Our project began at the high school. The students there, along with some adult help, built four garden Beds for Bella Coola Elementary. After they were construction, they were brought down to Bella Coola Elementary. One weekend a few PAC parents and a few kids helped filled the first foot of the boxes with donated rich farm manure.

Because our school has no outside water source, we planted the beds close to the neighbouring

Community Thrift Shop and Community Centre. They generously offered access to their outside water sources, and all we needed now was a long hose.

experimental Planting

The plan was to plant potatoes before the end of the year so that when we come back in the fall, we can dig up our food. Parents donated seed potatoes, and a trip to the local Nursery resulted in the donation of some ‘experimental’ plans.

At our Annual Fun Day, the garden began to take form. The Students mixed in some purchased potting soil with our donated material and began planting potatoes. Parents donated hand tools and hoses for the event. We will still have to acquire a school set in the fall. It was entertaining to guess some of the plants that were donated before we planted them. We were lucky to experiment with pumpkin, watermelon, corn, cantaloupe and a few herbs. Bella Coola has a Short growing season, so it will be fun to see if we can grow all of these fun plants.

Our next steps are to find a volunteer to water throughout the summer and plan for how we are going to use our food at the school. There were a lot of votes for French Fries and Poutine!