By Jason Kirby
It looks the same as any garden this time of year, with a few sunflowers standing beside wilted patches of vegetables, but the roar of the Queensway only 30 metres away signals you’re not in a quaint country garden.
This small green plot at the corner of Catherine and Metcalfe streets is the Bytown Urban Gardens and it’s part of a growing trend to bring green space back into city centres.
“It’s been happening all across Canada, but especially here in Ottawa,” says David Duffy, community programs co-ordinator for the City of Ottawa.
Twelve groups run urban gardens in Ottawa, including the city’s 10-year-old allotment gardens in Alta Vista, he says. There are 355 plots, each measuring 112 square meters, which people can rent for $50 during the summer.
“You can grow just about anything, as long as it’s legal and it’s not for resale,” he says.
Dwayne Hodgson, one of three founders of the year-old BUG, says urban gardens help develop communities.
When volunteers first arrived to cultivate the land, where military barracks once stood, they found mounds of rubble.
“This site had been abandoned for five years,” he says.
“Now we’re putting it to productive use.”
This summer, BUG had 45 members at its Catherine Street location and 15 members at a smaller garden in the east. Each member volunteered 15 hours towards the garden’s upkeep in exchange for rent-free plots. The volunteers get a nine-square metre plot complete with water provided by the towering YMCA/YWCA next door. This ensured low-income earners were not excluded, Hodgson says.
“We’ve got a real mix of people, some nine-to-fivers, some on social assistance,” he says.
In keeping with the green space trend, the regional government will release an inventory of undeveloped land within the next month.
Deborah Irwin, an environmental officer with the region’s engineering department, says 349 areas have been assessed for their environmental and social value as part of a study launched in February 1996.
Irwin says the region won’t dictate that land be set aside for gardens. However, if a community wants to create one, this report could be used to recommend a good location.
And if someone wants to develop a site, she says, the report will show how to proceed with the least impact on that specific land.
Despite expected increases in the demand for urban land to farm, the city won’t be opening any of its allotment gardens in Centretown, Duffy says.
“We’ve got enough land (in Alta Vista) to double or triple the number of people,” he says.
Standing in the Catherine Street garden, Hodgson says he has received calls from people seeking advice on how to start their own community gardens.
But, he warns, community gardens are a heavy investment in time and effort, and he currently has no plans to open any others.
“I’ve heard folks are really pleased how it’s going,” he says.
As if on cue, two elderly men stop by the fence.
“It looks really good,” one of them says.
“We get that all the time,” says Hodgson.