Rainbow Gardening was a 4-part monthly Introductory Gardening Workshop Series that ran from January through April 2021 done in partnership with Moishe House Vancouver. The program was provided over Zoom by botanist Aliya Millson and environmental educator Aria Druker and covered topics of indoor plants, vegetable gardening, medicinal plants, wildflowers, and pollinators.
The goal of the program was to foster a gardening based community that offered Jewish environmental learning and discussions. Sessions began with participants introducing themselves by answering a prompt inspired by the most recent Jewish holidays per session: Tu B’shevat, Purim, Pesach and the counting of the Omer.
The content of the lessons offered best practices for gardening, local Indigenous knowledge and the honourable harvest, and how to engage with nature in healthy sustainable ways. The participants' range of background knowledge allowed for individuals to share questions, plant-care experiences and recommendations. One participant noted “I suck with plants but learnt a ton today so thank you!” With space for questions, participants could get crowdsourced consultations, advice from the facilitators and further their learning in areas that sparked interest.
Each session concluded with discussion from prompts that offered modern interpretations of the Jewish agricultural laws and scriptures. Participants shared personal relationships on themed practices of shmita (year of rest), Pe’ah (not harvesting to the corners of the field), and story of the carob tree (caring for the earth for future generations). Each session then concluded with sharing a personal reflection on a symbolic prompt based on the sessions’ aligned Jewish Holiday. For example, the olive for Tu B’shevat, as a symbol for peace participants answered: what has been bringing you peace lately?
To listen to a segment on Rainbow Gardening check out The Jewish Museum and Archives of BC’s podcast, The Kitchen Stories ‘Ep.10 Feeding the future’ below on Spotify and on their website! The introduction is at 1:00 and the story continues at 34:50 (an excerpt can be heard at 35:50!)