A Community Garden

We launched our community garden on Friday. Michael Burgess, of Vibrant Green Gardens, approached us with the idea of creating a vegetable garden in the downtown core to be shared by local residents. It was a great idea, but we lacked the land to get it started.  We were rescued by our good neighbours, Richard and Anke Lex, who offered us a strip of land across the street from the library beside the old Enterprise-Bulletin building.  Once we had the land, the rest came together remarkably quickly. Bill Brown’s Woodworking and Building Supplies offered us free lumber to make raised planters, Canadian Tire donated plants and seeds, and the Town of Collingwood’s Parks and Recreation Department delivered several loads of topsoil and mulch.  Michael did all of the hard labour, preparing the site, cutting down the shrubs, grubbing up the roots with a pick-axe, and building the garden boxes.  Some adult volunteers helped to fill the boxes with topsoil and rake out the mulch.  Then on Friday afternoon, a group of volunteers of all ages arrived to plant the beds. Jocelyn Knoester, our teen services librarian, and her teen gardening crew will provide the weekly weeding and watering.  In the fall, we hope to use the vegetables we’ve raised in our own Food at Four program (feeding disadvantaged teens), and the surplus will be donated to the Food Bank. Thanks again to all of the wonderful people who shared our vision of a community garden.