With the vibrant colours of crimson reds, golden yellows, and fiery oranges decorating the garden, we are reminded of how fortunate we are to work with nature on the ancestral, unceded territory of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, giving thanks each day for this gift.
October has been a magical time at the Wickaninnish Community School garden. We’ve celebrated the abundance of our harvest, built a lasagna bed, crafted herbal potions for our skin and senses, and enjoyed the rich flavours of everything growing in our garden. This month has been a feast for the eyes and taste buds!
Have you ever eaten lasagna? Of course you have! It’s a delicious mix of layers—cheese, veggies, and noodles. Now imagine creating a “lasagna” for the soil, building layers that will nourish our plants for seasons to come. Our students have been hard at work creating lasagna beds, not with pasta, but with layers of organic materials that enrich the soil.
In our garden, we’ve been learning how nitrogen and carbon work together to create healthy, rich soil. Nitrogen comes from materials like fresh grass clippings or kitchen scraps, while carbon comes from dry leaves, straw, and cardboard. Using two parts carbon to one part nitrogen, we’ve spent the month building these beds. With squeals and delight we have collected bunny poo, newspaper clippings, coffee grounds, corn husks, pumpkin rind, egg shells, straw, lint from our driers, comfrey leaves, wood ash, leaves and seagrass to create our 14 layer bed. We topped it off with chicken compost and topsoil that was donated to us.
This has become a wonderfully fun learning experience for students in all grades, understanding how the balance of nitrogen and carbon helps create fertile soil. And guess what? We even found worms already making their homes in the beds! These hardworking creatures are a great sign that our lasagna bed is on its way to becoming thriving little ecosystems.
October was also filled with celebration as we hosted our annual Harvest Festival. The garden became a hub of activity with students and families participating in a baked apple pie contest, carving pumpkins, pressing fresh apple cider, all while enjoying live music of fiddle and guitar. We also sold delicious homemade apple pies slices and warmed our bellies with donated squash soup from Wolf in the Fog, enjoyed by everyone.
Have you ever seen kiwi that look like tiny grapes? These little wonders, called hardy kiwis, are packed with flavour and have been a sweet treat for everyone in the garden. We have been eating them all month long as we have had our best harvest yet!
Our Intergenerational Garden Club have also been busy enjoying butternut and acorn squash soups, paired with freshly baked bread made from wheat berries this month harvested from local island farms! Have you ever seen a wheat berry? The students were fascinated to learn all about how they're harvested and processed into flour. They had an opportunity to do so with our little coffee grinder.
Miss Morris’s Grade 7 class, along with our Sensational Seniors, have been working on something special each Thursday. They have been exploring the science behind how scent affects the brain. Did you know scents can trigger emotions and memories? We smelled lavender oil and eucalyptus soap, then burned a little rosemary, sage, sweet grass, and bay leaf to find our favourite scents. We wrapped our freshly harvested herbs and created bundles to sell at the markets.
We also harvested all the rosemary, sage, oregano, and thyme from our food forest, dried them, and bought sea salt to make herb salts for cooking. But why do we use these different salts? Salt not only enhances the flavours of herbs and spices, but it also acts as a preservative, helping the herbs maintain their potency over time. Did you know we could collect salt right from our own coastline? Here on the west coast, we can walk out our front door to the Pacific Ocean, where we could gather seawater and explore the traditional methods of salt collection—letting the sun and wind naturally evaporate the water to reveal pure sea salt. Some of us have been lucky to find it at Mackenzie Beach on the rocks. Delicious! By combining sea salt with our herbs, we’ve created a versatile seasoning that brings out the best in any dish. Keep an eye out for these unique homemade items at the Christmas market—they make perfect holiday gifts!
October has truly been a month of following our noses to discover the world around us. From exploring the scents of herbs in our garden to learning how these aromas affect our brain, it’s been a sensory journey into the wonders of nature.
As we wrap up October, we’re preparing for more exciting activities in the months ahead. Next month, we will be planting garlic for a summer harvest and digging up our potatoes. We’ll also be building a cozy winter home for our red wigglers, who have worked hard enriching our soil and deserve a warm spot for the colder months.
Thank you for being part of our garden’s journey! See you in the garden.
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