A double-double black magic kale, please!

Five-year-olds don’t always want to eat their vegetables. But when they’ve spent time exploring a schoolyard garden and picking their own, eating vegetables is suddenly exciting. Call it a “Salad Celebration,” and orders for a “double-double black magic kale” start rolling in.

More than 160 children and parents a week enjoyed summer activities hosted by Green Thumbs this year at Winchester and Lord Dufferin Public Schools. Celebrating local food in our downtown eastside community meant trying new textures and flavours as part of learning how to identify edible plants and understand what makes them healthy for us. “I am a carrot,” said one 6-year-old, when told that he is what he eats. “I can always find this type of root in my fridge!”

Ecosystem learning

Healthy food grows best in a healthy ecosystem, where biodiversity can thrive. Investigating worms and insects and how they build their homes in the Green Thumbs gardens was another popular summer activity. “I am certain that we are growing little green thumbs and a healthy community that appreciates the local environment,” said Food and Garden Educator, Ivanna Prots. “I believe we are raising the next generation to solve environmental problems.”

“I hope we can do the same program again next year,” one teacher wrote following a day in the garden. But one  child said it best: “I would like to stay with Green Thumbs forever!”

Green Thumbs is deeply grateful to our 2014-2015 Food and Garden Educator, Ivanna Prots. As a Master of Science in Botany and Zoology with 10+ years of experience working with students of all ages and learning styles, Ms. Prots brought a respectful and empathetic teaching style and broad-based knowledge of environmental issues relating to soil, plants, animals, and insects to our garden and greenhouse programs. Experienced in both curriculum design and delivery for large and small groups, she is particularly gifted in using garden-and-art-based learning to open windows for students with special needs, including those with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Ivanna Prots is off on new adventures, and we wish her the very best!

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Honey Pot Herbals – New Cross-Promotion with GTGK

Check out this amazing online small business making beautiful personal care products with fine imported and native ingredients. We love Joanne’s soaps and lotions: we tried the Patchouli-Orange Soap and the Sweetgrass Lotion – can’t get enough! Next year, we’ll grow some herbs for Joanne (she got a chuckle out of getting urban surplus to her country home). And if you use the coupon code GTGK1234 when you buy online, we get 5% of the sale! Thanks to Registered Herbalist Joanne Kewageshig for including us in her business! Read more on our website here.

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A Life Change

Food is something that is important to our well being as a necessity of life but is often not paid attention to.  I was born and raised in the city of Toronto and grew up thinking I knew everything about food and where it came from.  Little did I know that people around me and myself barely scraped the tip of the iceberg.

Growing up as a kid I had to be cautious around food due to my sensitivities and allergies.  It didn’t help that my mom would make sure I didn’t eat foods I haven’t eaten before which can be a potential allergen.  As I hit my teenage years I started to explore other foods with the support of my sister who motivated me to try new foods and to not limit myself.  With the benefits of exploring new foods there was consequences that came with it and it ended up in me lying in a stretcher while paramedics hoisted me up into their ambulance van.

During my senior years in high school I experienced a wake up call at the dentists office where I received 6 fillings in my top front row.  This is where I chose to cut out most of the foods I was eating like chocolate, candy, chips and soda.

Over a period of two and a half years, I’ve made a huge transformation in the foods I eat to assist my healthy lifestyle.  All I wanted 2 years ago was to feel better about myself, improve my asthma and find alternatives to my allergies so I didn’t feel like I’m missing out on anything.  With these goals, I’ve come a long way with doing my own research and purchasing whole foods and snacks without preservatives and additives.  The only problem I have now is the fact that I am limited on finding healthy food that is safe for me and is sustainable.

Also the opportunity last year to work with Green Thumbs and Youth Voices helped me be more aware of food security issues in St. James Town and fresh local food at farmers markets.  Now I enjoy walking into health food stores and organic markets because I feel like I am not only doing a favor for my body with high quality food but I’m also doing a favor for the environment.  Another thing people don’t realize is that by investing in high quality food now, we can limit the medical expenses in the future.

In the present, I have made a huge impact on what my parents purchase and bring home.  With my knowledge I have been able to educate them about certain nutrient dense foods and proper food preparation.  Now I find my mom buying organic carrots and organic spinach and cooking with nothing but extra virgin coconut oil.  Even though my parents don’t agree with everything I tell them I’m glad they support me in my future endeavors.  With all this previous experience, I’m excited to attend Ryerson University for Nutrition and Food in the fall to really learn in depth.  I’ve always had a stomach for good food and a thirst for knowledge.

