Learning at the Garden

Learning at the Garden is our garden-based learning program. Our goals are to enhance the learners’ knowledge, skills, and enjoyment of sustainable food gardening and to attract participation in, and support for, the Garden Path Society’s horticultural, environmental, and garden-based learning programs.

Our programs are primarily for Garden Path Society members, who are from different ethnic, age, and ability groups. Gardeners from other community gardens and people from the community who support community gardening will also be invited to participate in many of the programs.

On August 17, 2010, Barb Hazenveld conducted an informal "Walk-and-Talk" session on Permaculture for garden members. Barb gave an overview of permaculture and some of the principles involved in designing, preparing, and maintaining the garden in order to optimize the benefits from the local terrain, insect pollinators, weather conditions, native plants, soil conditions, rainfall, and other features of the garden.

The Garden Path Society, in collaboration with the Community Garden Resource Network and Green Calgary, conducted a hands-on workshop titled How To Build a Compost Bin System on June 5, 2010. Volunteers, including members of other community gardens, participated in the free Learning at the Garden workshop led by Crystal Blais and Joe Nagy. The new multi-stall bins are made from recycled wooden pallets. Workshop participants disassembled the pallets, screwed boards to their frames, and hauled the bins to the composting site in Cornucopia. The new compost bins were built to contain the organic garden waste from Cornucopia.

The Garden Path Society and the Community Garden Resource Network co-hosted the screening of Dirt! The Movie on May 30, at the Inglewood Community Hall, 1740, 24th Ave. S.E. Dirt! The Movie is an insightful and timely film that tells the story of the glorious and unappreciated material beneath our feet. Inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, Dirt! The Movie takes a humorous and substantial look into the history and current state of the living organic matter that we come from and will later return to.

As part of the 2009 summer programs called Nature Discovery Camps and the Environmental Stewardship Camps offered by the City of Calgary Parks Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, children learned how food is grown organically at the GPS community garden. 6-14 year-old children were assigned a plot in Cornucopia in which to grow food at the GPS community garden. The campers came to GPS for an hour on Monday afternoons and an hour on Friday mornings accompanied by IBS Nature Educators. Preparations for the 2010 program are now underway.

Keep an eye out for the interpretive signs installed throughout the garden.