Vancouver high school garden project grows into full-scale urban farm

Kevin Liu, 16, and Angela Ho, 15, collect compost from neighbourhood around Windermere Secondary in Vancouver.
Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

Windermere secondary students collecting compost from local schools, restaurants

By Randy Shore
Vancouver Sun
Nov. 9, 2010

Excerpt:

During the school year, most of the produce is used by the school cafeteria. When school lets out the students who work on the garden through their summer vacation take the produce home or donate it to neighbourhood house food programs.

“When everything seems to come out of a factory, it’s nice that we can grow food ourselves and it’s really simple,” said Lau, who tries to bring the message home by talking to his mother about how to make Earthfriendly food choices. “She mostly worries about price, so it’s a bit of struggle.”

Liu and Lau also farm a plot together in a local community garden, so they can take locally grown food home more regularly.

It has been said that a small group of dedicated individuals can make a difference, but at Windermere the struggle is keeping the group small. On teacher professional development days — which most kids regard as a holiday from school — 50 to 60 students will show up to work in the garden, said teacher sponsor Vagner Castilho.

“The kids love it, and when they graduate they [will be] having their own gardens and getting jobs in food security and food production,” he said.

Read the complete article here.

Also see Randy’s Green Man Blog here.

Also see:

High school garden grows pride—and food – Windermere secondary’s ‘outdoor classroom’ focuses on sustainability

By Naoibh O’Connor,
The Courier
November 9, 2010

Excerpt:

Former Windermere students Christie Leung and Nicole Wood founded the garden in 2007. It’s grown from five eight-foot-by-12-foot plant beds to 13 beds and features an industrial-scale “earth-tub” for composting, a verma compost, a 16-by-20-foot greenhouse and an aquaponics system–a combination of hydroponics and aquaculture, which uses fish and plants to create a closed-loop system. The plants in the system benefit from the fish waste, and in return clean the water for the fish.

Read the complete article here.