Today is the day before the Summer Solstice Festival!
Today is the day before the summer solstice festival! The summer solstice festival team has been working hard the past few days to get everything ready for the big day!
The morning glory vines and flower crowns are prepped for the flower crown-making activity.
The signs and decorations are all ready!
The lemon balm, red currants, and carrots are all growing nicely in time for the festival tomorrow.
We will be serving lots of snacks and refreshments tomorrow, including a raspberry crumble made by Keegan and watermelon and apple slices provided by Kirstin!
While the Summer Solstice team put their final touches on their preparations for the event tomorrow, another group of us prepared for the final Saturday workshop of this season! This included preparing prototypes and samples of crafts made from Empress seed pods, mixing herb butter to accompany the delicious bread generously donated by Bread Affair, and painting sample wildflower cards with the natural pigments (beet root, blue spirulina, and turmeric) that participants will create during the workshop. On top of that, we are preparing some drink options both hot and cold, as well as creating a wildflower ‘scavenger hunt’ for participants to have fun getting familiar with the variety of wildflowers in Orchard Garden that they can use as inspiration for their artwork! The team is super excited to host the workshop, and are bringing in any materials that can make the day even more special - such as extra paint brushes, paint, and fruit to snack on.
It has been a great joy to collaborate with other Bachelor of Education students across cohorts and build new friendships as we prepare for these final events! In a program as large as the one we are in, and as busy as it is, it is hard to branch out and make connections across cohorts. The garden has been such a lovely setting to get to know one another. Being situated outside created a magical atmosphere. Removed was the sterile environment of a classroom, where the clock dictates our movements. The garden invited us to tune into our bodies and minds, fresh air and sunlight brought a lightness to our group, and time began to shift from monochromatic to polychromatic. This experience in the garden has shown us the positive personal shift that takes place after an extended period of time in the garden. Of course, anytime in the garden is wonderful, but, getting familiarized with spending each day outdoors, and with our surroundings, begins to morph the way one interacts with their immediate setting, and then trickles into settings beyond. I’ve found myself looking at the world differently, looking at trees in my neighbourhood and wondering what kind they are, looking at flowers in neighbours gardens and appreciating the time and care that went into their moment of bloom. I can’t speak for the whole group, but I truly found my nervous system was able to settle after spending this time in the garden. When a prompt of stress or urgency came to mind, like it so often does at school, it was able to drift away when returning to my surroundings, looking at the sky, having my hands in the dirt - a big shift from experiencing those feelings in a classroom. Mindfulness is much harder to access in a desk and chair, with fluorescent lighting and projector screens. This experience has reminded me that this is the foundation of human nature - to be connected to our earth, and to be connected to one another.I am so grateful for this experience and for Susan’s expertise, welcoming energy, and passion for learning outdoors!
Above all, these preparations offered more than just an opportunity to organize and plan activities. They also created space for us to reflect on everything we have learned throughout this Community Field Experience. Over the past weeks, we have explored the many benefits that gardens can offer students, not only as spaces for growing food and plants, but as environments that foster curiosity, connection, stewardship, and belonging.
As we prepare for this final workshop, we find ourselves returning to a question that has followed us throughout our time at the Orchard Garden: What is a garden? After visiting many different garden spaces, such as the UBC Botanical Garden, the Nitobe Memorial Garden, the guerrilla garden, and the Orchard Garden, our answers continue to evolve. A garden can be carefully designed or organically developed. It can serve as a place for food production, scientific cultivation, ecological stewardship, learning, or community gathering. Yet across all of these forms, gardens remain places of relationship, intention, and story.
Perhaps that is one of the greatest lessons we are taking away from this experience: gardens are not simply places where plants grow. They are places where questions grow, where relationships grow, and where learning grows alongside them.
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