Tracy Page couldn’t wait to enjoy the fruits — or rather, the vegetables — of her labour.
Page, who serves as the Batteaux Park Community Garden volunteer lead, was preparing to dig up the radishes she planted in her community garden at the south-end park — located at 54 Batteaux St. — as she and other local gardeners kicked off the new community garden and 2022 growing season during a free community event with Empower Simcoe earlier this week.
The event also included representatives from the City of Barrie, who were on site with a pollinator booth as well as the Barrie Public Library, which provided an interactive story time.
“Today, we decided to celebrate one of our community gardens. Batteaux Park was one of the few gardens built last July from a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and with the help of the Urban Pantry, which is run through Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA),” Page said. “It’s an opportunity for the community to have a (garden) bed, grow our own vegetables and flowers."
Page — who is also growing tomatoes, beans, basil, leeks, cucumbers, peas, onion, zucchini, marigolds and carrots in her plot — admits she had no idea how bad food insecurity truly was until she started volunteering with the Good Food Box, a local not-for-profit program that purchases produce in bulk at a discount in order to prepare a healthy and varied selection of produce to fill a large- or small-box size.
“It’s so amazing being able to grow your own vegetables. My radishes, I am going to be pulling those later today in order to have those for dinner," she said. "Absolutely nothing beats fresh and everything is so expensive right now so we need it.”
Brittany Boyd, who is a community participation support worker with Empower Simcoe, said having the opportunity to come out and work on their garden has been a positive experience all around.
“We have a group of people with intellectual disabilities and we get our groups together and try to find places to get involved," she said. "The community gardens are really important and it gets us learning new skills, we are more involved with our community and we actually donate everything we grow whether it’s within our own agency or to local food banks.
“Everyone is so welcoming here. We are always chatting with people every time that we come and everyone is sharing gardening advice. It’s just been a really good experience," Boyd added.
Several new community gardens were constructed in 2021 at Riverwood Park, Lampman Lane Park as well Batteaux Park, which were constructed with the help of Urban Pantry and the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit
Gardens are $20 for a single plot and $50 for a double plot, Page noted.
“There is a bit of a waiting list right now because all of the beds are full,” she said, noting gardeners are given the opportunity to renew their plots for the following year in October.
For information about site selection visit the City of Barrie Webpage.
“We have run into a lot of like-minded individuals and there are a lot of first time gardeners that started because of COVID and have decided this is an amazing opportunity and have learned so much,m" Page said. "Now they have the opportunity to come in with other gardeners, we teach each other things, share recipes. It’s a lot of fun.”
