we wanted to grow (thus the addition of a pollinator garden and healing herb garden to the initial community vegetable garden). Act: We found spots in our school that would foster the best garden and growth, we collected gardening tools and donations from community partners (parents, neighbours) we saved up milk cartons and had groups of students wash them out and cut off the tops (so each student could have their own mini garden to care for and bring home (a variety of seeds were used pollinators – blue cornflower, bean, tomato, and sunflowers as well as herbs – depending on where students lived and what their intentions were i.e. place it on their balcony or plant it in the ground once it budded).

We prepared the soil at school by de-weeding various plots, turning the soil and adding a triple mix to ensure it was fertile, as the soil at our school is very sandy and dry. We started the germination portion indoors and waited until the weather was cooperative and favourable to plant outdoors. Once the seeds and plants were transported to the ground or larger potters, we cared for them daily (Mon- Fri) de-weeding and watering, as well as pruning as necessary. Lastly, we await our garden to keep on growing.

Reflection & Celebration

Each student brought home their own mini personal garden made out of the bottom of a small milk container (from our milk program at school). We hope to celebrate in September when the gardens are in full bloom. We also asked students if they would bring pictures or samples from their home garden and track the results (i.e. what went well? Did you have to “rescue’ your plant at all? Would you do this again?). The garden committee, as well as those who have been most involved in the planning and execution of this project, will be having a smoothie day where we will use kale as well as other veggies that will grow in our garden as a means to celebrate and teach kids what else they can do with veggies.

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