Exciting News for Garden 2 Table Guelph!

Garden 2 Table is thrilled to announce that we have received funding  from the Harshman Foundation to our program!!!

The Harshman Foundation shares in our passion of teaching children about sustainable food choices and the importance of eating well. Our partnership with the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming is what makes our program so successful, through a generous supply of fresh organic vegetables we are able to show how delicious farm-to-table eating can be! This funding will help us grow in the years to come, by supporting the GCUOF and the Garden 2 Table program, and giving us the opportunity to reach more children and other members in our community with access to better resources.

On behalf of the Garden 2 Table Team this year I would like to extend our warm gratitude to the Harshman Foundation for their generous donation to the G2T program. Our team is excited for the opportunities that the support of the Harshman Foundation will allow our future G2T team members to become even greater leaders in our community.

As for this year, our team is looking forward to our upcoming College Royal event as well as our last few Outreach events. We are also excited to start giving a helping hand to the GCUOF with some seeding as the weather slowly starts to warm up! Stay tuned for more information!


Yours in Food,

G2T Team 2013/2014

Fall harvests in the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming

Some beets growing in the garden!

This fall the Garden2Table team had more visits than ever to the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming! Steph and Steven did an incredible job ensuring that all the students had a great time harvesting vegetables from the garden then bringing them up to the cooking labs to cook up a feast.

If you have never been down to the GCUOF you need to go and check it out at some point! We cannot emphasize enough that we could not have this program without the garden and we are so incredibly thankful and proud of the work that Martha Gay and her team do.

During the fall we brought 95 students through the garden, here's a quick recap of our visits:

On Thursday October 3rd, we brought 24 grade 4 students from Jean Little Public School to the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming. We had a tour of the garden and then harvested some fresh vegetables! The kids then joined us in the cooking lab where we helped them prepare kale chips, butternut squash fries and roasted beet and goat cheese salad. The kids all took home something they harvested and were excited to tell their parents how much they loved kale!

Some new favourites- butternut squash fries & kale chips

On Wednesday October 9th we had 26 grade 7 students from St. Ignatius Catholic School in the garden. We harvested turnips, radishes, carrots, celery then washed and chopped them up and ate them right in the garden! We were then joined by Chef Shea Robinson who lead us in a dressing demo and taught us how to make some great dips to have with our veggies.

Quick tour of the garden before harvesting

Chef Shea helping us making dressings and dips for our veggies

Wednesday October 16th was our biggest G2T day! We brought 45 grade 2ʼs to the garden and then back to the kitchen lab. In the lab we were joined by Chef Erika who helped us make individual pizzas topped with fresh veggies from the garden that the students had harvested themselves!

Getting excited to be in the garden!

Learning from Bruce in the greenhouse

Searching for frogs in the pond

Back in the lab, ready to make pizzas

Some of our delicious pizzas!

Hopefully this has given you a little sneak peak of the garden visits we had in the fall. It definitely kept us busy but we were so happy that Steph and Steven were able to organize all these visits which allowed us to reach out to so many children. Thanks to all the guest chefs for helping us in the kitchen, the other student volunteers, and huge thank you to the GCUOF for all their help, allowing us to use their garden and for all the delicious vegetables! 

2012: A Year in Review

This year was an amazing year for Garden2Table. A new team formed, establishing new goals and bringing together people passionate about food and education. We all come from a different background, and each of us holds a different relationship with food. The goal of Garden2Table - at it's core - is to help people, youth especially, build a relationship with food. 

The fall semester was busy with frequent visits to the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming and PJs in the Atrium. Students got the chance to see food in it's raw form, straight from the earth. They had a chance to harvest and taste fresh vegetables, fruits, and berries and learn how to make simple, delicious snacks. Each student was also given the opportunity to create their own cookbook with the recipes they tried and tested that day to bring home to their families.

With the semester coming to a close, we hosted a Charity Dinner in celebration of what has been accomplished so far. On Sunday November 18th, Garden2Table partnered with several leaders in Wellington counties gastronomic community. The charity dinner, "Gastronomy through Generations", was a huge success. Guests filled PJs in the atrium to share an experience we will never forget. Food has brought our community together through the recognition of the importance of food sustainability and children's growing relationship with food. The evening celebrated the success of brining 1000 children through Garden2Tables community outreach program. The program brings local students to the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming to learn where food comes from, learn about land and harvesting and how to prepare healthy snacks with the vegetables they harvest from the garden.

Local ingredients were used to make a fantastic meal prepared Court Desautels and John David, Simon Day, the Screaming Avocado, and several student volunteers from the University of Guelph along side our own Garden2Table team.

 

The continued support of the community is what allows us to bring students to the garden and engage them in the food they eat everyday. 

2013 will be a great year for all of us, and the Garden2Table program. Our next big project is College Royale; check back to find out more as March approaches! 

