School Gardens

Listed are schools in the Central Okanagan that have food gardens with some information about each. This information can be used as a resource for schools interested in starting a garden and we hope that established gardens can also benefit from the information. Please contact COCG if you know of a school garden that is not listed here.

  1. Year started? 2007
  2. Is it on school property, in a Community Garden or elsewhere? Community Garden
  3. In ground, raised bed, greenhouse, container (spuds in tubs, wading pool)? In ground
  4. Size? 10 x 20 feet
  5. Grades involved, number of classes? Grades 1 – 3, nine classes
  6. Do you have a gardening club? What is its’ membership? No
  7. Does each class have its’ own area or is it organized in a different way? The plot is divided into three areas, one area for each grade.
  8. Do teachers have assistance with the garden? Is there a garden coordinator or contact person? Garden coordinator is a parent volunteer.
  9. Do you have automatic irrigation? No
  10. Do you maintain the garden over the summer? Yes
  11. If yes, how do you care for the garden over the summer? School families and Rutland Boys’ and Girls’ Club (which also has a plot at the Community Garden) water and weed over the summer.
  12. Do you have a garden shed? Where do you store tools? Yes, shed at Community Garden. Watering nozzle is kept in school office.
  13. What crops have you grown successfully and when do you plant? Radish, lettuce, snap peas, carrots, spinach, beets – plant early April; beans, cherry tomatoes, potatoes – late May to Mid June; pumpkins – late May but only when we had two plots because they take up so much room.
  14. What crops have you had difficulty with? Peppers, corn, English peas-not ready by June-end, melons-stolen.
  15. What do you do with the produce? In class, students make salads in spring, soup in fall. Students take some produce home.
  16. What was your start-up cost? Not applicable.
  17. What does the garden cost annually? Less than $100
  18. Sources of funding? PAC
  19. Do you have any favourite internet links to school garden resource material for teachers?
  20. What has been your greatest challenge? Our plot has bindweed – can’t get rid of it.
  21. Any words of advice? Start small
  22. Anything else you’d like to share?

 

  • Glenmore Elementary
    Contact: Natalie Perrier 250-762-3209 cocg@silk.net
  1. Year started? 2008
  2. Is it on school property, in a Community Garden or elsewhere? School property
  3. In ground, raised bed, greenhouse, container (spuds in tubs, wading pool)? Raised beds, one wading pool and 8 wine barrels.
  4. Grades involved, number of classes? All grades involved. We meet and assign beds each spring to teachers who are interested.
  5. Do you have a gardening club? What is its’ membership? Yes. About 20-30 students.
  6. Do teachers have assistance with the garden? Is there a garden coordinator or contact person? Garden coordinator is a teacher – contact person above.
  7. Do you have automatic irrigation? Yes
  8. Do you maintain the garden over the summer? Yes.
  9. If yes, how do you care for the garden over the summer? We have 8 families who take one week each to weed, harvest and water.
  10. Do you have a garden shed? Where do you store tools? Yes. We also have two rain barrels.
  11. What crops have you grown successfully and when do you plant? We plant mid May and have had success with most everything!!
  12. What do you do with the produce? Most produce is harvested in summer so the families get to enjoy them.
  13. What was your start-up cost? $17,000 start up cost + $200 – stain for table, benches, fences, new gloves and hand tools.
  14. What does the garden cost annually?
  15. Sources of funding? We fundraise. At the beginning we had grants from the RDCO and a huge donation from Club Penguin.

 

  1. Year started? 2007
  2. Is it on school property, in a Community Garden or elsewhere? School property
  3. In ground, raised bed, greenhouse, container (spuds in tubs, wading pool)? Greenhouse; built by Gr. 7 in Trades class.
  4. Size?
  5. Grades involved, number of classes? Grades K – 7, although mostly primary students are involved.
  6. Do you have a gardening club? What is its’ membership?Yes
  7. Does each class have its’ own area or is it organized in a different way?
  8. Do teachers have assistance with the garden? Is there a garden coordinator or contact person? Various coordinator’s over the years.
  9. Do you have automatic irrigation? No. There is a large tank in the greenhouse for filling watering cans. Tank is refilled with a hose periodically.
  10. Do you maintain the garden over the summer? No
  11. If yes, how do you care for the garden over the summer? N/A
  12. Do you have a garden shed? Where do you store tools? No. Tools are stored in the greenhouse and school.
  13. What crops have you grown successfully and when do you plant? Vegetable and flower seedlings, bedding plants and containers.Tomatoes for the Tomatosphere experiment project each year.
  14. What crops have you had difficulty with?
  15. What do you do with the produce? Plants are sold as a fundraiser.
  16. What was your start-up cost? Not applicable. Greenhouse was a School District project promoting the trades.
  17. What does the garden cost annually? Proceeds from the sales cover the costs and then some, so the gardening club has occasionally made donations to environmental charities.

