A community garden is a piece of land available to people within the community to use for growing fruits, vegetables, trees or flowers. It may be owned or managed by a variety of different organizations, but the defining point is that the space makes land available to community members, usually those who would not otherwise have the chance to garden, whether it is due to a lack of land, knowledge or ability.

“When you’re out there, the barriers are down,” says Ginger Potts of the Community Garden Network of Edmonton and Area (CGN). “It doesn’t matter what your ethnicity is, it doesn’t matter what you look like.”

“It’s not about growing plants, vegetables and flowers, it’s about growing people,” she says of the community building aspect of community gardens, a benefit which she lists as one of four, the other three being harvesting food, improving health and wellness, and learning about ecological integrity.

This diverse list of benefits explains why Edmonton and Calgary along with municipalities around the globe are making community gardens a priority. In Edmonton, the CGN reports that last year there were 40 community garden projects on 66 sites (some projects have multiple sites) within Edmonton, St. Albert and Stony Plain. They list “a community garden in every neighbourhood” as one of their goals for the future.

In Calgary, a pilot project running this year will see six new City-supported community gardens spread throughout the city: one in each quadrant plus one in central Calgary, plus one fruit orchard. Calgary residents were invited to apply by March 31, naming a park within their neighbourhood which they felt would be a good location for a community garden.

“This project represents the City catching up with current trends,” says Maggie Thompson, parks community liaison with the City of Calgary. “Gardening is huge, and there is a trend toward using it as rehabilitation and using it to support healthy eating.”

Thompson says one of the goals for the project is for each group to be able to sustain itself after the pilot year. During the construction and implementation of the garden in the pilot year, the City will play a substantial role, from building raised beds and providing soil, mulch and compost, to providing access to irrigation (when possible) and horticultural support through Calgary’s Community Garden Resource Network (CGRN).

Though these six gardens will be placed in public parks around the city, generally community gardens, of which there are currently 10 in Calgary, are located on land that is managed by the local community association via a City liaison, or privately owned land such as the yard of a church or school.

Extensive instructions on the website of each organization (Edmonton Community Garden Network at edmcommunitygardens.org and Calgary Community Garden Resource Network (CGRN) at calhort.org/gardening/community.aspx) clearly guide would-be community garden organizers through the steps of starting a community garden. Both recommend bringing together an interested group of people within your community as the first step in the process.

Whether you are in Calgary or in Edmonton, the local community garden network is there to guide you through the process right from the beginning. Their websites are a wealth of knowledge and include contact information to get you started.

Gael Blackhall, co-ordinator with the CGRN explains that they can also help condo dwellers who wish to approach their board but do not feel they will be receptive to the idea. Blackhall can help people in this situation to figure out the best way to present the idea and achieve condo board buy-in.

Whatever form the community garden takes, enthusiasts agree that the social rewards are many.

“There is social development around a community garden that is sometimes more interesting than the garden,” says Blackhall.

Jacqueline Puff, a participant in The Garden Path Society community garden in the southeast Calgary community of Inglewood describes it thus: “We saw people with depression, addiction, anger, apathy and doubt become flushed and glowing with the light work of hoeing, planting, and harvesting. I completely underestimated how people could change their outlook by nurturing a plant, thinning a row of lettuce, or tasting a frost-sweetened carrot from the earth.”   NL