Karin - I think it's great that you want to start a community garden at your daughter's school. What city do you live in? There are quite a few community gardens already in existence in Vancouver and other cities in BC. You can find out about some of them at www.cityfarmer.org and at www.vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook. A great community garden to go and have a look at is Strathcona Community Garden on Prior Street at Hawkes in Vancouver. I think it is the largest in the city and very well established. They have communal orchards, beehives and lots of individual plots. I have a plot at the Arbutus Victory Gardens which are on East Boulevard in Vancouver, between 49th and 57th. I'll bet the kids at your daughter's school would love to learn about gardening. I wish you the best of luck with your project. Keep us posted, okay?

Check on the web for the Edible Schoolyard Project.

Also have a look at evergreen.ca

You might check out this one:

www.biodiversityonline.ca/schoolgrounds

There are quite a few photos of schools in Canada.

Good luck!

Hi, The original post about starting a school community garden is quite old, so I thought I'd re-post on the topic, and see about interest in this. I'm relatively new to north Georgia, and am still working out my personal culture shock! Nonetheless, I have always started a garden at every school where I've taught, and am looking at the various possibilities at my new school. Many of our families are low-income, with some in severe poverty. Our school neighborhood is reasonably well-kept, with many families in single or double dwellings, and some in apartments. As many of our families are illegal immigrants, there is a great deal of transiency, a potential problem to a successful garden, as I see it. I'm also wondering how to minimize vandalism problems...or at least reduce access to the garden to those from the school community who are actually working on it, as opposed to a free-for-all where anyone can come get the produce. I'd like to see this build a "sense of place" for newcomers to our country, and to combat hunger and improve nutrition, yet am unsure how to overcome the above issues... Thanks for responding!

First of all, to learn about how many other school gardens have gotten started, go to kidsgardening.com, which is a part of the National Gardening Association. They have a school garden registry with information on thousands of school gardens in US & Canada.

Regarding vandalism: this is a problem that most community gardens deal with at some time. It may be just a minor problem, or major... I have seen quite a few community gardens across the country and some are fenced with the individual gardeners having keys...other gardens insist on being open to the public at all times. It all depends your particular group, and area.

For more information on community gardens, go to the American Community Gardening Association website: www.communitygarden.org They have a very valuable listserve (email list) that you can join if you are so inclined.

School gardens are diverse--from one teacher having a small plot for their classroom, to whole school projects that are grant funded. Also have seen homeschool gardens.

In my opinion, getting kids gardening at school (or home) is the best way to get them to learn to value soil.

Here is a link that might be useful: National Gardening Association