LITTLE GREEN THUMBS KIDS GARDEN CONTEST

Since 2019, the Little Green Thumbs program through Sustainable Food Edmonton started hosting a Kids Garden Contest for students to participate in each year. Our goal is to engage students, teachers and parents in a fun contest that allows students to express their creativity and stimulate their imagination around growing food. Below is a snapshot of contributions from students over the years.

2025 Contest - Sunflower Gardens for Pollinators

In May 2025, the theme was Sunflower Gardens for Pollinators. We asked teachers and students to help create more habitat for pollinators with a sunflower patch. Thanks to a generous seed donation from West Coast Seeds, we sent sunflower seeds to any of our classes that wanted to participate.

We provided a Guide for Teachers, to help them select a location that might be suitable for a sunflower garden. To participate in the contest, the teachers were asked to send us a photo of the Garden Design the class had created. Despite challenging factors beyond the teachers’ control (weather, lack of help with watering during summer break, soil conditions and insect or other predators), we were hoping some classes would be able to create a garden. However, we also indicated that the sunflower seeds could be shared with the students to take home.

We would like to highlight a couple of contest submissions and hope these Sunflower Gardens will thrive.

Norwood School - Kindergarten and Grade 2 joined for the project:

Garneau School - the Gardening Leadership Club created a design for a weed-ridden garden bed that needed a little TLC.