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Toronto District School Board Food and Grounds Tour Review

Meghan the intern here again, bursting at the seams to talk to you about one of my latest adventures!  As a student whose academic background is based in Nutrition and Dietetics, I have experienced a steep learning curve when it comes to topics like urban agriculture and environmental sustainability.  Being introduced to these ways of thinking has actually been one of the things that I have valued most about my practicum; every day, I’m learning how to see issues through multiple lenses.  My most recent experience as a participant at the Toronto District School Board Food & Grounds Tour was an excellent opportunity for me to use my newly acquired knowledge and relate it back to my own area of expertise.  Since I am particularly fascinated by the role that schools play in child nutrition and health, this tour was a very effective way for me to see how theory is put into practice.

My experience at Green Thumbs and my interest in nutrition meant that I was particularly excited to see the food-producing gardens on the tour.  Bendale Business & Technical Institute was an incredible example of how a food system can be an integral part of student education.  In a matter of 4 or 5 years, Bendale has established productive gardens that teach more than just agriculture. The students sharpen their business skills by setting up a market with the produce they grow, which has been extremely well-received within the surrounding community.  Bendale’s culinary classes also benefit from the gardens as they are beneficiaries of the fruits and vegetables grown in these gardens, thereby giving “local foods” a whole new meaning!  Having grown up in an era where cooking and gardening were overlooked as essential skills to teach in the classroom, it is encouraging to see that their value is being recognised and successfully being reintroduced into the student curriculum.

Check out all the tomato plants growing at Bendale!

One of the most interesting things that I learned about on the tour is that some schools have been able to establish a nature study area on the grounds of their schools.  Our tour guide, Bruce Day (the TDSB Grounds Team Leader), spoke about how these nature areas negate the need to “ship the students out of the city” for field trips.  These areas allow students to get a first-hand look at the animals and plants that they talk about in school and in doing so, illustrate how connected we are to our environment.  Showing the children that there is wildlife in their very own urban backyards diminishes the idea that we are separate from nature and advocates environmental consciousness.   In my (humble) opinion, this parallels quite nicely with the idea of school food gardens.  Instead of outsourcing produce for school cafeterias, could we not grow this fare in school gardens?  While it would, of course, take more commitment and lots of manpower, the food given to students would be fresher, more nutritious, cheaper for both the school and the students, and – what’s most important – tastier!

Our last stop on the tour was especially exciting because Green Thumbs got to show off our garden at Winchester Public School!  We took the group on the same tasting tour that we show to all of our students and were met with similar cries of enthusiasm and curiosity.  This is what I have privately come to term as the “Green Thumbs Effect”!

Last stop: Sunday waxes poetic about GTGK's work in the Winchester School Garden

I walked away from this tour feeling optimistic and inspired (and that’s something that doesn’t always happen given the current health status of both our population and our ecosystems!).  Seeing the passion that other members of the tour group had for improving awareness of sustainable, healthful environments at the school level made me believe in our ability for change, and reminded me of a quotation I’ve been hearing a lot lately…

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

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School Gardens – What’s Nutrition Got To Do With It?

Greetings everyone – my name is Meghan and I’m an intern student from the Masters of Health Science in Nutrition Communication program at Ryerson University (whew, that’s a mouthful!). I’ve been asked to write a blog entry from the perspective of someone who focuses on the vital role that GTGK plays in child (or anybody’s!) nutrition. I’m really excited to be sharing this with you today!

I have to be honest that I’ve encountered a few looks of confusion when I mention where I’m doing my practicum placement. “Gardening? Really? But what does gardening have to do with nutrition?” has been the prevailing response from friends and family. In short, the answer to this question is, in fact, “Quite a lot!” The obvious connection between gardening and nutrition is the involvement of food. While my expertise lies predominantly in the consumption of food, I have come to GTGK with an interest in learning about what happens to food before we even consider eating it. In a society where we rely on the grocery store rather than the garden for the provision of our food, our connection to what we eat is being lost. In the minds of many, nutrition begins when we purchase our food and ends when we put our forks down. In actuality, nutrition needs to be viewed as a cycle that is beyond putting food in our mouths; it’s a cycle that starts with growing a seed and includes the subsequent cultivation, consumption, and sustainable disposal of the remainders through composting.

I should probably also acknowledge the other, less-than-flattering reaction I get when I tell people about my internship. “But Meghan,” my friends gently inquire, “You don’t have any idea how to garden, do you?” This, I must admit, is the unfortunate truth. When I was about six years old, my mother helped me to plant a small garden in my backyard that contained green beans and cherry tomatoes. This was last time I can remember doing any sort of gardening. Among my peers, this is not uncommon. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of my friends who would describe their gardening experience as anything beyond minimal. This is where an obvious gap lies between children of today and those of previous (healthier?) generations. This, I believe, is where Green Thumbs Growing Kids has the incredible potential to bring gardening back to the life of a child and thereby influence nutritional preferences, choices, and eventual consumption. My six-year-old self ate green beans and cherry tomatoes at every opportunity during that summer I was responsible for my small plot of land that contained them. Today, these vegetables remain some of my very favourites. Coincidence? I think not.

