May's Newsletter

May showers bring June flowers. Here's the link to May's newsletter

School Garden Day!

So I'm really excited about School Garden Day tomorrow! We've ordered all the compost and I've picked up all the plants, seeds, and seedlings. I've got all my tools charged, packed up and ready to go for tomorrow. It feels like I'm getting ready for the first day of school... I actually had a hard time sleeping last night because I was running through everything in my head. Keep your fingers crossed that the weather holds out for us!

I've picked up some serviceberry, black-eyed susans, and a can butterfly seed mix for the flower bed out front the school. With all these beauties and some weeding the flower bed should look great, plus I'll be picking up some milkweed on Sunday courtesy of our school community purchased through the David Suzuki Foundation & #gotmilkweed. I really want to transform the flower bed out front the school from decorative flowers (which sadly no longer bloom) into a pollinator garden so classes will be able to observe more wildlife.

For the garden beds I picked up some asparagus, basil, pumpkin, corn, and scotch bonnets in addition to the garlic, kale, and herbs that we already have growing. I hope that we can have a small three sisters section to our garden with some pole bean seeds that I have from last year. I also took a trip to the local lumber yard and got some new cedar boards to expand on our three and a half planting beds by adding two more.

My dream is to have a bountiful harvest in the fall of this year, have a pumpkin for each class, and be able to make pesto and hot sauces with students to raise funds for next year's crops.

I'd really like to thank Fiesta Gardens for giving us a discount on plants & tools and the Metro Green Apple Grant for the funds that have helped to make all this possible.

Got Milkweed?

Help save the monarch butterfly and make Humewood Community School a more beautiful place.

As part of the Homegrown National Park Project, the David Suzuki Foundation will be selling milkweed plants for $5 each through its website (www.davidsuzuki.org/gotmilkweed) during April. Milkweed is the only plant that monarch butterflies lay their eggs on and the primary source of food for monarch caterpillars. Scientists throughout North America have identified milkweed planting as the most important action people can take to help support threatened monarch populations.

"Monarch butterflies are one of nature's true wonders, fluttering thousands of kilometres across North America despite weighing less than a paperclip," said Homegrown National Park Project team lead Jode Roberts. "Through the #gotmilkweed campaign we hope to inspire Torontonians to do their part to help the monarch by planting milkweed in their yards and on their balconies."

This winter, scientists raised alarms when numbers of monarchs overwintering in Mexico hit an all-time low. Severe weather and the virtual eradication of milkweed throughout much of their migratory path between Canada and Mexico have put the monarchs' epic migration back to Canada at risk.

Humewood wants to do its part to save the Monarch Butterfly and teach students the benefits of conservation within on our school grounds. During April you can order milkweed plants for $5 and it will be planted by students at Humewood as part of our naturalization project. Please make sure when you are entering your contact information when ordering that you select “make a purchase on behalf of an organization” and enter Humewood Community School.

Seed Exchange

After getting at taste of the warm weather over the March break I can't help but think of getting seeds started and getting my hand dirty in the garden with the students. 

I managed to save several seeds from what we grew last year, but I also can't wait to get my hands on some new fun and interesting plants. I know that potatoes did well last year and garlic has done well every year as well as the kale, we've had difficulty growing most root veggies. My dream is have pumpkins so each class can have at least one, maybe this will be our year!

I usually get seeds from one of the many seed exchanges going on around the city. There are still a few left, so don't fret if you missed Seedy Saturday/Sunday at the Brickworks. Here is a link to some seed exchange events coming up in the future. For me gardening is about helping to build community, whether it's a community working together to grow food or you sharing from what you've grown in your own garden. You can always collect your own seeds and set up a seed/bulb exchange with fellow gardeners in your area or just trade with friends. 

Please feel free to contact me through twitter or the blog if you'd like to exchange some seeds with me. 

Been Missing You

Wow, I'm so sorry. I can't believe that I let two months go by without a post. There has been a lot of activity the last little while around school and the garden so I haven't been finding the time to update all of you.

Just quickly I should let you know that compost day at our school is May 13th. Yes, that's a Friday *insert scary sound.
We are so lucky to have Joe Mihevc as the councilor for our area. He's always up to something that supports the environment.

