We typically prepare our garden beds on a weekend with many parent volunteers, but this year on May 21, we decided to try something different and invited a Grade 5 class to help weed, till and add new soil to our beds. They did an amazing job, willingly got their hands dirty and worked for a solid 45 minutes in pairs doing all the tasks that were required. It was so great to see their enthusiasm and eagerness to help! Thank you to Mr. Pashkoshki for bringing your class out to help. Thank you to the parents that came out to help too!
Then on May 24th, we had 18 classes come through and help us plant all the seeds for this year's crops. As we learn more and more about this gardening process at St. Cecilia, we have decided to focus on mainly root vegetables that will grow throughout the summer season and will be ready for harvest when everyone returns next year. So we have planted potatoes, white and red onions, green onions, garlic, beets, parsnips and carrots. We are also trying Romanesco Broccoli (also referred to by us as "Stars Wars Broccoli") which takes a long time to grow. We had a generous donation of seeds from a St. Cecilia family last year and put some of those seeds to great use!
We also had some lily bulbs donated last year by another family last fall so they are starting to peak up in one of the gardens and we have decided to make that one bed a "flower garden" by adding Sunflower seeds to it this year. A work in progress, we just might make this a perennial garden moving forward if anyone has any bulbs or plants they want to donate to this, that would be great! They need to be a sun-loving plant as there is no shade in our garden area.
We have many volunteers scheduled to help take care of the gardens as well as our new trees over the summer months. Thank you to all of you for helping to make this another successful gardening season!
Our 2019 Volunteer Gardening Crew:
Garden Lead: Brandy McDevitt
Clean up Crew: Sarah Fraser, Maria Fe Otero, Andrei Dumitrecu, Yukang Li, Tina McLean, Terri Poole
Garden Planting Crew: Jackie Kung, Estelle Mendonca, Yukang Li, Jodi Brown, Fernanda Correa, Michelle Eyamie, Wendy Prichett-Pejic
Summer Maintenance Crew: Shannon O'Hearn, Estelle Mendonca, Laura Villeneuve, Fedja and Wendy Pejic, Stephanie Chafe, Sarah Yorke, Stephanie Davis, Liam Gerofsky, Elvira Spremo, Julie Dunphy-Bowman, Catherine Fisk, Kristen Tipman, Maria Fe Otero
