More videos on community impact of Orchard Garden alumni & programs

Hi everyone. Here are links to the six short videos we've produced so far. Hope you enjoy them!
Orchard Garden alumni:
1) Djamila Moore & the Garden of Wonders

2) Marc Schutzbank & Fresh Roots at Van Tech

3) Alison Krahn & work with the Vancouver School Board

4) Kate Petrusa & curating at the BC Farm Museum

Orchard Garden programs:
5) Teacher education workshops

6) Arts in the garden workshop

The videos were made by Vancouver filmmaker Michael Louw with UBC producer Susan Gerofsky and additional camera by Don Miernecki.

Links to additional resources from the films:
(1) As noted earlier, another film about the Abernethy School Kitchen Garden featuring Djamila Moore can be found here, and there is also a US National Public Radio (NPR) podcast about the garden at http://gardenofwonders.org. The Abernethy Garden of Wonders website is here: http://gardenofwonders.org.

(2) Fresh Roots Urban Farm Society's website is at http://freshrootsurbancsa.wordpress.com, and I understand they are making a film about their work now too!

(3) The Vancouver School Board's Green Schools site is at http://www.vsb.bc.ca/green-board-gardens-and-food

(4) Reviews of Kate's exhibit, Handmade to Handheld, can be found here:
<http://www.agriculturemorethanever.ca/telling-fraser-valleys-ag-story-from-past-to-present/#.Uo0E06X3BlL>, <http://www.compostdiaries.com/2013/09/22/bc-farm-museum/>

(5) Here's a link to a one-page fact sheet about the UBC Orchard Garden from April 2013.

(6) Participating artists include Mind of a Snail Compost Modern Shadow Puppetry, Sharon Kallis and the Urban Weavers Studio, Ben Pfeiffer, Orkestar Slivovica and Tiddley Cove Morris Dancers& Musicians

Orchard Garden alumni videos

Please check out three amazing videos of two of our fantastic The Orchard Garden alumni, Djamila Moore and Ali Krahn!

The first two were made by The Orchard Garden with Michael Louw:
Djamila: http://vimeo.com/78563019
Ali: http://vimeo.com/78563020

This one was sent to us by Djamila and was made by Abernethy School in Portland about their School Kitchen Garden program:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2gWk0Jj1UA&feature=youtu.be

We have more videos by Michael Louw in production, so please stay tuned.

Invitation to important meeting: Nov 6

Please join us for an important strategizing meeting on the future of the Orchard Garden, UBC’s student-directed teaching & learning garden! The meeting will be on November 6 from 4-6:30pm in the Lillooet Room, I.K. Barber, light refreshments included. To register, please go to: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/9019085327/eorg or email theorchardgarden.info@gmail.com for more information.

Farewell harvest celebration

On Wednesday, October 16^th we had our Farewell Harvest Celebration at the Orchard Garden. It was a beautiful day filled with food, friends, fun activities, speeches and music. Amidst the garden, laughter and great conversations dominated the day as well as the sound of live music performances by Susan Gerofksy and Brian Jones. No one will forget the fragrant smell of brewing freshly picked garden herbal teas (planted earlier this year by student teachers!), which was later replaced by the pungent smell of pressing fresh orchard garden apples (harvested by student teachers at our recent workshop) into juice.

Here are some of the highlights of the Harvest Celebration:

Heart-felt speeches from the Dean of Land & Food Systems, Murray Isman, and the Department Head for Curriculum & Pedagogy, Peter Grimmett. Great live music performance throughout the day (Susan Gerofsky & Brian Jones)

Freshly harvested garden kale and kohlrabi “massaged” salads as well as many other delicious foods

More speeches (including Susan Gerofsky, Julia Ostertag, Andrew Riseman)

Prayer flag painting with wishes for the garden

Apple Pressing Station!

Although we were sad to say goodbye to the Garden site as we know it, we were also excited about creating a new future and memories at the next Orchard Garden site!

Fog, fall, and failure

My dissertation writing days have begun in earnest now - days spent writing, reading, and sitting inside. Out in the garden, fall and fog transform the space into a mysterious world. It is hard to come to terms with things falling apart but even this has its own beauty.

This morning, two graduate students from an Environmental Education course met me in the foggy garden to plan their class visit next week.

"We don't have anything like this garden at our university in China," the one student commented.

"Well, we won't much longer either," I replied with sad, resigned laughter.

The final stage of my installation based PhD research project, Threads sown, grown & given was to explore the ideas and practices around gift giving, in education and in relation with land. The webs we spun as gifts in March 2013 are slowly collapsing but most still hang, bejewelled with fog dew. My hope now is to carry the energy of the garden and this installation series forward into my dissertation writing. A difficult hope that is sure to fail. But failure, it turns out, is one of the themes of my dissertation I have slowly grown to appreciate: "Just as any human enterprise is defined by what it excludes, it is a culture's failures - quickly forgotten, repressed, buried away - which have the most to say about that culture's beliefs and values" (Antebi et al., eds., 2008, p. 12).


--Julia Ostertag, PhD Candidate, EDCP

[Please search "installation" on this blog for more posts related to my research project. Comments are also always welcome!]

Goodbye harvest celebration October 16

Since 2005, students have been gardening, teaching, and learning in The Orchard Garden behind the MacMillan building on the UBC campus. In 2014, however, construction will begin on the site and the garden will have to move either to a temporary or permanent home elsewhere.

Please join us in saying goodbye to a vibrant, lively, and profoundly significant aspect of our campus landscape in our third and final annual Harvest Celebration at The Orchard Garden on October 16 from 1:00pm-3:00pm.

Students, staff, faculty, family, friends, alumni are all welcome. There will be food, apple cider pressing, music, speeches, garden tours, and more!

RSVP: theorchardgarden.info@gmail.com

Summer Camps at the Orchard Garden

For three weeks this summer, the Orchard Garden is hosting the FUN Society's Summer Camps. they provide fun filled days for kids ages 6-16, and wanted to share their summer with us. Last week, we had our first group out, and played 20 Questions, where kids guessed which vegetable was taped to their back by asking friends for clues. They loved it - especially because they could eat the surprise veggie afterwards!

Next, we had a scavenger hunt throughout the garden, where campers looked for each plant in the garden, and tried their best to name each one. The sprinklers were one that day, so there was an added bonus when searching the greenery :) 

We had a great day, and are looking forward to the next batch of campers next week! Stay tuned.