Mulching in the Mud: Here Comes the SUN!

On May 19th grade 9 geography classes came out and did a lot of mulching in the garden. Mulching over top of the grass paths kills the grass, making less work (grass cutting and weeding as it spreads into the beds) and makes the garden look good! Students were involved in taking tape off of cardboard, laying down cardboard on the footpaths between the garden beds and moving wheelbarrow after wheel barrow of wood chips to then rake evenly across the cardboard covered paths.

The classes did an amazing job and mulched almost all of 2 huge sections of the garden! And this was despite the muddy conditions of "Lake Emery", as Eric, the Director of Urban Agriculture at PACT has been fittingly calling it.

We have gotten about double the amount of rain in April and May as we usually do. Due to the location of the garden, on a low lying field, rain water has completely soaked the garden, making for soggy, muddy beds. When the soil is this wet, it's not a good idea to use tools like shovels, or hoes to work the soil because doing so breaks down the soil's structure. There are channels dug from one end of the garden to the other to allow the rain water to flow through and out of the garden. A more permanent solution, such as burying pvc drainage pipes will likely have to be implemented.

So with this sun we are getting this week, we are eagerly watching the garden dry out, and using this period of much needed evaporation to pull as many weeds as possible out of the beds, in preparation for planting our hot crops: Hundreds of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and more will be planted this week in the garden! Geography and World Issues classes pulled a small mountain of weeds out yesterday!

Although it's been one of the rainiest spring's on record, we have managed to seed quite a number of crops in April and May. Here's what's already been seeded and is sprouting at the Emery Garden: peas, carrots, beets, dill, swiss chard, fennel, spinach, onions, lettuce, kohlrabi, chicory, arugula, radish, mizuna, kale, cabbage, brocolli, collards, and celery. We've also transplanted many herbs in our spiral herb garden, and will be planting more at the ends of many of the beds to help deter pests and attract beneficial insects.

 Map of Emery Garden (not to scale). It has over 130 beds and is the largest school yard garden in the GTA, if not all of Canada!

We will be doing massive amounts of transplanting of seedlings this Wednesday June 1st and Friday June 3rd. Come out and join us in the garden!

-Bonnie

P.S. A big THANK-YOU! to the two OISE student teachers who recently completed their placements and contributed a fantastic amount of hard work to the Emery Garden project and other PACT gardens: Wendy & Ben, thanks so much! I and the students will miss you.

Seedlings Grow!

PACT Grow to Learn aims to grow as many seedlings as possible for the 6 different school yard gardens involved in the project. High schools with greenhouses have generously donated their space, and efforts in some cases, to growing these seedlings. We are beginning to harden off our seedlings and big transplanting days are coming up soon!

 

Natalie, Garden Coordinator for Lakeshore Collegiate (right), and myself (Bonnie), coordinator at Emery start seedlings for the PACT Grow to Learn Program

 

 ...and the seedlings grow

 One of several varieties of basil being grown

A main goal of the gardens is to create diversity in what we plant. We want students to learn about the broad range of amazing cultivars of different varieties of plants by growing them in the gardens themselves. Interplanting and companion planting will be techniques practiced in the gardens.

Introduction to the Program

As the weather is warming and spring is coming into full bloom, the garden at Emery Collegiate Institute is also beginning to take off. The Grow to Learn Urban Agriculture project run by the non-profit organization, PACT, partnered with the TDSB to create a large community food garden at Emery last year.  This is one of six school yard gardens the G2L Urban Agriculture project is running in Toronto.

The garden in April

This year Emery will see the addition of a large pollinator garden and outdoor classroom adjacent to the existing farm. The garden offers a wide range of benefits to the school and the community at large. The project, which aims to raise environmental and community awareness in youth, grows a huge variety of vegetables from spring to fall and donates them to the local food bank. Students will gain important skills volunteering in the garden’s lunch and after school program, run by a PACT Urban Agriculture Leader and can complete their required community service hours. The skills and experience volunteers gain while working in the garden will be beneficial to their future job and post-secondary education applications.  The program also offers the possibility of summer employment to a few hardworking students. 

 OISE interns Wendy and Ben seed beets with student volunteers during the Lunch Gardening Program. The lunch and after school gardening programs run on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

The garden acts as an educational space for both students and teachers. Teachers are welcome to teach in this living classroom and to have classes contribute work to growing the organic vegetables. There is a multitude of ways in which the curriculum can interact with the garden. PACT also incorporates student teacher interns from OISE and Ryerson to help with the project.

Composting and maintaining healthy soil will be a large focus of the garden.  Volunteers have a chance to be directly involved in creating and maintaining a local food system and will take part in the full production and consumption cycle including planting, growing, harvesting, eating and composting. The organically grown produce will be donated to the local food bank in the summer and volunteers can feel empowered knowing they are helping others in need in their community.
  
The garden puts youth directly in touch with their food and how it is grown and they will learn the importance of being good stewards of their environment. The Emery CI garden is a safe space for all students and community members to share knowledge, learn essential food growing skills, eat healthy, try something new, and be engaged in creating their local food system. Free food events offering the vegetables grown in the garden will take place in September where the fruits of all of the volunteers’ labour will be enjoyed. 

Emery houses a Collegiate, Adult Learning Centre, and Child Daycare Centre, all of which contribute to the uniqueness and diversity of the largest schoolyard garden in the GTA. It is definitely a space to be proud of and this year we aim to make the garden thrive with life and diversity!

Stay tuned to our blog to keep up to date on how the garden grows and changes over the course of the growing season! 

--Bonnie