By Rachel Dares
Screeching tires and rumbles of construction seem to fade away when you are sitting in a shady retreat overlooking freshly harvested vegetables and flowers of every colour.
Although signs of city life surround Nanny Goat Hill community garden from every direction – high-rises, trucks and stop lights – it is still easy to forget you are at the intersection of Bronson and Laurier, two of the busiest streets in the core of downtown Ottawa.
That is one reason why close to 200 people choose to fill a small plot of land with their own selection of vegetables, herbs and flowers. In some plots, signs of the fast-approaching winter months are marked by falling corn stalks and crumpled leaves. At the same time, batches of pumpkins and tomatoes are just starting to ripen for a fall harvest.
For Shahina Alam, a Bangladeshi woman who came to Canada six years ago and now lives in the neighbourhood, the garden is a place to grow cultural foods from her homeland. Her plot is filled with beans and squash that are unknown to typical Canadian grocery stores. But the vegetables aren’t the only reason why she gardens here for two to three hours every day. She says the garden offers her a hobby and a peaceful refuge from city life.
“I come here to do something for myself with my baby and me and sometimes with friends,” says Alam. “I feel very, very good about that. I’m not lonely here.”
Nanny Goat Hill is just one example of a growing trend of community gardening in Ottawa, says Rosemary Taylor, who runs the garden. These initiatives are common in many large cities across North America because they get people involved in the community, while growing nutritional food to feed their families.
The City of Ottawa recently showed support for these gardens with its first-ever agreement to allocate city parkland to start up a community garden in the west-end neighbourhood of Michele Heights, says Sue Bramley, the City of Ottawa community funding coordinator.
The three-year campaign to get part of Michele Park designated for an organic garden was led by Tammy Corner, a community developer at Pinecrest-Queensway Health and Community Services. The agreement has yet to be finalized as details such as size and parameters are ironed out, she says.
“People had increasingly been experiencing food security concerns because of the decrease in social assistance over the years and the difficulty in finding wages that are adequate to buy healthy, good food,” says Corner.
Many of the neighbourhood’s residents live in social housing and do not have access to a backyard where they can grow vegetables, she says. But the community also wanted to start the garden to reduce crime such as drug dealing and vandalism that was taking place in the park, says Pamela Boyle, the sole employee of the Community Garden Network, which supports these initiatives throughout Ottawa. Adults working in the garden will be able to watch what’s going on in the park, she says.
“It’s quite an example of what community means from my perspective – just people really helping people and caring about their neighbourhood,” says Corner.
The garden in Michele Heights, named “Our garden, our community,” will be the 20th community garden in Ottawa. Participants hope to turn over the soil by the end of the month or early October and plots will be distributed and seeds planted in the spring, she says.
According to Alam, the only problem with the gardens is that sometimes food gets stolen or eaten by animals. Three ripe squash were recently taken from her friend who also gardens at Nanny Goat Hill. However, the positives of community gardens far outweigh the negatives, she says.
“We see so many benefits to the garden, let alone the essential reason why they wanted the garden initially – to provide good food,” says Corner. “It brings people together from across different cultures, different abilities, different ages, increases safety of the park, increases use of the park, beautifies it – there are just so many advantages.”
Anyone interested in starting a community garden can contact the Community Garden Network at 613-244-2804.