Meet the 2013-2014 Garden Team!

2013-2014 Orchard Garden Team: (top) Dr. Susan Gerofsky, Kwesi, Samira, Galen, Julia (bottom) Roz, Laura, Claire, Moon, Toni (Absent: Dr. Maja Krzic)

 We have a fantastic team of students from Land & Food Systems (Claire & Galen) and Education (Samira, Julia, Moon, Toni), as well as two recent graduates (Roz - BEd program, Laura - Ecology) on our Orchard Garden team this year.

If you would like to arrange a class visit to the garden, a directed studies, or want to learn more about our campus garden/outdoor classroom, please contact Samira at theorchardgarden.info@gmail.com.

The picture above was taken at our current garden site, behind the MacMillan Building. We are sadly saying goodbye to this garden (a student-directed outdoor classroom & urban gardening project since 2005) and moving to Totem Field.


Prep work for the relocation has already begun with the arrival of a dump truck full of compost! Thank you to Seane, Director at Totem Field, for helping us get the dump truck out of the garden after it got stuck...a teachable moment: what happens to soil after a heavy spring rain? It gets muddy. Yes, our new site is much wetter than the gently-sloping garden behind MacMillan!

We are very fortunate to have Anna and Yiwen from the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture volunteering their time and talent to help us design the new space (an awkward 10m x 30m, much smaller than what we have currently).

Photo: Collyn Chan, AMS new SUB Sustainability Coordinator
View from the rooftop garden construction site, new SUB

While our garden at Totem is smaller, the big news is that we are also collaborating with the AMS on the new SUB building with the rooftop garden there! This garden won't be ready until spring 2015 but already the views from that location are exciting (see photo on right).

All in all, we have a great team of students who are more than capable to handle all the changes taking place this year at The Orchard Garden. Also a huge thank you to Dr. Susan Gerofsky for keeping the garden alive through a million emails and meetings this past year! Drs. Maja Krzic & Andrew Riseman in LFS have also been key supporters of this project.

We are going to have lots of work parties in the next few months to relocate the garden (apple trees, perennials, structures) to the new site. Please contact theorchardgarden.info@gmail.com to volunteer.