Canada’s first school-based market garden

Anton Crawford harvests Swiss chard in the garden in front of the school. Photo by Keith Beaty – Toronto Star.

An edible education

By Jennifer Bain
Food Editor
Toronto Star
Nov 3, 2010

Excerpt:

This is the cutting edge of edible education. What Bendale has is one step beyond a simple school garden but not quite an urban farm. It’s believed to be Canada’s first school-based market garden. It proves the educational value of food and all the ways it can be worked into the curriculum. And, if all goes as planned, Bendale will serve as a model for schools across the country.

“There are so many schools that could be turning their lawns into fields of food,” says garden co-ordinator Ian Hepburn-Aley, a community food facilitator with FoodShare.

FoodShare is a non-profit organization that tackles food and hunger issues through grassroots projects. It has helped 26 Toronto schools create food gardens and is working with five more on indoor/outdoor growing projects. Most are modest affairs, cared for by staff, students and parent volunteers. Many languish over the summer.

What sets Bendale apart is its funding and its scale. The high school, on Midland Avenue north of Lawrence, experimented with two of FoodShare’s small “Footprint Gardens.” Then it was chosen to pilot a large-scale garden through an 11-month, $65,000 Ontario Community Go Green Fund grant, awarded to projects that reduce greenhouse gas omissions.

Using donated cedar, students built 26 garden beds out front for this year’s crops. They’re building 35 more behind the school for next year. The beds are four feet wide and 20 to 40 feet long. Horticulture teacher Shane Jones helped students build cedar compost bins and a rain-barrel system to collect water. The greenhouse was used to nurture seeds into seedlings. Carpentry and plumbing students have all lent a hand.

Read the complete article here.