Mother's Day Plant Sale!
- emilyrheana
- Apr 30
- 3 min read
Join us for Mother's Day on May 11th, from 10am - 2pm for a plant sale, fresh vegetables, tours, and more! This is an excellent opportunity to support the Sandown farmers, ask questions to staff, and see the farm plots. We will be offering 20-minute tours at the top of the hour at 10am, 11am, 12pm, 1pm, and 2pm.
There will be plant starts including native plants, herbs, flowers, and vegetables, tinctures and salves, seeds, fresh vegetables, and more!
We have been busy delivering our Growing Young Farmers program! In April, we hosted 14 classes from 6 different schools including Deep Cove Elementary, Sidney Elementary, Ruth King Elementary, North Saanich Childcare Centre, Brentwood Elementary, and Esquimalt High School. One teacher said, "What a fantastic trip! The children loved it and reviewing the 5 senses in the sensory garden was one of their favourite things." Are you interested in supporting the Growing Young Farmers program? $75 covers the cost of a one-hour field trip for 25 students. $400 covers the cost of the Community Action bus (run on vegetable oil!) for their transportation.
We also participated as a community partner for the University of Victoria Community Engaged Learning 300 class. Thank you to Liva who volunteered 40 hours in the spring semester at Sandown Centre, helping us get the gardens ready for hosting youth, and to the class who came on a field trip and helped out the farmers!
Big News!
We have officially broken ground for the Sandown Farm! To date, as a non-profit with services outlined in our long term agreement with the District of North Saanich, we have been using land for our programs, including for the Regenerative Farmer Program, which provides 1/2 acre parcels to new and young farmers starting their farm businesses, the Community Gardens, and more recently, the teaching and accessible garden for Growing Young Farmers and the Home Gardener Course. After a unanimous vote by Council in November, we are now starting our own Sandown Farm, for expanded hands-on learning opportunities for youth and new entrant farmers, and to provide produce for school meal programs. This year, we will have 1/2 acre in vegetable production to harvest in fall for school meal programs, and 1/2 acre in cover crop and sunflowers. We are extremely thankful for the $50,000 contribution from a private foundation for 2025 to make this happen. Stay tuned to see how the season progresses!
Welcome back to our Co-Op and Canada Summer Jobs employee, Teale, our Community Engagement Coordinator! We are very lucky to have such a dedicated and hard worker on our team. A Biology and Indigenous Studies student, Teale is skilled in many areas, from farming and working with youth to building and fixing, and has a passion for plants and animals. Thank you, Teale!
Want to learn how to be a productive regenerative home gardener? Sign up for our course! There are four sessions remaining on the last Monday of the month from May - August. This course includes handout material. Sign up below for $75/session, or pay what you can!
Until next time, happy growing!
Comentarios