 

  1. Year started? 2011
  2. Is it on school property, in a Community Garden or elsewhere? School property in a previously unused grass area between the staff parking area and the road.
  3. In ground, raised bed, greenhouse, container (spuds in tubs, wading pool)? Raised beds – built directly on top of grass, with layers of newspaper/cardboard, and then Glenmore Grow, soil mix, and worm castings to fill the beds.
  4. Size? Two 3X30 ft beds (total of 180 sq ft). Plans are to expand the available space this year.
  5. Grades involved, number of classes? Kindergarten, grades 3, 5, 6 (for our first year) – there will be some grade 4’s involved in our second year as well.
  6. Do you have a gardening club? What is its’ membership? Not yet.
  7. Does each class have its’ own area or is it organized in a different way? Divided into 6 sections for the 6 classes that are involved.
  8. Do teachers have assistance with the garden? Is there a garden coordinator or contact person? Parent volunteer coordinator liaises with teachers. Principal assisted with getting teachers involved and liaising with parent volunteers and maintenance personnel for initial garden building.
  9. Do you have automatic irrigation? No. We tried setting up a drip irrigation line, but found that it was inefficient (slow and didn’t cover the full bed surface well – needs tweaking if we are to use it in future. We hand-watered over the summer.
  10. Do you maintain the garden over the summer? Yes
  11. If yes, how do you care for the garden over the summer? We had a rotation of parents/families coming to water the garden for a few days or a week at a time. As the garden coordinator, I set up a schedule, filled in gaps that did not have volunteer coverage, and met families at the garden to pass on the key and do mini-orientations.
  12. Do you have a garden shed? Where do you store tools? There is an external school storage/maintenance building that had space, so we have taken over part of that.
  13. What crops have you grown successfully and when do you plant? Tomatoes did really well (we planted mature transplants donated by an organic farm in early June). Strawberries also did quite well, and we had some early success with spinach (planted around the 3rd week of April and harvested before school was out). Nasturtiums and marigolds did well also. We had a few successful heads of lettuce, some herbs, one successful cauliflower in July (from a mature transplant in early June), and a few other odds and ends.
  14. What crops have you had difficulty with?Much of our lettuce bolted (or got smothered by un-staked tomato plants!), radishes were very hot/spicy and dry, peas and beans did not get properly staked and didn’t do well, green onions were nice but didn’t seem to size up. Peppers also didn’t make it to maturity (though we think some of the ones that DID mature were lifted by our garden visitor!). Corn seemed stunted. We had 2 squash that appeared to be doing okay, but they were stolen (boo!). Most of our brassica plants did not do well – aphids set in and they lost their vigour and didn’t really produce.
  15. What do you do with the produce? In the spring, teachers did salads with their classes, and one teacher did smoothies with blended spinach. The classes will likely be doing some tomato salsa or some kind of soup with the leftovers in the garden in the next few weeks.
  16. What was your start-up cost?$1400 donated/in-kind. $700 paid out – for lumber (a portion was also donated), garden tools, wheelbarrow, some seeds (most were donated), hose spray attachment (we were able to use an existing hose and hose reel previously used by maintenance), and soaker hoses. We also spent $500 to buy 3 worm bins plus worms for use in 3 of the classrooms. There was also a garden-building expense of a few hundred or more, but I still haven’t heard the final cost of the school district maintenance work to build the beds.
  17. What does the garden cost annually?
  18. Sources of funding? To date, all costs have been covered by in-kind donations and funding from our school PAC.
  19. Do you have any favourite internet links to school garden resource material for teachers?LifeCycles Project Society in Victoria has a great school garden resource.
  20. What has been your greatest challenge? Coordination has been a bit spotty (first year, new territory!). Lots of ants in the garden – possibly affecting the early growth of some of the plants? No compost set up yet – need to research and find funding to get one started.
  21. Any words of advice? We’re learning as we go!

 

  • Rutland Secondary (Special Needs Class)
  • A.S Matheson Elementary
  • Dr. Knox Middle
  • George Pringle Elementary
  • Glenrosa Middle
  • KLO Middle

RESOURCESEvergreen
Vermont Feed
Tomatosphere Project
LifeCycles Project Society
Richmond Fruit Tree Sharing Project
Intro to Composting – Green Action Centre
Sustainability – North Vancouver

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