Today we started the day off at Roots on The Roof, a student-run garden club at the top of the Nest. The club president, Carly, shared with us the story of how Roots on The Roof came to be as well as gave us a tour of the place. We could not believe that an average of 800 pounds of food is harvested annually from the garden! This year, the food collected from the harvest will be donated to UBC Sprouts.
We also observed the effect that the past two years of the COVID lockdown have had on the garden. In the absence of humans, we learned that birds are quite the gardeners as they help disperse seeds throughout the garden and beyond. While we were tending the garden, we could see the impact of our collective effort, and how much love and attention a garden truly requires. We were in “amaze-mint” of how many different plants were being grown in the garden, such as garlic, broccoli, mint, borage, tomatoes, rutabaga, kale, snap peas, herbs, and wildflowers. Thank you Carly for allowing us to taste some! It's incredible how engaging with a combination of our different senses provides us with a whole other experience.
During our time on the rooftop, we realized how important garden spaces are for fostering a sense of community. Something that struck us was the idea that everything is interconnected or dependent on everything else! The garden taught us a valuable lesson on reciprocity. It reminded us that we have an important role in the continuation of our relationship with the land. A garden cannot be sustained if we only take from it without giving back. Reflecting on this experience, we can see ourselves using the garden as a social and emotional learning (SEL) tool to teach children about empathy, kindness, and responsibility. Today, we were able to lend a helping hand by tending to the garden, and in return, the garden gifted us delicious vegetables to take home! Some of us intend on replanting these in our own garden so that they will hopefully grow into new plants while others intend on using these as ingredients in our cooking!
After lunch, we regrouped at the greenhouse where we learned the process of sowing seeds with Chris, the Guardian of the Galaxy Garden. Together, we filled our containers with soil, watered them, and planted the seeds in accordance to their individual care instructions. We planted spinach and basil, which we are so excited to see if they will sprout! We also made a connection to Brayboy and Maughan’s text, "Indigenous Knowledge and the Story of the Bean", in which from reading, we learned that we have to be very careful to make sure that every decision we make is thought about before we act. In this case, we do not just plant a seed just because; it has to have a purpose.
We both can see ourselves incorporating this activity in our classrooms as it is accessible to all learners, hands-on, and takes learning beyond the confines of four walls.
Finally, we transported more tomato plants to the UBC orchard garden. Yesterday, we uprooted some diseased tomato plants, and it was so interesting to see the difference between healthy and diseased tomato plants. Chris was very helpful in reminding us about the precautions of uprooting diseased plants and how to introduce new plants from the greenhouse to the garden. It reminded us of how one would introduce a pet goldfish into its new fish tank. Although plants can be robust, we were intrigued with how much care and attention each plant needs and how different plants require unique care. For the remainder of the time, we prepared the garden beds by doing some much-needed weeding. We found the tall strands of grass to be more difficult to weed as their roots were deeply intertwined beneath the surface of the soil. Reflecting on this experience, we realized that gardens can be used as a tool to teach children to persevere. “Thistle” be a continuous project for us in the coming weeks... wish us luck! 🍀
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