In 1993, Martin Thorn and his class planted a small vegetable garden here over Earth Day. In 2010, a deer fence was constructed with volunteers around the future garden site (funded both by the school, the PAC and by donations), as part of a project to replace an asbestos sewer pipe in the embankment. School children were involved in the calculations of the perimeter and with soil building from cardboard and leaves. The area had become overgrown with blackberry and gorse, and a food forest was envisaged for the site by Jackie Harkema and a NatureScape was planned (supported by the Habitat Acquisition Trust).  

These plantings would stabilize the bank, enhance its appearance, showcase low maintenance food production, and provide an outdoor natural environment for teaching and community involvement. Donations from SS Air helped to buy trees while Seven Ravens students helped design permaculture plantings. Katharine Byers reports that creating an accessible area that the teachers felt they could easily make use of was the main stumbling block and, unfortunately, the school garden activities stalled from 2013 to 2016. 

In Autumn 2016, a host of teachers, students, volunteers and community partners re-invigorated the school gardens at SSE. Gorse, blackberries were removed, a new terraced design was drawn and grants and community donations made it come to life!

It's truly a community effort! So many volunteers have helped out at the monthly garden work-parties, along with donations from a multitude of local community businesses, farms, and philanthropic organizations. By engaging students, families, and community volunteers in designing and building garden infrastructure at SSE, we’re not only creating space to grow food and for students to learn about ecology and agriculture, but we’re also growing community connections.

The SSE Garden Group (associated with the PAC) coordinates the support for the gardens and is comprised of about ten parents, all eight teachers, and Principal Shelly Johnson.

The SSE Garden Committee hosts monthly work-party events, with snacks and materials donated by the PAC,  local businesses, individual donations, and grants. SSE celebrates gardens in Autumn & Spring with all-school Harvest Lunches, grown and prepared by students, to which all garden contributors are invited. These Covid days, families are invited to take garden produce and seedlings from the kids' farmstand at pick-up.

In Autumn 2016, teachers Katharine Byers and Gail Bryn-Jones were awarded a grant from the SSI Foundation to construct a deer-fenced garden in front of the school, adjacent to the new Outdoor Classroom. This includes a picnic table and u-shaped raised beds with a central bed down the middle. As part of this project, Matt Nowell at Gulf Islands Irrigation added a 400-gallon rain barrel and gutters to the Outdoor Classroom, and the SSI Foundation sponsored a solar water pump and mud play-kitchen. 

On the deer-fenced slope behind the school, a school parent, Robin Jenkinson drew a new design for the overgrown hillside in Fall 2016 and shared it with the PAC and SSE teachers and staff. After incorporating feedback, the new SSE Garden Committee organized monthly work-parties, and supported by many local donors, they cleared the re-grown weeds, constructed an additional entrance, gates, pathways, and a gathering area, plus terraced garden beds. Additionally, the group of community, teachers and staff, and school family volunteers constructed an ELF sandbox, plexiglass easels (made from old golf cart windshields), a blackboard and cob benches. Students helped move soil and wood-chip mulch into beds and onto pathways, and they planted the garden and buried seedy time-capsules. A three-bin composter was constructed in Fall 2017 to handle paper towel and food waste (each class was throwing away nearly a garbage bag of paper towels each week!). 

In Winter 2017-18, Linda McDaniels' 2-3rd grade class designed additional features for the garden and made a video. These included a greenhouse, a fish pond, a movie theatre, a vine-covered shade arbor over the sandbox, resting tipis, a composting toilet, a fairy garden, a vegetable climbing sculpture, and a haybale seating area.

In Spring 2018, Michael Nickels brought his Seven Ravens Permaculture class to interview the SSE Garden Committee and Linda's class and develop an updated vision for the Hillside Garden, one that includes permaculture principles and a food forest.

In 2018-19, a greenhouse was added along with additional rammed-earth retaining walls, haybale terraced beds, a wooden writing surface, new latches on the fences, and more. 

