Community garden springs up

County Gothic: (L-R) Natalie Blower with daughter Violet, son Noah and husband Tyler put shovels to work in preparing the community garden in Picton on Saturday.

If you build it, they will grow

The first phase of the Picton community garden got underway last weekend as enthusiastic volunteers gathered to break ground early Saturday morning. The community garden is an offshoot of the County Community Foundation’s Vital Signs report. The report identified three areas of concern in the County: transportation, education and food insecurity. While foodbanks and initiatives such as the Good Food Box program can mitigate, to an extent, the problem of food insecurity, the concept of a community garden allows people to come together to grow food in a socially cohesive way.

With the assistance of council, an area of Delhi Park near the entrance on York Street has been set aside for use as a community garden. This is envisaged as a multi-year project, with this first year being treated as a test bed for ideas about what a community garden should be. A number of 10-foot beds and 4-foot beds are being built adjacent to a gravelled area that will contain a set of planters. Some of the beds are designated as allotment gardens for those people who do not have access to a growing space. The remainder are community beds devoted to food programs such as Food to Share and the local foodbanks. The planters will have produce available to be picked by passersby.

The weekend’s groundbreaking is the culmination of a lot of effort by various community groups to bring this project to fruition. In addition to support from the County Community Foundation (CCF), there has also been input from Community Living, Public Health, 4-H as well as the master gardeners. “This can’t be a top-down thing, it must be a ground-up movement,” said Lenny Epstein, councillor and CCF board member.

Local businesses have stepped in to support the project. Home Hardware in Picton donated the lumber used for the raised beds. Terra Vista did the initial site preparation and donated gravel and topsoil. In addition, Terra Vista employees volunteered their time on Saturday morning to mark the location of the beds and ensure the first tier was properly levelled and aligned.

Shane Eagen speaks softly and wields a big sledgehammer as he levels the frame of the raised garden bed.

Volunteers from across the County came out to help on the weekend. For many, it was a way to contribute something back to the community. “This is a great initiative and a way to address food insecurity in the County,” said Shannon Colson of Demorestville, who helped build the raised beds on Saturday morning.

“It is really a community effort and that is the only way for gardens like these to succeed,” said Epstein. “To see so many people out is a really great sign and it gives me a lot of optimism for the success of this project.