Barrhead Community Garden goodness felt by many

BARRHEAD - The Barrhead Community Garden means more than just produce to local residents and the food bank.

“These gardens don’t happen because of just a few people. The Town of Barrhead and the County of Barrhead have been fantastic. They built this road for people to be able to come in.” remarked Marilyn Flock, Community Gardens organizer.

“There are a lot of volunteers that don’t have a plot here but just come out and help when they can.”

The committee in charge is very thankful to have found this new spot for the Community Garden, the land was donated by Oscar Daase and Edwin Winkler and their families.

“They have given us a 20-year lease on 2 acres for $1. Without their help there would be no garden,” expressed Flock.

The Community Gardens was awarded an $88,000 grant from Federated Co-op for capital item purchases and a $20,000 grant from the Rural Mental Health Project for education and support.

The workshops were very successful last year.

The grant money will be used for setting up sitting areas with picnic tables and benches, decks, a shade area, a stage, two gazebos and a wheel-chair accessible washroom.

The fence was built last year.

Sheds and the gate have been added to address some nuisance situations that have occurred.

Some gardening supplies have gone missing and some of the plants have been damaged when people have come in and taken produce.

There will be a bigger tree orchard planted in the far east end of the garden, a kids area and a gazebo.

There will be an area set aside for overstock of produce for sharing with the community. Plot requests are organized each spring and the garden committee does its best to accommodate the majority of requests.

The Food Bank receives produce from the garden and appreciate the donations.

The Food Bank measured the contributions and determined that $13,000 worth of food was provided by the Community Garden.

Sometimes the Food Bank brings people to help when they can.

Communities in Bloom donated seeds to the community garden for people who needed seeds as well as planting their own rows to help support the food bank.

The community garden will be looking for help again at harvest time.

“We picked a lot of rocks in April to prepare the new site,” says Flock.

“Then a mulcher that crushes rocks came in. A rototiller came in and mulched the soil.”

“There is a lot of clay. It is going to take time. Gardens don’t happen overnight.”

Generous donations were provided by many organizations.

The Town of Barrhead built a road into the current location and donated the port a potty.

The County of Barrhead helped financially, donated topsoil and spread it using of some their equipment and donated water that is kept in tanks at the garden.

KNM (Moritz) provided a mulcher and labour to prepare the soil.

Gateway Research Organization provided some grass seed and equipment to plant common areas to grass.

Barrhead Transit Mix, Barrhead Ag Society, Communities in Bloom and many other donations and manual labour have contributed to the garden’s success says Flock appreciatively.