The school garden is coming along nicely these days. The garlic continues to grow and we now have 3 planting beds that no one has vandalized, yah!!!! I'm thinking of building a fourth bed, so I'll have to get more wood and soil. The students have also really enjoyed being part of the building process... it's starting to spread to other students as well. It would be great if one day we could have a planting bed for each class.

Now we planted some seeds indoors last week, but only a couple have sprouted so I'm starting to worry. We've got some money left in the budget so I may just have to go and buy some seedlings from a garden centre. Our planting day will be May 19th, but more to come on that.

Seedy Sunday pt2

[ just a taste of how busy it was ]

I can't tell you what a great time I had today at Seedy Sunday. I really wanted to stay there all afternoon and not come home. It was great to see and talk with a lot of familiar faces. I was also able to make some good contacts today regarding field trips for the garden/eco club and for volunteers in the garden. Dare I say that I'm becoming part of the urban agriculture community?

First things first. I got an awesome haul of seeds today. I would have gotten more, but thankfully I ran into a fellow teacher, who is also a parent at the school, and she let me in on some deals from Urban Harvest if I order through the school. Her and I are going to be in touch and put an order together and share some seeds and save some money too!

[ crappy photo = awesome haul ]

One of the faces that I always love to run into is Garden Jane. She's totally awesome and put on great workshops for community gardeners and anyone else who wants to learn about permeculture. She gave me some free bean seeds and some great ideas for activities to do with them. I felt bad taking all this stuff and knowledge without giving her anything in return, so I bought a seed ball kit from her. I'm planning on giving it away as a prize for some sort of event at the school.

[ seed ball kit ]

If you don't know what a seed ball/bomb is you need to go look that up. I think that we'll do something for International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day (May 1st 2011). I don't know if we'll do sunflowers, but we'll definetly do some kind of hardy, flowering, native plant.

In talking with people today I realized that there are a lot of people who want to volunteer in our little school garden to help the students grow food. There are also a lot of people who want community garden space and aren't able to get it. I know that I'd have to clear this with the administration, but I was thinking this could be an awesome trade off for some help watering in the summer and getting some people with more know-how than myself to really get our garden going. Volunteers may have to get a police check (more than likely they would) but it would be a small price to pay for some space to grow some veggies of their own.

For those of you interested in volunteering please email me or leave a comment with your email address (don't worry all comments need to be approved before they're posted so I'll copy and delete your email address so you don't get any random spam).

Seedy Sunday (Today)

Sorry for getting this info out so late, but today is Seedy Sunday at Heart House UoT. From 12:30-6pm you can bring seeds from trading or you can just buy some yummy heirlooms for you garden.

If you can't make it out today don't worry there will be another Seedy Sunday in March 27th @ Lawrence Heights Community Centre (1-5pm). AND not to worry my Scarborough friends on March 12th @ Heron Park Community Centre (12-4pm) is where your Seedy Sunday will be.

I'll be at UoT today so if you want to meet up leave a comment and let me know that you're coming so I can keep an eye out for you. I may also try to get out to the Lawrence Heights event as well.

This year Seedy Sunday is a joint venture between Food Share, Toronto Public Health, Green Thumbs Growing Kids

Food Share Inspirations

Last week I had the privillage of attending a conference on school/community gardens and student nutrition at Food Share. I got hear about the ups and downs of the market garden at Bendale Collegiet. I was also able to speak with some school gardeners about what they've done at their schools to get some real plant growth of the their gardens... we're really going to have to do planting beds this year if we want anything to grow. The soil at the school is just way to compacted and has way too much clay. I'll have to buy some soil with the money we have left and get the board to deliver some more compost. I also saw some amazing and simple ideas for activities I can do with the students and for some things that I want to put in my classroom.

[Native Bee House]

The first thing I saw when I walked in and thought would an amazing and simple crafty activity for the Eco-Club students to do would be to build bee houses. These aren't for honey bees, but would be for miner and other native bee species. I'm thinking that I can head down to China Town and get some bamboo to bundle together (the bees would nest in the hole) and we could build frames out of some old clementine boxes that I have kicking around in my classroom and at home. The student could then bring them home to hang in their backyards. The idea being that you'd be able to attract more bees to your garden and they would inturn help to pollinate all of you plants. I think that this would go a long way to help the plants in our school garden too. As well, bee populations are on the decline so giving them more habitat will at least give the little guys a bit more of a chance. With out bees food production on this planet will become very difficult and expensive.

