École Provencher Gardens
Submitted by: Suzanne Simpson
École Provencher has gardens once again! In the early 1906 Brother Joseph Fink established gardens out front and split the large space into one garden to grow fruits and vegetables and the other garden to grow flowers. In 2023, between the shade of the giant elms, the shadow of the building itself and the presence of a parking lot, gardening on the north side was no longer viable.
Figure 1. Provencher School. https://readreidread.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/ecole-provencher-300-
avenue-de-la-cathedrale-winnipeg/
We knew that having a garden at Provencher would provide excellent hands-on learning opportunities for students and allow them to explore themes of sustainability, food security and life-cycles. So we decided to proceed with the project but this time, place the gardens in the back of the school where they would receive ample light and be easily accessible by the gardening hose. Our project started with the planning stages in early 2023 when a group of like-minded teachers gathered to apply for funding and discuss next steps. We were thrilled when we discovered that MAME had committed $1000 towards our goal of re-establishing gardens at École Provencher.
Students were invited into the process in mid-march and helped by selecting they types of plants they would like to see in our garden, by planting seeds and by caring for the seedlings during the early spring. They took turns watering our little tomatoes and milkweed plants. We also contacted the Louis Riel Arts and Technology Center and were grateful that teacher Richard Pharand agreed to build garden boxes with his students for us. They were delivered in late May and the grade 3/4s helped shovel the soil from the enormous mound into our new garden beds.
As of the writing of this article, we have transplanted the warm season plants and sowed seeds. We have planted tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, beans, lettuce, chives and one very large pumpkin. We purchased trowels, gloves, seeds and a special hose nozzle to help us care for the plants are they grow. It's hard to imagine that gardens have been absent from the school yard at École Provencher for over a hundred years. Thanks to the tremendous efforts of the Grade 2, and 3/4 classes, as well as the teacher planning committee and the parent volunteers who will help us during the summer months, the Provencher Gardens are hopefully now here to stay!