January 20, 2018

 

HOW IT ALL BEGAN....

 

It was October or November of 2014 when my husband, Cory, started asking me how I was going to get involved in the extra curricular life at Highlands Junior High.  I told him that I wasn't sure. We started throwing around ideas: sewing club? No. I was hardly a novice sewer so that wasn't going to work.  What about coaching? Not likely.  I have the coordination of a baby giraffe.  Gardening? Wouldn't it be great if we could have the students come out to our parents' farm and learn about agriculture and gardening?  That's the idea that stuck. For us, the ability to grow our own food was something that we grew up with.  There was a certain amount of hard work required and that paid off with the pride you got from being able to sit down to a dinner where most of what was on your plate was grown by you.  The hard work part wasn't really all that hard.  The smell of the dirt, the excitement of seeing your plants thrive, the troubleshooting to keep ahead of the moles that wanted to eat your potatoes or the blight that threatened one plant or another taught you an awful lot about taking care of something, of being persistent, and it was a break in the day to relax and focus on something aside from school. If we could give help empower students to grow their own food, that would be an extracurricular activity worth engaging in.   

 

That Friday evening,  I got busy researching online how I could get our students started on growing their own food.   The first site I came across was Little Green Thumbs supported by the Evergreen foundation --the deadline for applying to have an indoor garden was a few days away.  It was worth a shot, and shortly after Claudia Bolli, the head of the local Little Green Thumbs program, got back to Brad Burns, a long time friend, and  to say Highlands schools was selected for an indoor garden. 

 

Not wanting to only ignite one possibility that evening, I found EVERACTIVE schools who were offering grants for programs to enhance the lives of students.  I quickly estimated what it would cost to build some above ground planter boxes, soil, wood chips, seeds, water barrels, and some basic gardening tools--$5600.  I worked for several hours that evening on the proposal because the deadline for the that was coming up on Monday. I decided I'd let Brad, our principal, know about what I had in mind then. There was no time to check in with him with the deadline looming.

 

A few weeks later, I learned that we got the grant to transform our aging, under utilized bike rack area into an outdoor garden.

 

Two for two! We were ready to garden.

 

The first season of the indoor garden resulted in some delicious English cucumbers, despite some blight.  In a taste test hosted in the cafeteria by Teresa, students overwhelming choose the classroom grown cucumbers to the store bought variety. We successfuly grew baby tomatoes.  When one of our parents heard about our indoor garden, she and her parents graciously donated a three tier light system that allowed us to start our outdoor plants (which we started well before the snow melted and nothing resembling a garden was even close to being created in the old bike rack area).  We also expanded our growing to include microgreens.  On a weekly basis we were able to provide the lunch program with wheat grass, sunflower microgreens and radish microgreens.  More than food, the garden in the classroom changed the smell of the air and the atmosphere.  Students needing a break or quiet time would water the plants and help the tomotoes pollinate with the use of a toothbrush. 

 

Our parent community stepped up again with our friends from Mandolin books donating a wonderful colony of red wigglers!  Now our students could see how any waste from the garden could be turned into compost.  Our worm friends devoured our garden and lunch waste. We had a great time in our second year of the gardening program and horticulture option class when we divided the colony into two.  Students could see how effectively the worms had turned our waste into earthy smelling compost, they could see worms of different ages, and then examined the compost to find an abundance of worm cocoons.

 

While our first year's plants for the indoor garden were getting started, the timeline was rushing toward us to build the garden where they would be transplanted!  Over two weekends in early May 2015, Cory, myself and some very hardworking grade 8s, built the garden boxes, placed them, and the hauled both dirt and wood chips into the bike rack area that quickly transformed into a garden.  Although we didn't get the plants transplanted until late May, we pulled off a great garden.  In our first year we grew tomatillos! We grew 3 variety of tomatoes, squash, and potatoes.  The next year was even better when we experimented with square foot planting and grew a full box of onions, beets, tomatoes, and transformed one of out boxes into a strawberry patch and flower garden to attract pollinators.  The strawberries were so delicious that we attracted some rodents who enjoyed them too. A bed of carrots, parsnips and turnips also grew well.  We tried to grow watermelons, but were unsuccessful.

 

In the second year, when horticulture was offered an an option class. We began each day of the week in semester two with gardening: growing and caring for our mircrogreens, followed by a lesson or project, and then time in the outside garden prepping the soil, weeding, setting up the watering system, planting the seeds and plants, more weeding, . . . and we had two local seniors join us for some of our classes.  We made them a beautiful salad that featured ouR classroom grown microgreens and taught them how to grow them on their windowsills at home.  We teamed up to help till the soil of their small outdoor garden beds too.  We also happened to have an on the spot, out of the blue lesson when the city was replacing some dead trees in the Highlands neighbourhood with some new trees.  A friendly city worker who took care of the watering of the new trees, talked to us about her role and the role of healthy trees in our neighbourhood.

 

We all learned so much from the gardening experience.  I left Highlands, but am so grateful to hear that another teacher has taken on the garden. I drove by once last summer, feeling a little nostalgic and saw how beautiful it was. 

 

Let me know if you have any questions, John! [I did, read the exchange.]

 

The scheme, from your report, went off like magic...any downside?

