Annual Harvest and Closing of the Gardens

We had a lovely completion to our 2019

St. Cecilia gardening season this year!

We had 20 classes come out and help parent volunteers harvest all the crops that we grew this year.  In year's past, we have given some of the harvest to each class to explore.  This year, because we grew primarily root vegetables, we knew we'd have a good harvest - so much food that we wanted to make sure that it went to individuals who needed it most.  So the kids were awesome to not only harvest the vegetables but also help sort and package them up so that we could donate it to 

Parkdale Food Centre.  

Thank you again to all the parent volunteers, educators and administrators that continue to make this project possible.  We are looking for new garden leaders for the next growing season - if you are interested or curious about helping to keep this project going, please don't hesitate to email at stceciliaschoolgardens@gmail.com

 

 

Donating the food to Parkdale Food Centre

Our gardens are growing!

July 17, 2019: Garden Update!

St. Cecilia's school gardens are growing well.  We have some beets, sunflowers, potatoes, carrots, and lots of onions.  The broccoli and parsley and green onions we planted are not doing quite as well as we had hoped - but that's ok!  They were new crops for us this year and we are learning!

We plan to plant some radishes in a few empty spaces in the next few weeks that should be ready when students return in September. 

Thanks, as always, to the volunteers that have helped maintain the gardens so far!  Not that we're complaining that summer actually arrived but with all this heat recently, it has been a bit of a challenge keeping the soil from drying up!  

Sunflowers

Potatoes!

A New Garden Season at St Cecilia has Begun!

We've officially opened the St Cecilia School Gardens!

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