Chinese Market Garden: Featured Vegetable #1

Perilla. It's quite a pretty name, and one I hadn't heard before. The name on its own reminds me of periwinkle and dancing.

Perilla ~ 紫苏 
Photo credit: Wikipedia 2012. 

At our last meeting, Chinese Market Garden committee discussed planting Perilla this season in the Chinese Market Garden. In Chinese, it is pronounced 'zisu', or 紫苏. It is part of the mint family, so it tastes and smells like a mixture of mint and fennel. Perilla is used as a common herb, usually fried with garlic and ginger to spice up any dish. It is also used in traditional Chinese medicine as an immune system stimulator and is said to ease cold symptoms. 

Children & School Gardening: MA thesis

Congratulations, Djamila!

In September, Djamila Moore, our previous Orchard Garden coordinator, moved to Portland to work as a school garden coordinator. This Friday, she returns to defend her MA thesis. Here's the information (see below), if you would like to attend. If you miss the defense and would like to read the thesis, it will be posted (likely in a couple of weeks) online at the UBC Library cIRcle repository.

Hurray!!!

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You are invited to
The Final Oral Examination For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

(Science Education)

Djamila Moore BFA, University of North Carolina, School of the Arts, June 2002

Friday, December 7, 2012, 2:00 pm
SCARFE  1209

“A Discursive Exploration of Children’s School Garden Experiences, Perspectives, and Developing Ecological Literacies”

EXAMINING & Supervisory Committee:

Supervisor: Dr. Samson Nashon

Co-Supervisor: Dr. Sandra Scott

Committee: Dr. Tracy Friedel

ABSTRACT

Research has largely neglected ways to explore how school gardens are used, the quality of the children’s garden experiences, and the educational possibilities including the process of supporting children’s ecological literacy. The purpose of this study was to better understand the possibilities for discourses in and around current garden-based education and ecological literacy while making space for an emergent and narrative research design. This qualitative study draws upon phenomenological and narrative methods to understand children’s garden experiences and is synthesized and analyzed through ecological place-based framework and the notion of crystallization. Findings provide an enriched understanding of children’s school garden experiences and perspectives while supporting their developing ecological literacies.

Workshop Series #3: Garden Ecosystems and Soil Health!

The third session of the Workshop Series took place on December 1st 2012. This session mainly focused on understanding garden ecosystems and the concept of soil health. We started the session with discussing the connections between all the elements in a garden ecosystem. We also had a conversation about the cultural significance of soil.

Web of life activity, using Julia's threat that was made from the flax grown in the Orchard Garden

Workshop Series #2: Curriculum Connections

Our second workshop took place on November 17 and we focused on how to connect gardens to current high school and elementary school curriculums and how we can adapt and implement new curriculum that works with gardens.  We were lucky enough to be joined by Stacy Freidman from the Intergenerational Landed Learning Project on the UBC Farm and a group of current and former students from Windermere Secondary School.  Everyone gave really amazing and inspiring presentations.  It was a wonderful learning and sharing experience and everyone left looking foreword to more.

Workshop Series #1: Why school gardens?

On October 27 we welcomed a group of students from the Teacher Education program out to the Orchard Garden for the first of six Workshops about Garden Based Education.  

Developing the Chinese Market Garden/Native Plant Garden

The first bok choi at the Chinese Market Garden.  

 About 2 years ago, the Chinese Market Garden and Native Plant Garden was developed. It is a living experiment in teaching and learning about the largely untold shared history of Chinese migrant communities and Musqueam First Nations people here on the banks of the Fraser River, on unceded traditional Musqueam territory.

The Orchard Garden office in late autumn light

While we were preparing for our Dark Garden Arts event and the TLEF renewal process in the Garden office last week, the late autumn sun burst through, low in the sky, and made everything golden. Even the foosball game was beautiful.

-Susan