HISTORY
The garden at Mayne Island School was created as an outdoor classroom and teaching garden to commemorate the school’s 125th anniversary in 2010.
DESIGN
They are excited about more food production and less maintenance, in particular, the use of wicking beds to grow veggies.
Here's a brief write-up on their project! https://trubox.farmtoschoolbc.ca/our-higher-yield-lower-maintenance-garden/ By Amy Dearden
The 2018 redesign of the Mayne Island School garden to create a lower maintenance, higher yield learning garden has been a wonderful example of the amazing things that can be accomplished by a team effort. The school team set out a multi-year plan to restructure the garden beds, replenish the soil, define perimeter beds, compost stations, upgrade the irrigation system and introduce a new state of the art wicking bed that conserves water.
This year we saw a dramatic clean-up of the garden, new landscape fabric laid with wood chips distributed and new plants introduced. We are now seeing the success of our hard work with snap peas, tomatoes and raspberries almost ready to harvest, and beautiful potato plants, pumpkins, zucchini and sweet peppers in full bloom. Great care was given to ensuring a long term garden strategy was in place and foundational partnerships with community organizations were created to ensure the garden would be an inviting and productive learning space for the students, staff and the community for many years to come.
Students, staff, and community came together throughout the year to learn from and with each other in a hands on way about seeds, compost, plant growth, and so much more. Working together to accomplish a shared goal was a highly motivating and transformative experience for all. A highlight for many students was our weekly ‘garden walks’ where students would identify how the plants were changing, and at what rate, and make predictions on which plants would be first to be ready for harvest.
Math lessons and literacy activities were weaved into our garden lessons as student journaled about their garden experiences, read literature about garden elements and practiced their measurement lessons by calculating the volume of the garden beds to determine the amount of soil needing to be ordered. An especially exciting moment for many was seeing the school gardeners featured on the front page of our local newspaper! We are looking forward to the next phase in the Fall when we redesign the greenhouse and introduce an Indigenous Garden.
LEARNING
Children visit the garden with teachers, and a local farmer presented a few workshops for students on soil and weeds in 2017-18.
PARTNERS
Parent and teachers, along with the Mayne Food Program, help maintain the garden and participate in work-parties.
DONORS
The BC Farm-to-School Program contributed to Mayne School's garden in 2018, and others have over the years. MIS has made connections with local farmers, businesses and organizations to enhance learning and production on many levels and in various areas.
INSIGHTS
The greenhouse is being moved into the garden so that it will be more accessible and better utilized.
EVENTS
Mayne School has held work-parties and group meals at the school.
FUTURE
MIS developed a multi-year ongoing garden plan for re-structure, enhancement, sustainability, food production and learning. With the help of grants and donations this transformation has gone ahead at an amazing rate with the latest addition of a tumbling composter, a wicking bed and another multi-variety fruit tree.
CONTACTS
Principal D'Arcy Deacon at ddeacon@sd64.org, Vice Principal Amy Dearden at adearden@sd64.org
Administrator Katja Corinth is also very involved: kkorinth@sd64.org
Mayne School Board Trustee Janelle Lawson is also a big fan! jlawson@sd64.org or (250) 539-3515