The neighbourhood grandmothers arrive first because they know that, within the hour, all the spinach, salad greens and parsnips could very well be sold.
Then the teachers start pouring out the doors of David Thompson Secondary School, not wanting to miss out on their chance to shop at the monthly market on a small patch of concrete next to one of the school’s side entrances. The students arrive in pairs and threesomes, a bit more hesitant about their choices but equally determined to get their pick of the produce.
None of them has to ask Scott Bell, who dips into a portable shed to fill more bags of fresh spinach when supplies start to run low, where the produce comes from. They’ve watched it grow on the front yard of the school.
Last summer, half of what used to be the school’s lawn was dug up and planted by Bell and the team of Fresh Roots Urban Farm Society as part of Canada’s first larger-scale market garden project with a school.
“Scott grows the best salad greens and arugula in Vancouver,” says Ilana Labow, Fresh Roots’ co-founder and co-director. The produce that’s grown here and at a similar garden at Vancouver Technical Secondary is enough to pay for Bell’s wages as farm manager. Once a month in fall, winter and spring, and once a week starting in May, he harvests what’s growing on the lawn and sells it at the schoolyard markets, as well as the schools’ cafeterias.
But the garden is more than a source of fresh, organic produce and revenue. There’s a lot of learning that goes on in amongst the rows of beans and lettuce and squash – and not just about vegetable gardening.
Marketing students help spread the word. Photography students learn how to tap into the wonders that a macro lens reveals. English students write poetry there. Film students take the English students’ haiku and create short films, narrated by the poets, to illustrate the haiku. Biology students study plant anatomy.
It’s not just a feel-good experience. The learning opportunities are based on school curriculum. The garden is simply a multi-use outdoor classroom.
And in a neighbourhood where many residents do not speak English, the garden creates its own universal language. Intrigued, and perhaps nostalgic for the home they left behind, neighbours stroll past the garden to watch the progress, asking Bell how to pronounce the various vegetables in English. There’s so much neighbourhood pride in the garden that fencing it in isn’t required; very little produce gets “harvested” in the middle of the night.
“It’s a role model to what the world could look like if we discipline ourselves,” says Labow.
The market garden is at David Thompson Secondary School (1755 E. 55th) every Tuesday at 3pm; it’s at Van Tech (2600 E. Broadway) every Wednesday at 3pm.