The key here is both exposure and the creation of a connection between a child and the food that they eat. Scientific studies support this, too: providing repeated opportunities to try a variety of fruits and vegetables almost always results in children with a palate for these foods that we assume they don’t like. Most convincing is what I’ve seen in so far during my placement. Students entering the garden will (literally) run to their favourite plants to get a taste. They will often share these favourites with their friends and will curiously investigate other plants in hopes they might find something good to eat. These are the best kinds of observations for someone planning a career in nutrition; in class we often learn about the deteriorating health of today’s society due to poor nutrition, particularly in child populations. Being in the garden, however, allows me to see that we really do have the ability to teach kids about natural, nutritious foods. Green Thumbs Growing Kids’ vision for “a garden in every school” is a very real solution.

Spread the word – together, we can make this happen!

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The urban food-producing ecosystem

It’s important to remember the value of trees in our food-producing landscapes. I remember when Ecoschools first started, feeling like sometimes we were in conflict with the idea of planting more trees on school grounds, because we were thinking about the sun and the annual food plants that need 6-8 hours of it to produce. Other folks were thinking about the need for shade, to cool buildings and children. It just doesn’t seem right to have a conflict about this! We need shade AND sun. So the ideas around ecosystems and permaculture start to make sense in this context.

I think about the urban forest garden this way – there’s a canopy way up high (where the squirrels live and can safely get away from the dogs, only to dig up our seedlings another day). This layer produces the cooling and oxygenated air which we so need in Toronto summers.

Then there’s the understory, which supports fruit-bearing shrubs like elderberry, serviceberry, raspberry, red currant, and other perennials that do well in school gardens. Lots of small fruit – spreading the love.

Finally, on the sunny side of the trees and shrubs, we’ve got the beautiful black soil enriched by compost (and perhaps a leguminous tree, helping to make nitrogen available for the other plants!) in which we grow our sun-loving annuals.

What trees do we want? Well, permaculture ideas tell us that we want maximum yield for minimal input, and more than one benefit associated with each plant or planting. So, Sugar Maple provides shade and sap/syrup in spring. Redbud, (Cercis canadensis) a beautiful native Carolinian species, remains smallish so maybe a good landscape plant for urban areas, but I haven’t seen a lot of it around. Its seeds are edible, and it looks leguminous, so perhaps it is nitrogen-fixing. These are two of the species we’re planting from seed next week, in honour of International Biodiversity Day.

The shrub understory is of great interest to me, and to the birds. It’s a little bit hazardous for the plants to be loved by children, because the shrubs can’t always stand up to that tough love. Elderberry – Sambucus nigra – is not native but it’s way useful. The fruit is loaded with vitamins and anti-oxidants. Last year I made syrup and tincture from the berries, after eating my share fresh out of hand. All winter, whenever I felt a cold coming on, I had either syrup or tincture or both, and never got sick at all. Anyway, it’s an invasive type of plant coming up from the roots, which kind of makes up for the fact that the wood is weak and won’t fight back against kids pulling down the fruiting branches.

I have some extra elderberry cause as I mentioned it is rather invasive… you can let me know if you have a good spot for it and would like to have some. I also have extra seedlings of flowering raspberry, which is a lovely native shrub with a beautiful flower and wildly delicate fruit. The harvest will not make it as far as your kitchen, guaranteed. Let me know at sunday@kidsgrowing.ca if you have a good school garden location for either of these plants.

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Growing Up Together May 13: Digging into healthy snacks and healthy soils

Next Friday! If you’re a teacher or educator there are a couple spots left! Please register. Information is on the flyer below.

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A deliciously warm autumn in the school food gardens

The school food gardens in east downtown Toronto have been blessed with an exceptionally long and warm autumn, making for a lot of harvested greens, fruits and vegetables like mouse melons, tomatoes, ground-cherries, sunberries, peppers, lemon cucumbers, lettuce, beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, okra, coriander, Chinese chives, Tulsi and Genovese basil, dill, bok choy, thyme, and many other varieties by the children.

