I have sent a proposal to the 'Chairman' of the school (not Mao), Dr.Francis Pang about the benefits of starting a school garden on our campus at ISNS. I sent it the first week of school, and heard back from him within a week with an 'all systems go'! All I have to do now is plan and organize what will be needed for materials and supplies to get us started.

I am scared/nervous about taking this on in some ways. Excited mostly, but I am worried that we're totally going to blow it with the seeds, and if they make it to plants, blow it with the plants. I've been spending most of my spare time researching how to start particular types of seeds and sites on school gardens. I found the following site to be particularly helpful: www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0218e/a0218e00.HTM. It's got over 200 pages that outline the process of planning and implementing this sort of project. The most helpful part is the horticultural fact sheets that provide information on helpful and harmful insects, how to encourage and repel them, companion gardening, crop rotation, harvesting and conserving foods, healthy and unhealthy plant characteristics, etc.

I introduced the idea to my Grade 12 Environmental Science class today and they (all 6 of them) seemed really enthusiastic about it and couldn't believe that we're actually starting a real garden at school! This week, I plan to bring them outside to survey our area, and I have given them a little research project to get them thinking about what they would like to plant, how we could design the garden, the materials we will need to accomplish this, and the tasks we will need to delegate to make it all come together.

I also spoke to our awesome Art teacher, Jessica Chapman, about getting her Art classes involved by making signs, mosaic art, or whatever else they can come up with to add some style to our little area.

I'd like to come up with a way to collect rain-water so we don't have to use so much, but I guess focusing on getting the project off the ground...well, into the ground, is the best bet right now.