[Aquaponic System]

Above is a mini aquaponic system. I have just about everything on my classroom to make this and I'd like to give it a try. I've found some plans online and it seem simple enough. Basically the bacteria in fish poo is used to fertilize the plants about. The plants above in turn filter the fertilizer out of the water and it goes back into the tank completing the cycle.

[Window Farm]

I think that I may have mentioned Window Farming before, but here is a much simplified version that I don't think will cause any safety concerns if I were to build it and install it in a classroom with a window... something which my office is seriously missing :(

Needless to say it was a great conference and I got some great ideas. I going to try and stay positive and motivated over these winter months and try to put at least one of these systems together.

Spring is coming...

Well spring is just around the corner and I can't wait!!!

I want to get out of the coffin aka office and out into that garden with the students.

Last week I had the students go online and look at plants they wanted to grow to see if we'd be able to grow them in our garden. The students really want to try growing the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash) as well as raspberries. I think that there would be great. We have a little over $500 left from the grant we got from Metro Grocery Stores and most of the original amount went to tools, which we don't have to buy again this year. GO TEAM!

In the fall we planted some garlic and I really hope that the squirrels didn't eat all of it. But come the spring we're going to have to build planter boxes and cover them with chicken wire to keep the furry tailed rats out!

In the mean time the Eco-Club will just have to keep learning about the importance of recycling and energy conservation.

Garden Links

Well I've been finishing around the internet these days to find out some good gardening tip and get some info around school gardens.
Here is just a few links that I thought you might be interested in:

Toronto Balconies Bloom - Toronto has acres of untapped growing space on its balconies, and an opportunity for creating a peaceful and pleasurable living environment while at the same time improving the air we breathe. Just because you don't have a backyard doesn't mean you can't be a gardener.

The Locavore's Garden - Here you'll find some great tips on starting and maintaining a food garden.

Growing for Green - A Ward 21 garden blog group that offers various workshops and volunteer opportunities.

Green Neighbours 21 - A grass-roots, action-oriented group of people who live in ward 21 (and beyond) who are working together on solutions to climate change and other environmental problems.

Green Garage - This private company specializes is green roofing, keeps your house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

How To Eat Fried Worms

Okay, so I won't be eating these little critters, but I'm hoping that they'll eat all of my food refuse and leave me with some top notch worm castings (poo) for the garden.

The workshop was put on by Food Share and I only had to shell out $10 bucks. I feel really bad that I can't remember the name of the man who ran the workshop, aside from being a wealth of knowledge and giving up his time for cost he was also full of awesome teacher/dad jokes.

I had no idea how easy a tower system vermicomposter would be to build. The only hard part would be getting the worms. There are a few people who sell them online (Cathy's Crawly Composters), but if you know someone with a manure pile there should be some wiggling around in there just remember to take a deep breath before digging in.

The materials:

* 5 plastic shoe boxes - they come in a 5 pack at Canadian Tire

* A small piece of landscaping fabric to cover holes in the bottom lid - this stops the castings from falling through the holes and still allows you to collect the liquid (compost tea) at the bottom.

[That's it!]

The plastic shoe boxes that we used had these three circles on the top of the lids that were perfect for marking the spots for drilling the large holes. We put the lid under the box to make sure the holes would line up when they were all stacked. The heat from the drill will melt the two piece together so we had to carefully pull them apart so as to not break them. We used a smaller drill bit (1/8") to drill some ventilation holes in the top lid.

Once all the drilling was done it was time to fill them up with bedding (damp shredded newspaper), worms, and a little top soil.

[Red wigglers and some melon rind]

[Inside the finished product]

Right now I only have the first level of my tower working, but in about 3 months it the other four levels should be operational and I'll have double the worms I started with. The fifth bottom box is for collecting the compost tea (it does not have holes in the bottom of it). Once the box I'm filling with organic food scraps becomes full I'll add the next box to the top and so on.

This is totally going to be a project for Eco-Club next year. I had considered doing it this year, but I'd like to make sure it works and become a bit of an expert at it before I go sharing my knowledge.