One of the students new favourite revamped workshops is Nutrition All-Stars. This workshop incorporates harvesting, a fun and competitive nutrition knowledge “game show” challenge, and a food prep component. Children got to make their own homemade salad dressings with herbs from the garden in wide-mouthed mason jars and than taste their creations with greens such as kale from the garden. Each group got to name their salad dressings too. My favourite so far is Magnifique Saladinia Cocktail, which came about because the group members working on the lemon juice, honey, garlic, parsley and chive based dressing could not decide on one name. So combine all three! Amazing!

 

In terms of building, children and youth have taken advantage of this lovely weather to build more garden beds with Henry’s earthblock bricks from Fifth Wind Farm at three locations.

The Grade 7 students from Ms. P’s class constructed another new earth block bed at Winchester P.S., bringing the total number of food beds over 14 at their school, three constructed out of the sustainable sun-dried local material!

At l’école Gabrielle-Roy the grade 5’s built a new bed too, with some adjustment. Students had to stagger the bottom layer, leaving gaps in between blocks, because we were not able to cut a hole in the concrete in order to allow drainage. This week, we had a giant garden overhaul, where the students ranging from kindergarten to grade 6 worked together to add compost and mulch the beds, and secure and water the seedlings (using the spiffy rainwater collector system the hired youth build over the summer) under the cover of the hoop house. They named the hoop house “Petit Allan Gardens”.

Also, children from the Toronto Kiwanis Boys and Girls Club in Regent Park helped build an awesome retaining wall at Riverdale Farm in our after-school program.

Other activities still ongoing: composting (Composters of the Month, Build a Worm Bin Compost Challenge), garden club, seed saving, garlic planting, garden prepping for next spring, and season extension (i.e. growing greens under cover!).

Our garden season extension methods include constructing hoops houses over some of the earthblocks so that we can continue to grow greens all winter long AND get a head start next year!

Green Thumbs was also able to participate at the Eat-In Ontario event in October with various organizations and individuals. 700 GTA students ranging from Kindergarten to Grade 12 participated in various curriculum linked garden, food and environmental workshops in front of Queen’s Park.

Also notable was the first Growing Up Together workshop for educators, a collaborative between Green Thumbs Growing Kids, FoodShare, Toronto Public Health and TDSB EcoSchools. Our first session entitled Tasting the Seasons included workshops on planning a food garden on schoolgrounds, a lesson in food miles, incorporating herbs from the garden into pesto making, green smoothies, food safety in the classroom, garlic planting and etc. Thanks to all the teachers, students and educators that made it!

Other significant workshops: garden clean up at Allan Gardens with the women from the Centre Francophone de Toronto, and a workshop with 20+ youth from UforChange.

All in all a lot of experiential programs encouraging healthy eating, physical activity and local food consumption!

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School gardens and healthier school menus go hand in hand!

Rebecca Jones wrote this great article in Education News Colarado on how introducing healthier school menus is not enough in getting children to eat more healthily and nutritiously.  Researchers at the Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Center for Weight and Health at the University of California at Berkeley found that implementing school food gardens and cooking, and other participatory food related activities, with healthy menu choices in the cafeteria increased children’s intake of healthier fare —- they had a growing appreciation for fresh vegetables and fruit in and out of school! (see the bottom of this post to read the entirety of this article! Or go to the direct link)

I am not surprised. Last week I went to the Cross-Country Kitchen Table Talks at the University of Toronto, put on by the People’s Food Policy Project (Colleen Ross, organic farmer, board member of the National Farmers Union, and farm advocate extraordinaire, was a guest speaker at this event and spoke about the challenges facing farmers in Canada and the vulnerability of our food system.). People across Canada are being encouraged to get together to discuss ideas related to food & public policy development. Discourses at this event were facilitated by Lauren Baker‘s  students taking her food systems course at U of T and framed by the Discussion Papers developed by the PFPP.  I participated in the conversations about ‘Access to Food In Urban Communities’ and ‘Health and Food’. It was interesting to say the least!

At the ‘Health and Food’  table, one woman was arguing for policies banning junk food in schools,  policies forcing restaurants to display the nutritional and caloric value of their menu on their windows, and strict advertising regulations!

I spoke up. I think she might have thought I was disagreeing with her — which wasn’t the case — I just wanted to add to the discourse.  I said that developing and reinforcing a positive food culture, school food gardens being one means to do so, was possibly more conducive into getting people to make healthier food choices, in a non-finger wagging way.

I wanted to point out that having prohibitive regulations wouldn’t necessarily change people’s behaviour — we have plenty of information on what is healthy and what isn’t, but my point was that knowing you needed “500 grams of xxx per day” would not necessarily influence people to take such action.  People know that smoking is bad and causes cancer, but that does not stop people from smoking! Not to say knowing how many calories a bag of chips contains isn’t effective on some level (well I still eat them! In moderation. Sometimes. Chip fiend for life!). I just prefer to take a more pro-active and positive approach when it comes to food.

