The Nurture youth just completed their second week in the garden, and we are already seeing amazing results and accomplishments worth sharing! This week has all been about gaining confidence, familiarity and cultivating community within each space. Below are some of this week’s highlights!

Kitchener Collegiate Institute’s new garden bed!

On Tuesday, July 9, our Youth in Food Systems partner facilitated a garden bed building workshop. The Kitchener Collegiate Institute (KCI) garden was identified as one of the gardens that really needed some tender love to get the garden space to where the school, teachers, and team imagined it to be. 

We couldn’t have imagined a better effort. Mike, a previous green industries teacher from KCI, led this workshop and highlighted creative ways to imagine and create gardens. This workshop really empowered the team and the attendees to feel for themselves the power of teamwork & to understand what you can accomplish when we come together.

The power of creative solutions

As the youth begin in the gardens this week, there have been a few bumps along the road, but nothing that can’t be fixed with some creative solutions! The Prueter Public School Garden Team was faced with a challenge that their garden is quite aways away from where they have access to a water tap. This team came together and attached a wagon to their bike to tackle this obstacle.

Citizen Science Experiments

Each week, youth gardeners can engage in social science experiments designed to deepen their connection to the garden, to themselves, and to their community. These experiments are divided into two categories: soil experiments and reflective prompts.

This week's soil experiment encouraged the youth to use all five of their senses to explore and discover the characteristics of their garden's soil. By engaging in this hands-on, sensory-rich activity, youth gardeners are not only learning about the physical properties of soil but they are also deepening their connection to the land. As the weeks progress, these experiments are there to assist in growing familiarity and relationships with the garden, reinforcing the importance of observational skills in the garden.

The reflective prompt for this week centered on the theme of cultivating support within the garden environment. Youth were asked to consider various forms of support: support for the plants they are tending, support for themselves in their gardening journey, and support for one another as a community. Through this reflection, youth created visual representations of their personal support networks within the garden. This exercise promotes self-awareness, empathy, and community building, encouraging youth to think critically about the interconnection between all living things in the garden.

This week we have already seen the fruits of the youth’s hard work pay off — harvesting has begun! Stay tuned to see more garden updates as our season progresses.

Learn more at swril.ca/nurture.