As the children happily dig in the earth, she provides a running commentary -– and lots of good-natured bantering -– on everything from the advantages of planting rotating crops to the nutritional benefits of Dinosaur kale and how it came by its name (“It grows big and bumpy and green like a dinosaur”).

Using school gardens as a teaching tool is part of a growing trend in Canada and worldwide to green schoolyards by converting asphalt and concrete into vegetated areas. “Bringing nature and natural processes to the schoolyard gives students an opportunity to touch and see, which is a much richer experience than sitting inside listening as we show pictures,” says Elaine Alexander, the principal at Withrow. The school's 600 junior kindergarten to Grade 6 students have been learning valuable lessons about nature and environmental stewardship in their outdoor classroom since the garden officially opened in June 2006.

The idea for Withrow's Spider Web Garden was first conceived two years ago by the school's greening committee and Wanda Georgis, coordinator of the committee. “I'm not much of a gardener,” she says, laughing, “but I thought the kids needed to be more connected to the earth, and the best way to do that is through hands-on activities. Kids value the work they do with their hands.”

How a school garden grows
Her first step was to approach Evergreen (a nonprofit environmental organization that provides help to schools across the country undertaking greening projects) for a design consultation. Jane Hayes, Evergreen's food garden associate, suggested the school move away from standard garden rows, which don't hold children's attention, to radiating beds with a teaching semicircle. A parent volunteer who is a landscape architect worked with the greening committee and the students to come up with a unique spiderweb design -– hence, the garden's name. “Part of the attraction for the kids is the nature-based design,” says Georgis. “Kids love a theme they can identify with.”

Evergreen held two teaching workshops at the school to get the project up and running. The Growing a School Food Garden session taught participants how to double dig the garden (the top is dug with a spade and the bottom with a fork to incorporate organic matter) to prevent weeds from settling in. A second workshop focused on laying out the spiderweb design. Students worked alongside their teachers and parents, plotting, digging, planting and fertilizing. “The students play a big part in what goes into the garden,” says Hayes. “This is a fairly diverse community, and we try to reflect that in what we plant, whether it's okra, African callaloo, yams or tatsoi.” Many of the approximately 20 varieties of vegetables planted were grown from seed in the students' classrooms the previous winter. “Most of our kids have lived in the city all their lives,” says Alexander. “They don't know where a tomato comes from. It's one thing to see it in a book or in the grocery store and another to actually watch it grow from seed.”

Funding for the garden came from a Toyota Evergreen grant for $1,200 and a gift certificate from Home Depot for about $1,000. Withrow's Home and School Association contributed an additional $1,000 to provide an honorarium for a gardening coordinator. The five seating stones in the garden were donated, and the colourful murals and artwork on the garden fence were compliments of the school gardening club and an enthusiastic Grade 3 class. “It's a lovely setup,” enthuses Kirsten Johnston, the Grade 4 French immersion teacher. “The kids can sit on the stones, look out over the garden and talk about what they're about to do there.”

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