 

The only downside, like with any new and large undertaking, is the sense that you're Sisyphus standing at the bottom of the mountain. Unlike *Sisyphus, once the project started, it was incremental progress and manageable.  Luckily, Cory--the instigator of how I would get involved was a big supporter with more than words.  He was my back up for the indoor garden and came to the training, and he helped out by picking up the metal and wood for the boxes, and helping to build the garden.  His dad was a big help too--Louis loaned us his skid steer which made much lighter work! I was really lucky that Brad was on board, and let me give it a shot.

You mention grade eight students, how many would that involve? Did they have to garden?

There were 5 directly involved in the building days--they were a part of the garden club.  It was their choice to be there.  I was really proud of them.  It was summer hot out during the May Saturday we placed the boxes, moved the soil and bark.  They were melting, but their spirits were buoyed by hotdogs and plenty of water. They were really proud of themselves at the end of it.  T

When I was in the army we had a name for those who did not pull their fair weight...'skivers'...did you have any... their 'treatment'?

Some students in the horticulture class certainly didn't enjoy weeding--weeding is a necessary, but not glamourous part of gardening.  They were responsible to one another--once I taught one student how to fill the water barrels (among other tasks), their job was to mentor their peers.  There were even students not a part of horticulture who needed garden time.  If a student was particularly naughty in class, I gave them a no refusal invitation to work with me in the garden over the lunch hour.  They always showed up, worked hard, and were smiling when they left.  They'd made reparation and done something good for themselves and their school--and our plants.

Did you ask for [or need] parent involvement...
No.  Those who chose involvement had stopped by our Open House and were excited by seeing the garden club helping prospective students plant beans.  Brad did a great job of promoting the gardens through parent council and in the media, so it was through word of mouth.  Summer help is the hardest part--a program needs some adults and responsible students ready to keep it growing.
Someone must have watered and cared for the garden during 'no school' periods?

 

Yes, the first summer it was me and a student who took turns coming by to water it.  The second summer, before I was off to Centre High, I continued to help early in the summer and our amazing custodians and Leslie took care of the garden for the remainder of the summer. 

Have you any photos from your involvement?

 

I am trying to rustle some up from past emails.  I'll send some along when I unearth them.

Any thing you would have done differently?

 

Hmmm, I'm a seat of my pants, learn as I go kinda person.  I know enough to get going and learn along the way.  If I was to do something like this again, I'd do much of it the same way, but I'd go in knowing more about plant science. . . pollinators . . . I'd definitely build a stronger program.  I tried and tried to get us access to a local aquaponics company and into some of our local growers, but their concern was that spring was their busy season and their technology is proprietary. I'd push harder to develop a partnership with a local grower and with the City of Edmonton, and with the U of A farms.  Placing our garden in a larger context and offering students more work ready pathways would be amazing.  Urban kids don't realize all the occupations in plant science.  Also, I'd get more funding to develop a water capture system for rainwater; the 5 barrel system we had was rather cumbersome.  We attached a garden hose to the staff room sink and that was slow and inefficient . . . not to mention the time I flooded the staff room. . . it got mopped up, thanks to Cory for his help, and nobody was the wiser come Monday morning.  But, all things considered, any program takes at least 3 years to really get going, so I think we did alright in two years.

You are not identified in the article...may I and how?

Sure--Josh Chartrand, my husband and instigator is Cory Chartrand.  

And, last but not least, tell me what answers I cannot use!

Use whatever you like. 

 

*boulder pushing was never my favourite sport...almost a tough a job as Atlas's'.

 

 

 

May 2018- The first effort of the school gardening year..READY TO GO....the Teacher was the only gardener left when Tidridge arrived on the scene...pictures will be  taken throughout the gardening year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 2018: The following pictures were taken at the end of June. Even though you must peer through mesh, you can see that the boxes have been planted and in some case are showing signs of growth.

Apparently, now that school is out, the care of the gardens will full under the tender loving care of volunteer parents. More pictures will be taken throughout the summer and hopefully one showing the harvest about to be gathered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 2018

 

Hello John

 

Here is my long awaited response!  I have finally caught up with my life enough to take a minute to send you my part in the garden.

 

I took over the garden when I started teaching at Highlands in September 2016.  Gardening has always been a passion of mine and I was very excited to be given the chance to share that with my students.  Every spring I teach a Horticulture option where I get to work with a very eager class of students from grade 7-9. We spend 3 mornings a week prepping and planting the garden.  It is wonderful to see young people interested in growing vegetables and wanting to learn how to garden. Much of our harvest goes to the hot lunch program where we have an amazing chef that makes delicious, healthy, veggie packed meals for our students every day.  Again this year we had Phil from Earth Apples bring us a variety of seed potatoes for our garden.  His product is available at garden centres.

 

I'm not sure what else you would like to know but please feel free to send me any questions that you might have.  I have attached some photos.  The girl holding the giant carrot and turnip is my daughter Emilia (my family helps me care for the garden in the summer).  There is also picture of Phil and his product [only his product showed up].  I will take more photos this week as the garden has really exploded in the last couple of weeks.

 

Thanks!

Barb Vezina

 

Teacher

Highlands School

780-470-4206