May 3rd What a beautiful, sunny day to be outside! Today, students transplanted their leafy greens into the garden boxes. We were very impressed with how well the boc choy grew. Unfortunately, the lettuce seeds struggled to grow, but that happens sometimes. The grade four class spent the hour adding compost to their garden box and planting new lettuce seeds. Check out the photos!
At the Farm to School BC Spring Celebration, one of the schools SPEC works with, John Norquay Elementary, was awarded the highest award for a school garden. The Farm to School BC Pollinator Award recognizes Farm to School programs and school teams that act as pollinators within their community: buzzing around their gardens, kitchens and classrooms to build healthy food systems, transferring and sharing knowledge, fostering thriving learning environments, and supporting the development of young healthy “seeds”, who will grow up to one day offer the fruits of their labour back to the environment and community. 1 This esteemed award went specifically to John Norquay’s school garden committee, which includes Valeria Kao (parent volunteer), Linda De Jardin (grade 6/7 teacher), and Ivy Chang (K/1 teacher) as well as the involvement of many others at the school, such as Gary Loong (grade 5/6 teacher), the school librarian/resident garden carpenter, Mark Warkentin , a very supportiv...
A lot of the garlic planted in the fall at QE failed, or was eaten or damaged, so Green School replanted it one during lunchbreak last week. First Catriona gave a lesson on the lifecycle of garlic, and how to plant it, then the kids grabbed tools and got to work. Finally the bed was covered in straw to protect the emerging shoots from the elements. Half the sidewalk was covered too, so Catriona and Allison stayed behind to clean up!. The garlic planted now won't be as big as that planted in the fall, but replanting ensures there will be plenty to go around at the June harvest festival.