Project Pickle

Project Pickle has been a massive success in the Delta School District. 

On June 28 2012 200 pickling cucumbers were planted by 200 students at Pebble Hill Traditional school under the watchful eye of South Delta Secondary school mentors. 

These same secondary school students watered and tended to the crop culminating in a mid August harvest of about 35 dozen pickling cucumbers.

In October 2012, student leaders from South Delta Secondary school gave presentations to classes on how to actually make pickles.

They described the need to sterilize, how to prepare a brine and showed many of the ingredients that go in to pickling.

After the pickles were harvested in August, the SDSS team planted a variety of spinach, lettuce and Beets at Pebble Hill and English Bluff elementary schools and tended the crops throughout the summer and in early fall leading up to a recent harvest.

The crops were a huge success and the children at both schools were taught how to harvest and care for the plants for processing.

The kids were shown how to package and market the crop as well resulting in the first annual "Green for Greens" program which will be the foundation for school fundraising initiatives from the neighbourhood school farms.

The intra and inter school relationship that is part and parcel of Project Pickle show children that there are many aspects to our food system.

Planting, tending and harvesting crops are just a small part of the journey that some foods take. There are elements of processing, distribution, marketing and retailing that gets food to the shelves.

Children in the Delta School District are learning about opportunities across the food spectrum and at the grade ten - twelve level, career paths within the food system will be highlighted.

Farmers, marketers, restauranteurs, retailers, food scientists and chefs are just a sampling of the career opportunities within the massive food economy.

Project Pickle and its related programs will afford a chance for K-12 students in the Delta School District to become more involved with food and gain a better understanding of its complexities through a multi faceted and independently directed unit studies program which will dovetail with an already successful curriculum.

Today after 11 years, Project Pickle is expanding by adding a teaching farm in the Southlands community in Tsawwassen.