June 15- Celebrate the Growing Season with Us!

Join us in The Orchard Garden for our 2^nd Annual Summer Celebration!

Learn about our educational initiatives and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program.

Enjoy garden-inspired snacks and drinks, live music, planting activities and garden tours! 

Friday, June 15, 2012

1-4pm

FREE!

The Orchard Garden team wanted to post about a course that is being offered this summer. The course is focused on the design and management of sustainable buildings, food systems and communities and is taught with educators in mind. Three of our team members took the course last year and had a great experience. James Richardson, the course instructor, has experience both as a classroom teacher and a university lecturer for over ten years. The course is precisely the kind of learning experience that would assist current or future teachers in tackling the sustainability challenge in a way that engages students' hands, head and heart and leads to real and meaningful change.

There is a 4 day intro course for those who can't make the full 14 days but both options are well-suited for current students, professional teachers or academics.  There are ten spots left, but the course generally sell out before the beginning of summer.

Registration is available here:  http://permacultureubcfarm2012.eventbrite.com/. 

it's a jungle out there!

April always seems to be the month that we all squint at the ground and wonder if maybe, just maybe, the garden won't grow this year...  here's a reminder of what the garden looked like last April:  

 

and then, suddenly...  it's May.  After several days of heavy rains, the garden responds in earnest.  Except this year, it has responded doubly earnest!  

 I don't remember it being this lush and vibrant at this point in May.  Maybe it's all the mushroom manure we've added, or the garden is just happy and confidant this year- but here it is in full force.  You're a lucky duck if you're on our CSA list this year!

 

baby beets

 

bok choi in the Chinese Market Garden

 

self-seeded clover and calendula

 

chives in full bloom

 

gorgeous garlic!

 

Chinese snow & snap peas with leaves as big as my hand!

 

self-seeded phacelia climbing 1m up a rye stalk

 

potatoes

 

and more potatoes- blues & yukon golds & lots more...

 

volunteer kale overwhelming the bees (at least it's one of their favourite nectar sources!)

 

our wild garden full of clouds and cover crops

And to juxtapose all this sensual fecundity...  check out Julia's PhD research area on the west edge of the garden:

 

She has meticulously created a grid with 24 "desks" and one larger teachers "desk"- planted with blue flax as a play on indoor classrooms brought outside.  Through her performative installation, Julia will explore the history of school gardens and the ways that humans engage (or not) with the land.  I fear I can't articulate her project in all its nuance and elegance, so I hope she will do a post on her progress this summer.  Stay tuned!

Alternative Practicum Closing Reflections for Alison

We learned so much from these past three weeks with Lauren & Alison's Alternative Practicum in The Orchard Garden.  We are grateful for their ongoing, thought-provoking reflections.  Here are some photos from their visits this week: 

Tupper Neighbourhood Greenway

Mural at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School

Here is Alison's final reflection:

I’m having a hard time believing that the Orchard Garden practicum is coming to a close. As I’m typing these words, I realize that I would like this enhanced practicum to be extended by another week – which is not a common sentiment for most practicum students. Few teacher candidates receive the opportunity to explore educational practices of interest, as well as see how these practices are being implemented in various schools around the district. This enhanced practicum experience has helped reignite my hope for education growing beyond the traditional classroom setting.

I am so grateful to the many educators and students who welcomed us into their schools to share their knowledge and experiences. This week, we received a tour of the Tupper Neighbourhood Greenway, which is a collaborative project between Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School, Tupper students, the TINGA Community Group, and the City of Vancouver. The primary focus of the Greenway is to be a healing garden for students and community members after the loss of a Tupper student in 2003. The greenspace was designed to make school grounds and the community safer, and the partnership also provides the community opportunities for youth engagement and leadership activities, mentorship to the surrounding elementary schools, and events such as Community Planting Days.

Over the past three weeks, we’ve seen how various garden and greenspaces work as a connection point for community building. It’s a wonderful thing to witness, and so touching to have received invitations to become participating members in these school communities.  I am excited to continue to develop (and hopefully try out!) garden based curriculum, and I am also looking forward to working on other projects with The Orchard Garden throughout the summer – like our Pollination Workshop next Thursday!

Alternative Practicum Closing Reflections...

 

Lauren harvests radishes and plants bok choi in The Chinese Market Garden

This week marked the culmination of our pilot Alternative Practicum in The Orchard Garden with Lauren & Alison.  The three weeks were filled with rich discussion, weeding, digging, planting, field trips to learning gardens, and curriculum planning.  We are now in the process of synthesizing Lauren's & Alison's experiences to refine our program for future years.  It has been enormously stimulating and gratifying to work together!

 

Lauren helps Julia prepare the soil for Julia's site-specific, performative doctoral research... stay tuned for more!

Here is Lauren's final reflection:

I am sad to say that this is the last day of the Alternative Practicum at The Orchard Garden, UBC. This past week we were blessed with sun (and brisk winds), on our gardening days at the OG. My freckles have appeared on my nose and my wrists have been a bit sore, but both are welcomed symptoms of time spent outside, working the land while having discussions of material culture studies, agricultural practices, pollination, food, curriculum, and pedagogy. We had a chance to harvest and share some radishes from the OG which were delicious! We also had a chance to work in the green house again which is always interesting. I have become much more comfortable over the past three weeks in the outdoor space, the OG office, Agora, and the greenhouse. I believe that this is an integral part of being able to educate and communicate in an outdoor space and may only occur with lived experience and time spent in the space and with the land.

My practicum partner and I had the pleasure of riding our bikes out to Sir Tupper School this week, as well. We had the opportunity to have a tour of the Greenway and to speak with a passionate and motivated teacher who has her hands in the soil, so to speak. She showed us before pictures of the space to give us some context, and it was truly amazing to see how a space can be created that can enable the community to connect, the arts to be supported, and healthy relationships to grow. This was a truly amazing project to see and learn about.

Although next week is the start of my classes again, we are hosting a Pollination workshop on Thursday, May 17 from 3:30pm – 5:30pm which is geared toward Bed students. I will be continuing to research eco-art, material culture studies, and curricular links to art, food, and gardening in the following months and after my degree. The intersections of these areas are extremely interesting to me, both from an educational lens and from a personal artistic lens.

Thanks for reading and please come to check out the Orchard Garden!

Thank the land,

Lauren Everall.

Surrendering to dandelions...

May is the month of dandelions- going into battle with them seems futile at best...

Although not much else is growing in our garden yet, this is the time of year that we crouch down low and proudly inspect the deep folds of emerging potato leaves, and brave, half-nibbled pea sprouts.

And for all of our efforts at digging out the tenacious tap root or scything the heads before they bloom, dandelions are a reminder that we are not in charge- at least not all of the time...

Dandelion

- Julie Lechevsky

My science teacher said
there are no monographs
on the dandelion.

Unlike the Venus fly-trap
or Calopogon pulchellus,
it is not a plant worthy of scrutiny.

It goes on television
between the poison squirt bottles,
during commercial breakaways from Ricki Lake.

But that's how life
parachutes
to my home.

Home,
where they make you do
what you don't want to do.

Moms with Uzis of reproach,
dads with their silencers.
(My parents watch me closely because I am their jewel.)

So no one knows how strong
a dandelion is inside,
how its parts stick together,
bract, involucre, pappus,
how it clings to its fragile self.

There are 188 florets in a bloom,
which might seem a peculiar number,
but there are 188,000 square feet
in the perfectly proportioned Wal-Mart,
which allows for circulation
without getting lost.

I wish I could grow like a dandelion,
from gold to thin white hair,
and be carried on a breeze
to the next yard.