GCUOF

Check it out! 

Recently, a video was made about our friends at the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming (GCUOF). The GCUOF plays an integral role in our Children's Outreach Program. With the farm available to us, we can bring the students to the farm to help them learn, hands on, about where their food really comes from.

We will be back at the GCUOF this Friday with our last school visit for the fall. 

Yours in food,

Emily and the Garden2Table team 

Mother Teresa Catholic Elementary School @ Garden2Table

Visiting us from Cambridge on Friday was Mother Teresa Catholic Elementary School. Sixty Grade 4 students along with their teachers and some parents got a tour of the GCUOF and joined us at PJ's in the Atrium. During this visit, the students learned how to harvest leaks and carrots, clean up bulbs of garlic, and taste raspberries right from the bush! 

Understanding where the food comes from is one of our biggest focus areas. The most rewarding aspect is when the students start to make connections such as the seeds from a sunflower can go in the ground to make 10s of new sunflowers. Getting them involved at a young age only lets them develop their own interest and think about what they are eating at the dinner table, on the way to practice, and at school at lunch. 

When we got back to the kitchen, the excitement really began. This week we made kale chips (a huge success!), kale dip, pita chips, sweet potato and leak pizza, granola, and hummus. For many, it was a first time trying out most of the ingredients. We helped them create recipe books with all the recipes of the snacks they created to bring home to their families and try them again. 

Next week we have a smaller group of 30 joining us from another grade 4 class. 

Don't forget to check back! 

Garlic cleaned up after harvest, ready for snacks in the kitchen!

St. Ignatius visits UofG and the GCUOF

October 5th marked Garden2Table's first visit to the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming. 60 grade 7 students from St.Ignatius visited the GCUOF to learn about where vegetables come from, how to plant seeds, and to taste berries, tomatoes, and flowers.

After visiting the garden, the students joined us at PJs in the Atrium at the University of Guelph to learn how to make snacks with the vegetables they find in the garden. We have them follow simple recipes that they can later make into a recipe book to bring home.

With this group we made pita chips, kale dip, tabouleh, salsa, guacamole and beet chips! Most students hadn't heard of most of these, and were eager to try them out. While the "h" in tabouleh may have thrown off a few, it turned out to be a favourite for most!

Students try edible flowers at the GCUOF

Tomorrow is our second visit, so check back to see how it goes! 

Chris Hadfield P.S. visits the GCUOF with Garden2Table

Garden2Table played host to three Grade 4 classes from Chris Hadfield Public School in Milton in June. The students enjoyed time at the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming (GCUOF), planting watermelon seeds, sunflower seeds, and building a straw path from one end of the garden to the other.

They also harvested heads of lettuce from the greenhouse to taste with the homemade salad dressing they all made with Chef Shea Robinson of Wildcraft Restaurant in Waterloo, ON. Chef Robinson also led the kids in making the world famous Garden2Table granola which they were able to take home with them to share with their families.

One of the classes - Mr. Ford’s 4.2 - had the rare opportunity to spend a morning with beekeeper Paul Kelly at the University of Guelph Apiary (bee yard). Partnering with Chris Hadfield P.S. marks the first time that Garden2Table has worked with a school outside of Guelph - something we hope to do more of in the future.

Stay tuned for more visits this fall!

It's That Time of Year Again!

                                                                              
 'Tis the season to harvest and reap the benefits of hard work! This fall Garden2Table hosted two school visits in the garden, where St. Ignatius of Loyola's grade 7 class and Jean Little school's grade 3/4 class enjoyed digging for heirloom carrots, picking many varieties of tomatoes, gathering ground cherries and even tasting some ripening raspberries! Thanks to the beautiful weather, we have been very fortunate in getting as much produce as possible from what was planted earlier this spring.

Garden2Table would also like to announce a very special partnership with Hellmann's Canada and the "Real Food Movement". Hellmann's has chosen the Garden2Table program to help them support healthy eating and teaching children about eating REAL and LOCAL! You can check out their website at http://www.realfoodmovement.ca/latesttalk/get-informed/the-movement/ and "like" them on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HellmannsCanada?sk=app_125046137587273
Also, if you would like to get information about  volunteering, or learn more about the Garden2Table program, please join our group on Facebook: Garden2Table Guelph! 

St. Ignatius` first visit to the Garden!

St. Ignatius of Loyola School in Guelph came for the first time to help get a start on the garden the first week of June.
Thanks to the beautiful weather, we were able to clear out some of the weeds that accumulated over the winter, get bed ready for planting, and even plant some tiny leeks that had started in the greenhouse.

Before the month ends we will be hosting Jean Little School, to hopefully do some more planting and weeding!
It`s so exciting to see the progress of the fruit and vegetables!
More pictures to come soon!