As you walk into Lakeside Garden, you’ll no doubt see a colourful low fence adorned with painted bees, flowers and butterflies. This welcoming space is the home of the Birds, Bees and Butterflies (3B) garden, managed by the Bloom Skills Centre. This non-profit organization offers accessible skills training and learning opportunities for young adults with intellectual and developmental exceptionalities. The gardening program, first piloted in 2022, teaches participants how to grow and maintain a garden from start to finish. 

As with all good ideas, it begins with a seed! Students learn through hands-on practice, the various aspects of gardening including: starting plants from seed, transplanting, composting, companion planting, weeding, watering, harvesting and seed saving, as well as nutrition and food preparation. 

Participants learn about perennial growing with crops of asparagus, rhubarb, and various herbs, in addition to planning and preparing an annual vegetable garden with a wide variety of fruit and vegetables. Bloom Skills Centre expects to see some large growth in the 3-B program in the 2025 season. Working together with both KASSI and Little Forests Kingston, their programming will expand even further to offer more skill variety and more potential for employment opportunities.

Produce from the garden is used in the CommUnity Cafe, located in the Centre 70 building. If you haven’t visited yet, please come in. The menu changes seasonally however, it always includes delicious baked goods and breakfast and lunch prepared on site by Bloom Skills participants. If you happen to have an over-abundance of produce in your own plot, they would be happy to receive donated veggies for their Meals for Home program. This program provides low-cost prepared meals to the community, helping to offset the cost of inflation while offering something accessible and nutritious. 

For more information about Bloom Skills and their gardening project at Lakeside, please contact us at the Bloom Skills website.