Community gardens are starting to draw the attention of land owners in the Province of Ontario. One farmer in the Village of Kendal hopes to start a garden on his land.
This week I attended the monthly meeting of the local branch of Canadian Organic Growers. Every month the chapter's publicity co-ordinator makes several announcements about organic gardening and community gardening at the beginning of the meeting. As usual, this week she had several announcements about garden tours, open houses, plant sales and new products available to organic gardeners. This week, however, there was one announcement that stood out as exceptional.
There is a farmer who lives in a rural area of Ontario called Kendal, and this farmer has 10,000 square feet of land he’d like to donate for the use of growing food. It sounds like what he is envisioning is a community garden. He says there is enough space for 40 plots! He’ll even supply the water.
This man has his heart in the right place. Unfortunately, his farm just isn’t in the right location for this initiative to be successful. Kendal is quite a drive out of the way for most of the people in this community to make use of the land in this manner. It quite defeats the purpose, when the rising cost of fuel is factored in, to drive a vehicle to a community garden that is 45 minutes to an hour away from home. Out in Kendal, most people have space for gardening. The nearby cities of Oshawa and Whitby are more in need of community gardening space.
Perhaps this farmer should consider looking for a couple of people who would like to make a go of market gardening? With 10,000 square feet, a lot of vegetables could be grown and sold in many of the nearby summer farmer’s markets, and making the trip out to the garden would be much more realistic.
Interested individuals can e-mail me for this farmer’s telephone number.
