Knowlton Academy's school garden still growing strong despite pandemic

School may be out for the summer, but the Knowlton Academy garden is still bursting with life.

Nestled behind the school, the 0.4-hectare oasis is producing cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, berries and kale and dozens of other fruits, vegetables, and flowers even without the students there to tend to them.

In a typical year, the school's 250 students help plant, water, and pick throughout the year.

But this spring, after COVID-19 forced school closures across the province, garden coordinator Jennifer Ruggins Muir was suddenly without her hundreds of helpers.

"This year, with everything that's been going on, normally I would spend two months opening up the garden, planting and working with different classes, and this year that couldn't happen," said Muir, who has had to visit the garden almost daily to water during the recent heat waves.

Muir said she and her husband did a "big push" this spring and were able to get all the planting done, before taking a step back so a teacher could work in the garden with the students who had returned to school in May.

Muir would then check on the garden over the weekend and send a to-do list to the teacher, so children could get down there for at least a few weeks at the end of the school year.

Now, school's out for the summer.

From the raised beds, to the greenhouse, the hoop tunnel and the perennial garden, Muir and her family have been keeping the project thriving during the pandemic.

Started with a seed

The Knowlton Academy garden started with a seed of an idea four years ago, and has since grown to the massive community project that it is today.

In the early days, there were just 14 raised beds, but it now includes countless plants, a BBQ, a fire pit, a pergola, and picnic tables.

Students learn about biology, bugs, and worms when they plant.

And they learn about composting when a local petting zoo donates its manure to beused as fertilizer.

The younger children learn about patterns when they sort the different plants, and many students head to the garden to sketch what's growing there for art class.

They also learn about nutrition and health when their harvest makes its way to the school cafeteria, where the salad bar quickly became a go-to for students.

They even get to snack on the carrots and apples Muir piles onto her wheelbarrow.

"There are kids who, four years ago, wouldn't touch a vegetable, and now it's like I'm mobbed," Muir said. "They can easily rip through 250 pounds of food in a 20-minute recess and leave me with nothing, it's cleaned out, it's done."

The garden coordinator said she tries to stay consistent with who plants what, so children who get their hands in the dirt and seeds in the ground can pick the produce they grow.

The school's youngest students have planted potatoes in an old boat that was donated by a member of the community.

"You can cut [potatoes] into pieces, because each eye will grow into a new plant," Muir explained. "We had kindergarten planting the potatoes in the spring pieces of potato that we had cut up and then they come back in the fall and pick them, and they think it's magic that their piece of potato turned back into a whole potato."

A project for the whole community

Knowlton Academy Principal Renalee Gore said people are often blown awayby the garden, which she called "an amazing gift."

"I never expected that it would develop to be like this," Gore said.

"There are a lot of people who have gardens, and other schools that have gardens," she said. "But this is very special."

Muir said the school garden wouldn't be possible without help from the community.

She said a local grocery store, in the last three years, has donated about 4,500 kilograms worth of produce, and local farms donate countless kilogramsof food, like one that gave the school 500 cucumber and tomato plants.

Gore said it was disappointing when schools had to closeand Knowlton Academy students couldn't do the planting this year.

"That was really sad, because a huge part of opening the garden in the spring is all the classes coming down and planting their parts of the garden," she said. "So hopefully in the fall we'll have the harvest."