In 2019-20, one of the older retaining walls next to the Strongstart classroom was rotting and failing and the sandbox, cobb bench, easels, and large shrubs had to be removed along with it. Nut, fruit, and other native trees were planted around the schoolyard, and boulder seating areas were created in the front schoolyard. Students planted a 3-Sisters+Sunflower summer garden in June when they were back in school after the Covid outbreak. A neighbour family watered the garden over the summer. 

In 2020-21, a hyper-adobe sandbox was built with help from Jane Squier and parent volunteers to replace the one that had to be removed. Haybale terraces were built and maintained.In the front schoolyard, a geodesic dome event tent was erected for rainy/windy day garden activities and as an extra outdoor classroom. Pollinator-friendly trees were planted around the schoolyard for Earth Day 2021.

So many! The Hillside Garden has received funding from generous individual donors via check, cash, and online Indiegogo fundraiser, as well as Island Savings, SSI Garden Club, and SSI Firefighters’ Association. In-kind donations have been received from TerraFirma/Sirewall, the Mud Girls, Dan Logan Carpentry, Country Grocer, Windsor Plywood, Barb’s Buns, Gulf Coast Materials, Charlie’s Excavating, Natureworks, Jana’s Bake Shop, Dave’s Blasting, Akerman’s Farm, The Glass Foundry, Treasures of the Heart, Salt Spring Seeds and others, plus the talented parents and community members giving so much of their time and efforts. (and many more in 2017-18!). 

The Nature Program in the lower garden has received funding from SSI Foundation and the Farmer’s Alliance for a new fence and garden beds, plus a rain cistern from Gulf Islands Irrigation. Bullock Lake Farm has donated starts, Salt Spring Seeds has donated seeds, and Mouat’s Hardware has donated tools to be used at all gardens.

This needs to be updated. There are so many more - thank you!

Here's the 2021 wishlist so far: 

• Cob bench expansion & plastering in the main central gathering area. 

• Rammed-earth retaining wall and stairs in the central space. 

• ELF sandbox plastering/concrete and/or aquatic garden in the circular hyper-adobe structure. 

• An old cable-spool table and log round chairs up by the greenhouse. 

• More haybale terraces and terrace maintenance, filled with aged manure and garden compost-soil. 

• A canoe garden in front, featuring well-being herbs & pollinator flowers. 

• Replacement of the compost lids and a better plan for compost/paper towels. 

• Tree plantings in the front schoolyard for Earth Day with Milo Stuart.

• Tree plantings on the hillslope.

• An irrigation system! 

• Woodchips for pathways.

• A toolshed/shelter next to the upper gate.

• Fun, playful creativity.

Goals are to provide students the opportunity to grow, prepare and eat healthy food, build good soil, and learn about natural cycles and ecology outdoors. All eight classes participate in weekly garden activities with their teachers and parent/community volunteers.

Hands-on learning has included all sorts of plantings, drawing and writing about the garden, collecting and saving seeds and plant diversity, composting and mulching, herbs and vegetable identification, mapping, and more. Many classes also use the areas for outdoor reading, writing, play-acting, snacking, and playing. Children love finding worms, insects (bees and butterflies), and sometimes garter snakes. One class designed garden ABC's that were laser-engraved into a wooden gate cover. 

Annual traditions now include all-school harvest lunches (autumn & spring), flower bulb-planting in the fall, and Seedy Day in spring.

Not all teachers have the time, resources, knowledge or experience to fully engage their students in the garden. It works best when someone can plan activities, gather materials, and the teacher can bring their class to the gardens on a regularly basis to learn together. We've found funding for a Garden Facilitator to provide these activities, and community mentors are often invited to share knowledge with the children. 

Principal Shelly Johnson can be reached at SSE: (250) 537-9928 and sjohnson@sd64.org

Teachers Gail Bryn-Jones (gbrynjones@sd64.org) and Katharine Byers (kbyers@sd64.org) are the SSE garden gurus. 

SSE PAC Garden Committee lead & Garden Facilitator is parent Robin Jenkinson (riverjenkinson@gmail.com).