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Chef's and Herb Gardens

Field to fork has never been closer to home

The Chef's Garden, located in the field behind the Banting Building, enables the Agricultural Campus to supply our own vegetables for on-campus dining and education.

Student standing in field holding a tray of vegetables.

A student-driven initiative

The Chef’s Garden project was initiated by one of our students (now graduated), Meghan Summers, to encourage campus sustainability. Meghan completed her fourth-year project with a proposal to turn the field behind the Banting Building into a market garden on campus. That seed was planted and we now boast a 1.1-acre (121’ x 400’) Chef’s Garden to produce food for campus dining using organic principles and a mandate for sustainability.

Educational resource

The vision was to also provide an educational resource for students and the public—a living classroom that also acts as a collection space for plants as the campus expands on its goals for the Chef's Garden. The Chef’s Garden has also taken up the responsibility of improving campus sustainability by providing a means to supply food to the kitchen from other sources on the Agricultural Campus.

Planning

The garden produces a highly diverse crop, supplying the kitchen with produce. In the course of production, the consumption needs of the kitchen and crop production plans for the Chef's Garden will be refined to reflect a more detailed production cost and production plan for the following years.  

Crops being produced include beets, broccoli, lettuce, radish, spinach, cauliflower, cucumber, zucchini, green beans, wax beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, melons, cabbage, onions, turnip, squash, parsnips, and carrots. 

Herb Garden

A beautiful setting for medicinal and culinary plants

The Herb Garden was designed by Carol Goodwin, faculty member, and built in 1994 by student, Leon Verdurmen and Carol on the site of the old weed garden. It is laid out in a traditional "four quarter" design which predates medieval gardens. There are two quadrants with a blue/mauve/pink colour scheme, a white quadrant, and a gold quadrant. The garden is maintained by the Friends of the Gardens. If you would like to learn more about herbs, consider joining our group.

The plants are a combination of medicinal and culinary plants, with some dye plants included.

The sundial which serves as the centrepiece was an earlier class gift, and was brought to the rock garden as the most fitting place to display it.

The wattle fence is a traditional style, using local materials (alder branches). It was built by students in the Landscape Horticulture program (now called Environmental Horticulture) under the supervision of Robin Clarke. Robin was a campus employee at the time (1997). He is a skilled basket maker and created all of the woven ox carts, fences, and baskets used in the creation of the film The Scarlet Letter.

The benches were built by the landscape students in the class of 2002 as a class project in their Wood Construction Techniques class taught by Wayne Bhola.

A white sign says Herb Garden in bold letters outside a green garden with wooden archway.