School Neighbourhood Gardens

The School Neighbourhood Gardens project began with a pilot project at Glenwood Elementary School in Maple Ridge, B.C., in 2006. Entitled "From Seed to Plate," the project was designed to engage school children and their neighbourhood in learning about the environment and nutrition. Glenwood Elementary was chosen in part because of its enthusiastic staff. The project provides a wonderful opportunity to connect the neighbourhood and the school community, to connect generations, to teach children and citizens the importance of food and healthy eating, to strengthen neighbourhood ties and add to the quality of life.

The project has now been expanded to three additional school sites in Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows School District #42. This project is supervised by a Steering Committee featuring representation by the CEED Centre, Parks and Leisure Services; School District 42 (Social Responsibility), Fraser Health Authority (Dietician), Canadian Cancer Society (Community Action Coordinator), the Haney Farmers Market Society and others. This project is intended to serve as a template for school gardens with the hope that every school in the district will have a vibrant outdoor teaching environment and a productive garden in the future.

Goals

• To bring the community together through networking and neighbourhood development
• To connect generations: students and seniors
• To teach the importance of food security to children and citizens
• To grow and produce food, to implement school curriculum through a living garden
• To increase knowledge about chronic disease prevention: cancer and diabetes 

Glenwood School Neighbourhood Garden Description

The garden is enclosed by a living fence of flowers, grape vines and espaliered fruit trees. The 6,400-square-foot space contains 10 masonry-sided raised beds for individual student plantings and several other raised planting beds.

The 16x16-foot herb garden features stepping stones arranged in a chessboard pattern to allow easy access and to contain fast spreading herbs. A sunflower alley provides a spectacular approach when the flowers bloom.

Raised soil mounds in other locations around the garden provide the space for such kid favorites as pumpkins and raspberries, while perennial and annual flowers offer brilliant foliage for all of the seasons. The “Three Sisters–corn, beans and squash” demonstrate traditional ways of companion planting.

Of course, no garden is complete without a composting facility. The garden is equipped with a backyard composter to receive garden recyclings as well as the vegetative leftovers from school food consumption. This will result in a significant reduction in organic waste shipped from the school.

Maple Ridge municipal staff Christine DiGiamberardine
and Shawn Mathewson with Councillor Lynda King