Grow Eat Learn: A School Food Garden Program

Building generations of healthy communities, one garden at a time

School food gardens and growing spaces teach essential skills for students’ success and well-being. These spaces celebrate diverse cultures and heritage and are linked to nutritional, mental, physical and environmental health as well as increased academic performance. That’s why we’re developing Grow Eat Learn to support school food growing programs and cultivate garden leaders around Nova Scotia.

The 2024 growing season is a re-launch year for the program. We are working with a small group of diverse school growing projects to learn from and inform the future of the program, which will eventually support schools province-wide.

For an updated list of growing resources for schools, check out our new School Garden Resources pdf.

Looking to create or update a school garden?

apply now for the School garden grant

If you have a school growing project started or are trying to get one off the ground, consider applying for our 2024 Garden Grant. Nourish is able to offer financial support for school growing projects up to $500.

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Stay up to date on Grow Eat Learn programming and other school community garden news around the province.

Guiding Practices: The Foundation of Grow Eat Learn

Grow Eat Learn Guiding Practices help you develop the full potential of your school food growing space.

The Guiding Practices are a set of guidelines that are adaptable to each unique school environment and includes elements of planning that will help a school food garden put down roots for years to come.

Guiding Practices help envision not only the physical space but how the school food garden can serve the needs of the school community. The Guiding Practices are evidence-based and have been informed by the wisdom and diverse experiences of local garden leaders, teachers and community groups.

How to use: Each Guiding Practice is designed to serve as a section in a binder. This allows garden committees to collect and store resources, lesson plans and build a library of supporting documents (contact lists, planting schedules, supply inventories, teaching tools and resources) all in one place.