The joy and sensory experience of growing your own food and getting to harvest and eat it fresh is invaluable, I can’t say that enough! Gobbling handfuls of tomatoes and nibbling on lettuce leaves and kale becomes a naturally learned behaviour when you have a garden in your school and it becomes embedded in the school’s culture, and the minds of children, often trickling into their homes, and the community!

Needless to say it will be interesting to follow the People’s Food Policy Project, and see what the advocacy end outcome will be….

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Article sur le Centre Francophone et le jardin commencé à Allan Gardens

The lovely Candice Nsongo, Community Health Worker at the Centre Francophone de Toronto(CFT), was featured in an article in L’Express, the French language Toronto newspaper. (Suite en Français)

The Centre Francophone de Toronto published a second edition manual on where to  get ethnocultural foods in Toronto, i.e. Répertoire des aliments et épiceries ethnoculturels. This manual was in large produced by the CFT because many of its clients are of  diverse African, Antillean, European and Asian backgrounds, but is also available for all audiences interested in diverse foodstuffs and cuisines.

Candice is one of the principal facilitators of the project, but also a fantastic friend of Green Thumbs Growing Kids. Last year we ran a nutrition workshops with their pre and post-natal mom group, Pas à Pas,  in the Winchester Garden, and this year we helped them start an outdoor garden at Allan Gardens in collaboration with the City of Toronto – Parks and Recreation. This Francophone garden provides a great program space for mothers and their children ranging in age from 3 to 6 — and also provides a lot of fresh and nutritious vegetables!

The following is a more detailed article written by Abbey in both French and English. To read the English version, please click on the link below!

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Le nouveau potager de GTGK est un projet communautaire en partenariat avec « Pas à Pas », le programme de nutrition prénatale du Centre Francophone de Toronto et le service municipal de « Parks and Recreation » de la ville de Toronto. Il est situé à l’arrière du « Children’s Conservatory » de la serre Allan Gardens dans le centre-ville de Toronto. L’objectif de Pas à Pas est d’améliorer la santé des femmes enceintes francophones, vulnérables, récemment arrivées à Toronto et des jeunes enfants. Le programme vise aussi à les sensibiliser à la saine alimentation.

Candice Nsongo, intervenante en santé communautaire-enfance et famille au Centre Francophone de Toronto, s’est adressée à GTGK pour réaliser un jardin communautaire au centre-ville en 2009. L’été dernier, nous avons invité ses groupes au jardin de l’école Winchester pour participer à deux ateliers de compostage et de potager en pot. Ensemble, nous avons fait une demande à Allan Gardens pour créer un potager à l’arrière de la serre où nous conduisons nos programmes de printemps avec les écoles locales. On nous a accordé notre demande de façon provisionnelle en mars 2010 et nous avons commencé à parcourir des catalogues de semences l’hiver dernier pour apprendre ce que nous pourrions faire pousser.

Au printemps, nous avons commencé avec deux plateaux des semis à l’intérieur. Puis, nous les avons transplantés à la fin du mois de mai tout en semant d’autres plantes directement. Pendant ces ateliers, il y avait un peu de théorie et du travail pratique. Tout en discutant autour d’un repas, les participantes ont partagé leurs expériences de l’agriculture dans leur pays d’origine en comparant les pratiques agricoles des différents climats.

Ce nouveau jardin pour enfants croît merveilleusement, exhibant trois variétés de gombo (okra), le légume le plus populaire pour les participantes de Pas à Pas, ainsi que des concombres, haricots, piments, tomates, fines herbes et des fleurs comestibles. Bien sûr, nous n’avons pas oublié les plantes favorites des écoliers : l’oseille (« feuille aigre ») et la stévia (« feuille sucrée »). Le programme continue pendant l’été et les participantes amènent leurs enfants, car ce sont les vacances scolaires. Des bénévoles du Centre Francophone de Toronto ont aussi participé au jardinage et à l’arrosage.

Curtis Evoy, chef d’équipe de « Plant Production and Greenhouse Operations » à Allan Gardens, qui a joué un rôle-clé en avançant ce projet (et aussi en ajoutant généreusement une grande quantité de nouvelle terre sur le site!) a dit récemment que notre jardin était une attraction supplémentaire pour les visiteurs de la serre. Nous espérons inspirer beaucoup de monde avec ces plantes alimentaires qui sont à la fois belles et utiles, et qui poussent merveilleusement au cœur du centre-ville. La bonne nourriture est vraiment possible!

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