A New Garden Season Has Begun!

St. Cecilia's School Gardens are up and running for hopefully another fruitful season! 

A huge thanks to all those that came out on Saturday May 13th on a cold morning to help prepare the garden beds and clean up the school yard.  It took a lot of helping hands to add new soil, pull up weeds, rake up rocks on the grass left from old snow piles and  pick up garbage and old debris from the gardens surrounding the school.  It is amazing how quickly just a bit of work can start to transform the outdoor landscape.

This year, we organized the vegetable garden planting into 2 separate days so that classes could rotate through and help get the seeds and bulbs into the ground.  We had a majority of the children plant at least 1-2 seeds each which is pretty impressive given how many children are at St. Cecilia!  Thank you to the parents that came out to volunteer and help coordinate the children and classes.  Thank you to the teachers for be willing to participate in this experience for the kids.

Now, the garden is already growing! We have radishes, onions, kale and carrots all starting to come up.  We have planted potatoes, lettuce, beets and pumpkins as well.  The radishes will be ready for harvest before the children leave for summer break and the hope is that the remaining crops will be ready and available when the children come back to school in September.   We will likely be donating some of the lettuce and kale again throughout the summer to local food banks as they are a crop that keeps on giving throughout the season.  

Radishes

Onions

Carrots

Managing the gardens could not be possible without the help of volunteers over the summer months who have committed to weeding, cutting grass, watering and managing the crops as they grow. Thank you so much for your participation in this project - it is so valuable for our children to see how food grows!  















Stay tuned for further updates on this blog as the garden continues to grow.  If you have any pictures or comments that would like to be shared with the St Cecilia school community, I am happy to receive your them at StCeciliaSchoolGardens@gmail.com

Growing Up Organic and Putting the Beds to Rest for the Winter

Yesterday I had the privilege of joining some of the grade three students in a soil workshop facilitated by Jenn at Growing Up Organic.  The kids learned about how much of the earth is made up of soil for us to use to grow things with (just 3%!) and how important things such as bugs contribute to making good soil for our crops to grow.

We will do an experiment with one of the beds over the winter to see how composting can help improve the soil quality (and therefore how much we can grow next summer).

The kids also got to enjoy eating the last crop of beans.  They were literally competing to get more and noticed how sweet and yummy a fresh picked bean tastes compared to a store bought bean! 

There are a few final things that need to be done to our gardens for get them ready for winter - but all in all this has been a great first gardening season at St. Cecilia.  

                                Last week of summer vacation!  

Our school gardens are looking great and are ready for the return of students and teachers.  Last week, we were also excited to see new sod being installed - all of the sudden the school yard is green again and there will be so much more space for everyone to run and play now that so many portables have been removed.

Here are some pictures showing you the progress of the gardens:

Pumpkins are growing well! 

Happy Harvest Pickers!  Thank you :)

The first major crop of tomatoes - unfortunately many more were overripe and had to be composted but these little guys are going to be pureed and made into a spaghetti sauce for some of the students to enjoy!

Pureeing the first batch of tomatoes.  They will be frozen in batches until we have enough to make a yummy spaghetti sauce.

 

 



The kale and lettuce just keeps on going!

Beginning of week 5 of summer vacation - our school garden is growing well!

It's the already the beginning of week 5 of summer vacation and our school garden is moving along well.  We've had some troubles with the water source not working correctly. This, along with the fact that we have been having fantastic sunny weather this summer, has meant that the crops are not getting the much needed water they need to thrive even more. The tomatoes are most affected so far. 

So today, we headed over to the fire station and asked the amazing fire fighters if they wouldn't mind bringing one of their trucks over to water our gardens.  And guess what!  They said yes!  So now, a full truck load of water has sprinkled our gardens and the plants will be happier until hopefully the water source can be fixed.  Thank you so much to the crew at Barrhaven Fire Station #47!  We are so grateful!  

The kale and lettuce have grown another crop so those were harvested today along with about 20 cucumbers.  We will again drop these off for donation to Parkdale Food Centre.   There are a ton more baby cucumbers coming; along with lots of pumpkins, potatoes and onions that will await the return of everyone to school.  

Thanks again for all the volunteers that are continuing to make this project such a success.  

More food to be donated to Parkdale Food Centre - Kale, Lettuce and Cucumbers this time!

Baby pumpkins are starting to grow

Tomatoes

Tons of Cucumbers!

Onions

Potatoes

Begining of week 3 of summer vacation - St Cecilia's school garden is looking great thanks to our amazing volunteers - even the grass is cut and a new crop (beans) have been planted into one empty garden in hopes that they will be ready for the beginning of school!  

Today, we had the privilege of donating some of the harvest from our school garden to a local food bank, called the Parkdale Food Centre.  This is a unique and amazing food bank in that it is the ONLY food bank in the city that is accepting fresh produce.  It offers unique services to its clients by offering the opportunity to pick up fresh produce, meat and dairy.  They offer free cooking classes; freezer space to store prepared meals (that are often made right on site with Parkdale Food Centre staff) and a cozy eating area for clients to enjoy food with friends.  It was so fabulous to see the harvest from our school gardens go to a meaningful place that will be enjoyed by so many.  They are looking forward to enjoying tomatoes when they are ready from our gardens and have invited us to participate in making tomato sandwiches for the clients.  It is a truly unique centre!

Dropping off huge bags of lettuce, kale and spinach

Look at all the fresh produce that clients can choose from!

Pantry staples

Guided with the belief that all individuals have the right to healthy, fresh food, the Parkdale Centre atmosphere and enthusiasm for healthy food is inspiring and contagious!  

Our kale, lettuce and spinach garden is now all harvested with the hopes that they will grow again this summer.  Let's wait and see!

Week 2 of summer vacation and our school garden is growing so well!  We have lots of kale, lettuce and spinach that is ready to harvest.  We have potatoes, onions, cucumbers and pumpkins.  And we have tomatoes - tons of tomatoes that are flowering and growing.  If all the flowers turn into fruit we will be looking for great ways to use them up!  

Kale is growing in abundance!  

Lettuce!

 K

There promises to be pumpkins come the fall

Potatoes!