Dandelions 101

Today we started the solarization of the school garden. I hope that no one steals or messes with the tarps. The tarps will have to stay on for four weeks and then the planting will begin! But this isn't what I wanted to talk about.

As you may have noticed over the last few weeks the dandelions have started to flower and are likely taking over your yard. I have to be honest and say that I think dandelions (Taraxacum) a quite pretty and when they're done flowering there is nothing more fun than blowing all the white seed pods into the wind, making for some good pictures and a great way to make wishes.

But aside from all of that dandelions are really good for you and a lot of insects too! The yellow flower is an important source of nectar and pollen for early honey production. Dandelion pollen is also great for making bee pollen. If you find that you have allergies in early spring you may want to consider taking local bee pollen to help alleviate some of the symptoms (itchy eyes, runny nose, asthma, etc.). Butterfly larvae use dandelions as a food source and without food for the larvae there would be no butterflies! The numbers of both these insects are decreasing rapidly because of the way we effect their environments.

Okay, so they look pretty and they're good for insects, but I know that you're asking yourself "what do I get out of them?". I'm glad you asked this question. There are many ways you can use dandelion and it has quite a few medicinal properties too. Many naturopaths use dandelion to purify the liver and gallbladder of toxins. The leaves have large amounts of vitamins: A, C, D, and B-complexes. It also contains the following minerals: iron, magnesium, zinc potassium, manganese, copper, choline, calcium, boron, and silicon. I also find the leaves to be quite tasty. The leaves can be juiced or put into a salad and if you are able to pick them before they flower the leaves will have a less bitter taste. The root of the dandelion can be used to make teas and I've recently learned how to make dandelion jelly from the flowers, some people even make dandelion wine. I never knew that there were so many ways that one could prepare this plant for eating!

If you're living somewhere and don't have access to dandelions you should be able to find them at your local health foods store and your local grocer may carry them too. Since you're eating the leaf I would highly recommend that you buy organic to avoid all the unwanted toxins from pesticides. If you're living in Toronto I'll remind you that the city and the TDSB do not spray any chemicals to control weeds or pests, so take a walk to your local park or school field with big reusable bag and start foraging some organically grown delights!

Green Living Follow Up

On Sunday I decided to take advantage of the crummy weather and take in the Green Living Show. I ended up not checking out the 4hr wine tasting because the description was to vague to justify spending $40 bucks to learn about growing grapes organically in Southern Australia. At any rate I was happy to recycle my old cell phone for free admission, guess I'll have to find a new paper weight.

I was impressed with this year's show. I'm not sure if it was any larger than in previous years, but there seemed to be a bigger focus on food and if you know me you know that I love food.
I was able to check out some interesting booths and get some great information on community eco-events coming up in the future, which I'll be sure to share with you. The World Wild Life Fund was promoting Pin It For The Planet (May 30th - June 5th), going a week without your car and pinning your car keys to your shirt to show your support. I'll be sure to remind you closer to the date about this one, but if you see someone with car keys pinned to their shirt give them a thumbs up and know that it's not the newest fashion trend.

Okay, I've got to make a stop at a hardware store tonight! I slacked off this weekend and didn't get a drop sheet for solarizing the garden. I'm also going to a workshop tonight put on by Food Share where we will be building our own vermicomposters!!! I'll take some pictures and share them with you.

Still waiting to hear from Metro about getting our grant money, what a pain this has turned out to be, grrr!

Food Not Lawns

First off I should let all of you know the school garden has been approved, yeah!!!
Now we have to start prepping the planting bed, which means that we're going to solarize the ground (covering the ground with black plastic to kill/cook all the weeds and their seeds). Now were the heck can I get all this plastic? I'm thinking that I may be able to use heavy duty garbage bags, but I may have to check out a hardware store for some construction grade plastic, or a tarp. Anyone have any ideas???

Today the grade 1s and 2s planted some seeds that they'll grow in their classroom. We've got chard, romaine, arugula, pumpkin, watermelon, sugar peas, and snow peas. I hope that most of the seeds germinate and start to grow soon so that we can enjoy a salad before the end of the school year. Now I know that there is more than likely to be some vandalism or theft, but I'm going to keep my chin up if any of that happens. If we can keep the pumpkin and melons to the back of the garden maybe people wont notice them.

