Blake Street School Food Garden

The Blake Street School Food Garden was started in the spring of 2011, as a collaboration between the school, a community health centre and a group of parents.  The garden is primarily a school garden during the school year, and more of a community garden during the summer.  The group of parents helps maintain the garden and also has a significant role in choosing what gets planted, as they are the ones harvesting in the summer. The goal is that the garden be a mix of culturally appropriate foods for the community the school serves, as well as having lots of plants that the kids can snack on and harvest for in-class activities.

The garden has a School Garden Educator, who spends one day per week at the school through the whole school year. She runs hands-on workshops in the garden, seeding, planting, watering, weeding, harvesting, etc. with the students from all grades. She also does curriculum-linked in-class and garden programming, looking at where our food comes from, plant and seed biology, vermicomposting, sprouting, soil studies, garden habitats, and so on. 

The garden also has a new compost system, where each class collects compostables in class and brings them out to the big compost bins in the garden. An exciting addition to the garden!