Humber is becoming a greener campus and everyone is participating! Humber Sustainability Highlights feature people and departments around the College integrating sustainable practices. This month’s focus is the Greenhouses and the Locavore Garden run by the Humber Arboretum and Centre for Urban Ecology.
It is the way of biology: all plants on Earth begin as little seedlings. Valeria Wuschnakowski, Humber’s Greenhouse Technician, and her team of work study students from the Landscape Technician program start gardening by planting seeds at the College’s Greenhouses. As the plants become bigger, some are transferred over to the Locavore Garden in the Arboretum.
Whether it’s the plants or the setting, the Locavore Garden has many purposes.
- The Landscape Technician and Horticulture Apprenticeship programs use the garden as a living classroom to identify edible plant species.
- The Culinary Management students use produce from the garden for their culinary labs to create food and drinks for the Humber Room.
- The Aboretum Nature Summer Camp and the Early Childhood Education program use the garden to teach children how food is grown.
- The Aboriginal Resource Centre uses the garden to grow Indigenous plants.
- Two rain barrels are set up at the Greenhouses which are used to water the plants.
- Only compost and manure are used as fertilizers.
- There are no pesticides used.
- Tomatoes
- Peppers
- Squash
- Garlic
- Lovage
- Kale
- Cucumbers
- Beans
- Cabbage
- Zucchini
- Basil
- Thyme
- Rosemary
- Oregano
- Borage
- Chives
- Sage
- Parsley
- Nasturtium (edible flower)
- Geraniums
- Spider plants
- Snake plants
- Ficus trees
- Aloe Vera
- Cacti