At Fresh Roots, the soil is always teaching us—and lately, it’s been asking for better infrastructure. We sat down with Camille, our Director of Farming & Operations to talk about two major projects that are already transforming how we grow, harvest, and share food: a dual irrigation system at David Thompson Secondary, and a new cold storage container at Vancouver Technical Secondary.
Solenn: Can you walk us through the two main projects you’re working on right now?
Camille: Yeah, absolutely. Right now, we’re focused on two big upgrades. One is irrigation at our David Thompson site, and the other is cold storage at Van Tech.
Let’s start with irrigation. The system we had before was overhead watering, and it basically covered everything—like literally everything. It was watering the crops, the pathways, the weeds, even the picnic tables. It was inefficient and caused a lot of weed pressure because we were watering all these seeds we didn’t want to grow. So we’ve been working on installing a dual irrigation system—targeted overhead watering to help with germination, and then drip line irrigation for maintenance.
With this new system, each emitter in the overhead system has its own shut-off valve, and every drip line has a valve too. So we can switch between the two, or shut off specific areas entirely depending on what’s planted where. It’s much more efficient in terms of water usage and crop health.
Solenn: That sounds like a big step up. How’s it powered?
Camille: That’s one of the coolest parts—it’s solar-powered! We’ve installed a giant solar panel that powers the system and all of our timers. No batteries. No gas. It’s high-tech for us, and it gives us way more control.
Plus, it’s all programmable from a single, indoor location. If it’s pouring rain and we need to fix something, we can just walk into the container, stay dry, and adjust things from there. That alone is a huge upgrade in quality of life for the farmers.
Solenn: And how about the cold storage project at Van Tech?
Camille: This one’s been a long time coming. We moved our schoolyard market to Van Tech to bring people closer to the farm and increase food literacy—having the community right there, seeing where their food comes from. But without cold storage on site, we’ve had to drive our harvests across the city to get them into a cooler. That’s a huge carbon footprint and a logistical headache.
So we’re converting a shipping container into a cold storage unit that will live on site. It’ll be about 10 by 8 feet, and we’re also building in extra storage space for our educational programs, like SOYL and the school’s garden club. Once installed, it’ll mean fresher veggies, fewer emissions, and way more efficiency—especially on market days, when we can just grab what we need from the cooler and go.
Solenn: What are the next steps for each of these projects?
Camille: For the irrigation, it’s actually mostly complete! We finished just in time for the wet season, so we haven’t had to test it much outdoors yet, but we did make big improvements to the greenhouse irrigation at David Thompson. There were some hiccups at first—coverage wasn’t quite right—but we’ve since adjusted it and now our seedlings are getting consistent, reliable water. That consistency frees up our staff capacity, we don’t have to spend time, like, hand watering and that means healthier starts for our plants.
For the cooler, the container is currently offsite being retrofitted. Once it’s ready, we’ll move it back to Van Tech, and then we need to hook it up to electricity. It’s definitely a complex project with some unforeseen delays and costs, but the result will be worth it.
Solenn: What kind of impact will these upgrades have on your farmers and programming?
Camille: Huge. These upgrades will seriously boost our capacity. Less weed pressure. Less water waste. Fewer interruptions. Having reliable infrastructure means our team can do more with less stress, especially during peak season.
That means we’ll also have more capacity to mentor youth in our SOYL and Camp Fresh Roots programs. For youth programs like SOYL and Camp Fresh Roots, it’s going to be a game-changer. Before, irrigation systems would water the areas where programming happened—so kids would arrive to soggy, muddy ground. Now, we can avoid that and make programming more comfortable and enjoyable.
The cooler also means we can get food out to food banks and donations programs faster, fresher, and with less back-and-forth. Market returns will go straight into the cooler, and from there, straight into the hands of folks who need them—whether it’s our CSA subscribers, the Renfrew-Collingwood Neighbourhood House, or CityReach.
Solenn: Any final thoughts?
Camille: We grow thousands of pounds of food on school grounds every year. We feed students and staff, offer food literacy, run schoolyard markets, and donate a lot to food security partners. But all of that work depends on infrastructure that lets us keep up. These two projects are giving us the tools we need to keep growing—literally and figuratively.
We’ll be able to harvest more often, store food properly, donate more, and waste less. And for our team, it means more time to focus on what matters: connecting with community, supporting youth, and deepening our relationships with the land.
These projects are already making a huge difference – and with your support, we can go even further. Your donation this spring fuels infrastructure improvements, youth education, and community food access.