This Season in Photographs

Dropping off the fresh harvest to Emery Child Care Centre for parents to pick up

Compost layer cake

Sifting finished compost using a milk crate

Small hugelkultur mound with cover crop of white clover

3 Sisters: Corn, Beans, Squash

Cabbage & Mint team up

Vermicomposting Workshop

 On Wednesday August 1st I held a Vermicomposting Workshop at the Emery Garden. Students from Emery and visitors from East Scarborough Community Garden Association took part.

In this hands-on workshop participants learned how to set up and maintain their own indoor worm composting bin, how to store and use worm castings as a natural fertilizer in their gardens, and how to make vermicompost tea. Participants brought containers and took home some red worms to start their own bins at home using the skills they learned in the workshop.

Composting with red worms is a great way to reduce your waste stream at home while simultaneously producing an excellent natural fertilizer that you can use in your garden or indoor houseplants. Worm castings help with water retention in soils and also make nutrients that are in the soil available to plant roots. Give your plants a boost and start a worm bin!

 Making fresh bedding for the red worms from strips of newspaper moistened with water

Harvesting the worm castings by separating old bedding and worms from the worm poo

Careful sorting; keeping an eye out for baby worms and cocoons

Red wigglers

Sorting complete! 3 containers full of precious worm castings

Putting the worms back in the fresh bedding made earlier and adding crushed eggshells to reduce potential acidity levels in the bin, plus a bit of soil

 

Brewing vermicompost tea using the communal stirring method to aerate the solution

Photo Credits: N. Dufour, 2012 

Pollinator Garden Project

This year 5 beds in the Emery Garden were planted with native pollinator plants. This project is part of Sabrina Malach's Pollinator Internship through the Metcalf Foundation. The plants were donated by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (thank-you!)

With the help of PACT GTL's intern, Janika Oza, students each researched one of the species planted and hand painted a sign to mark its location in the garden. We bordered the beds with found wood logs, and erected bee condos.

These beautiful flowering plants are attracting bees, butterflies and other insects to the garden which aid in pollinating our food crops. We are enhancing diversity and adding beauty to the garden!

 Red Bergamot in bloom in August

White Goldenrod in bloom in August

 

Bee Balm

2011 Successes

 The Emery Garden was a great success last year. Over 700 student volunteer hours were put in to the garden. We grew over 1300 pounds of fresh produce using organic growing methods.

Over 300 lbs of what was grown behind the school was given out to the student body during our Fall Harvest Festival. Grade 12 English classes helped harvest the whole 300 lbs on an October morning, set up tables and a party in the school court yard, and helped distribute the food to the school community during lunch period.

Students chose from a wide selection of crops and took them home in paper bags. There were leeks, onions, turnips, carrots, beets, radish, eggplants, sweet and hot peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins, winter squash, celery, lettuce, and a variety of herbs including basil, chives, and dill.

The same English classes also harvested food from the garden prior to the Harvest Party, took it home and created dishes they then shared at pot luck meals during their classes. I was lucky to be invited and sampled delicious leek soup, carrot cake and pesto sauce on pasta! Amazing culinary creations!

 

Photo credits: Nicole Dufour, 2011