Olivia Clancy, the food security coordinator at the Growing Place, says the garden brings a lot of positives. (Danielle McCreadie)
The community garden in the Crescent Valley neighbourhood is ready to open its gates to the public.
The Growing Place greenhouse and gardening program has been in the works for two years, with a small number of garden plots available to rent.
Olivia Clancy, the food security coordinator at the Crescent Valley Resource Centre, says the garden has a lot of positive impacts, including bringing the neighbourhood together.
“There are a lot of people that interact with each other and talk that probably wouldn’t end up talking to each other if it weren’t for them both gardening in our space. So there’s a really big social aspect that comes along with community gardens,” she said.
Clancy says gardeners grow things from tomatoes to corn to beans and squash. (Danielle McCreadie)
She says this is the second community garden in the Priority Neighbourhood. The first one filled up fast, and with high demand for more plots, they opened the Growing Place.
Clancy says Crescent Valley is also home to many Syrian newcomers, many of who were farmers before they came to Canada.
She says the community garden allows them to continue doing what they love.
“They didn’t have to space in Crescent Valley to grow what they wanted, so we built this community garden over the past few years. We have our outdoor plots. We also have a really unique feature, which is our large greenhouse that will be heated and allow residents to grow vegetables year round,” she said.
Clancy also says the garden gives low income families in the Priority Neighbourhood access to fresh, cheap produce.
“Veggies tend to be one of the more expensive things in the grocery store, so having this space that allows people to grow their own produce kind of counteracts that. It gives them a chance to have access to fresh produce that they might not otherwise have access to,” she said.
Clancy explains they are taking it a step further by partnering with the North End Food Bank, who has two planters where fresh produce will be grown.
She says education at the garden is also important, with a number of workshops and educational aspects within the garden, itself.
“A big main one that we have right now is our pollinator garden, so not only does that benefit the garden by bringing in butterflies and bees to pollinate our plants, it creates an education component to teach people about pollination,” she said. They’ve also been raising monarch butterflies all summer long, and releasing them into the garden.
Clancy says they hope to encourage other areas of the community to support similar garden initiatives, especially in other priority neighbourhoods.
There are currenly 25 active plots, with room for 42. (Danielle McCreadie)
Clancy says while the main components of the garden have been installed, there are still a few more things to do.
She says there are 25 active plots this season, and hopes that by next season they’ll have the full 42 in action.
