City digging in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Queen Elizabeth High School is coming down, with plans for an urban garden to be planted on the land. Photo by Janek Lowe.

This year, Capital Health will turn the old Queen Elizabeth High School site into the Common Roots Urban Farm.

By Carsten Knox
The Coast
Apr 28, 2011

Excerpt:

It’s not every day a high school gets turned into a farm. But that’s what’s going on at the corner of Bell Road and Robie Street, where Queen Elizabeth High School once stood. Partners for Care, a registered not-for-profit charity that ventures to raise money for the city’s hospitals, had the idea to reclaim the school site, to be called the Common Roots Urban Farm.

“Partners in Care will oversee the project,” says John Gillis, spokesperson for Capital Health. “They don’t have the expertise in farming, obviously. People like the Nova Scotia Agricultural College and the Ecology Action Centre have come on board. We’re hoping that partners like that can help us operate it.”

The roughly two-and-a-half acres of land has transferred to Capital Health with the demolition of the school, which closed in 2006.

Read the complete article here.