Building a Garden at a Community Centre serving immigrants

Building a Garden at a Community Centre serving Immigrants

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust. ~ Gertrude Jekyll.

Victory gardens first appeared during World War I (1914–1918) when President Woodrow Wilson called on Americans to plant vegetable gardens so as to thwart the looming threat of food shortages. Droves of Americans took up the challenge as a civic and patriotic duty. Gardeners were encouraged to plant high-yielding multiple-harvest vegetables that took up little space in their gardens, such as tomatoes, peppers, squash, corn and herbs. This grassroots gardening effort was revived again during WWII and by May 1943, victory gardens supplied 40 percent of the produce in America.

Fast forward to today. With the pandemic disrupting lives, gardening is one of the best ways to get exercise and fresh air with all the social distancing precautions.  

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul ~ Alfred Austin

An opportunity came up to build a garden at a local community centre that serves migrants by providing weekly groceries, a safe haven to play sport, learn English as a second language etc. The idea was to enable these students to also experience the joys of gardening while discovering the look, feel and flavour of fresh-picked veggies. We saw this as a brilliant way to get children to connect with Mother Earth, to teach them to appreciate nature, and to instill a sense of healthy eating habits and civic responsibility. 

A small volunteer group of Willowgate Community Gardeners got together to plan, build and plant such a garden.  We were committed to using proven science-based growing techniques and pass on that knowledge to the new owners. The goal was to create a productive self-sustaining garden that could be used year round to grow high yield multi-harvest plants favoured by the community being served while also being suited to the local sun and soil conditions. That meant planting a summer rop of Tomatillos, Tomatoes, all kinds of Chili Peppers (Harbanero, Jalapeno, Serrano, Poblano, Anaheim, Bell peppers), Chayote squash, Eggplants, Sweet corn, Collard greens, Carrots, Radish and Beets. As well as  Mint, Cilantro, Chive, Oregano and Rosemary. Of course, we had to include beneficials like Lavender, Borage, Sunflower and Wildflowers. And we had to have drip irrigation!

Over a three day period, an army of volunteers made sure to execute the plan with military precision. At 1 pm, Jim helped truck in 7 cubic feet of high grade compost from a local horse stable and farm. Another group of volunteers were ready to assist Rafa configure the raised beds, put down cardboard as a weed barrier before laying down the compost. At exactly 4 pm, right on schedule, the drip irrigation experts, Jarl & Haile started installing the custom built system. Peggy came the following day to complete the installation and program the timer. Phong installed the garden tool rack and helped arrange the decorative stones around the planters. 

Next day six experienced Willowgate gardeners worked with six volunteer high-school students to plant the 120 seedlings and 8 seed packets in the raised bed and pots. We demonstrated the proper transplanting technique including soil preparation, amendment, spacing and watering. We finished by placing name tags of plants on wine corks mounted on bamboo sticks.  

Voilà, in 48 shorts hours we built and planted a viable vegetable garden.

A few weeks later the seedlings started to flourish with minimal fussing.

Soon it was harvest time!!

Happy harvesting begins with careful sowing. 

~ Patrick Mundus.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my dear friend, mentor and formidable Master Gardener Marcie Proctor Fein, who succumbed to cancer in November 2020. She inculcated in us a scientific approach to horticulture that we hope to practice and pass on to others. RIP Marcie, gone but not forgotten!!