I've got to get ready for Eco-Committee meeting, then I'm off to hockey, and then I'm off to pick up my chest freezer (bought used) so that I'll have tons of space to freeze all the fresh local foods that are available at the farmers market this summer.

Things are looking good!

Design Consultation

Tomorrow is going to be the big day. Will the garden get approved or not? I'm not sure why we have to get the garden approved again, but it seems like somewhere in the plans the idea got left out, even though a work crew was sent here last summer to clear out all the vegetation that was growing in the bed. At any rate I will make a drawing or model of how the garden will look and talk about our plan for watering it.
After the approval process it will be time to get working. This week I'll be working with the grade 1/2 class to start our seedlings. I'll also start spending some of this money that is yet to come from the Green Apple Grants.
I hear that it's going to be a hot summer, so the sooner we can get started on this the better. Watering the garden this summer will be a big job. I know that there are a few parents in the community who are on board, but the more the merrier. I'll be able to do some watering too and maybe I can get one or two other teachers to help out with that over the summer.

The School Garden

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update about the garden. We've been told that we are receiving a grant from Metro Grocery Stores, but I'm waiting to hear if we spend that money first and they give us a cheque or are we to wait on the money? I've sent a few emails and am yet to receive a reply, grrr! I think that I'm going to start spending money on tools and just hope that the cash comes through.

The grade 1/2 class is going to start germinating the seeds that I picked up at Seedy Sunday. It looks like we'll have about four plots going: one grade 5/6 class, the 1/2 class, the eco-clubs, and the day care. GO TEAM!!!

We will be having our design consultation next week, so I'll have to gather up the plans and make it look nice for the design consultants. It's really great that all of this is coming together so nicely right now. I'm going to try and twist the Home School teacher to get a plot for her class too.

I know that some people have spoken with me and others about donating plants to the garden. I think that is totally awesome, but I need people to hold off on plant donations until everything is finalized. As well, we are going to try and keep this garden for native plants and food. We will also do companion planting so there will be a need for some flowers, but lets wait and make sure everything is okay before we get our hands dirty.

I hope that everyone else is as excited about this as I am!

Upcomming Events

Here are some upcoming eco-events for ward 21. I tried to find a list of all these events on Joe Mihevc's webpage but they don't seem to be listed yet. Anyway, here are a few highlights:

Sunday, April 18th (noon to 4pm) Solar Energy Fair at the barns

Saturday, April 24th (9am to 11am) Community Clean-up Day
9:00-10:00 @ Cedarvale Park (meet under the footbridge)
10:00-11:00 @ Kay Gardner Beltline Trail and Old Park Road

Free Compost Days:
April 30th 5-7pm @ McMurrich P.S.
May 3rd 4-6pm @ St. Bruno Catholic School
May 4th 4-7pm @ St. Alphonsus Cathlock School
May 5th 4-6pm @ Cedarvale Community School
May 7th 4-6pm @ Humewood Community School
May 13th 4-6pm @ Wychwood Barns
May 14th 4-7pm @ J.R. Wilcox P.S.

Saturday, June 12th (11am to 5pm) Strawberries and Asparagus Festival (Cedarvale Park)... Bring a blanket, some picnic food, and stick around for one of my favourite movies screening in the park at 8:30pm



Sunday, June 13th (10am to 2pm) Community Environment Day (Wychwood Barns Park)

Seedy Saturday... ON SUNDAY!!!

I was reminded to post this after I heard about it again on Metro Morning. I hope that it has doesn't get too busy after being on the CBC.
Seedy Sunday will be taking place this Sunday (Feb. 21st) at the Wychwood Barns, barn #2. Aside from a great chance to get native and heirloom seeds there will also be interesting workshops and presentations.
The day starts at 12:30pm, with the workshops starting at 1pm, and runs until 6pm. Looks like that will give me a half hour to get the seeds I want before spending the rest of the afternoon attending workshops. There is a suggested donation of $2 and they are still looking for volunteers.

I guess this means that I'll have to finalize a list of the plants to grow at the school this year. Any suggestions of plants you'd like to see?