The Growing Place's produce plots (Image: submitted)
Crescent Valley Resource Centre’s (CVRC) The Growing Place is preparing to welcome more eager gardeners come spring.
“There are a few things that we’re going to be doing this year that we didn’t do last year,” said Olivia Clancy, CVRC’s Food Security Coordinator. “Our intention was to have [the greenhouse] ready for the fall, but anybody who’s done a renovation would know that delays happen. That’s on the agenda for this upcoming season to get that complete.”
The Growing Place is a community garden, greenhouse and teaching facility that opened in spring 2019, in response to the popularity and high demand for plots in Crescent Valley’s first community garden, with its grand opening last September. “Of the plots we had open we had twenty-five filled and a waiting list as twice as long,” said Clancy.
“It’s gained a lot of interest throughout the whole city, not just in Crescent Valley.”
Olivia Clancy tending to a Growing Place plot (Image: submitted)
Ten more plots will be ready in the spring in the same location, with an additional seven wheelchair accessible plots. With the greenhouse eventually housing twenty-six plots, a total of sixty-eight plots will be located at the Growing Place.
The greenhouse is unique to Saint John because it is the city’s only community greenhouse. Its plots on the inside are rentable with a person paying a fee, just as they would with the outdoor plots.
Clancy explains, “We’re the only greenhouse, or we will be when the greenhouse is complete, that’s providing that service; as well as it will be heated.”
The plots’ produce ripe for picking (Image: submitted)
Additionally the greenhouse will be able to be used all year round, which is a boon for green thumbers.
The current roster of gardeners and waiting list for Growing Place plots illustrates the popularity of the garden. “It is not a waiting list that will go in order of application necessarily because we do have the accessible plots and we want to ensure that people who may need those plots, have the opportunity here,” said Clancy.
The application season will open later in the spring and be first announced on The Growing Place’s Facebook page.
Saint John’s North End Food Bank was involved right from the get-go and is part of the Growing Place’s planning committee.
“With the food bank’s help, we have been able to get a few grants from Food Banks Canada as well to help with our project.”
The Growing Place came to life through the financial contribution of a variety of grants and contributions of funding partners, from the city donating land to the Department of Social Development providing most of the infrastructure.
Garden produce donated to the North End Food Bank (Image: submitted)
Two of the plots growing fresh produce are directly donated to North End Food Bank. The addition of ten plots in the greenhouse will increase the number of plots used to grow food for the food bank.
“We serve about 135 families a week,” said Hazel Clarke, Community Coordinator of the food bank. “It gives us a chance to explore other food choices but without stretching our already limited volunteer time.”
The garden also offers classes for curious minds, including topics such as starting seeds, how to properly start seeds and grow herbs, learning about garden layout designed for composting and how to preserve and better use one’s harvest.
“Our most popular workshop was the seed starting and the herb seed starting workshop; we’re hoping to do them again this year.”
The garden has grown a multitude of vegetables so far, and will be re-planted this spring.
“A lot of vegetables we saw this year were zucchini, lots of beans, lots of tomatoes, cucumbers and corn. Another interesting one is fava beans, something that I hadn’t heard of or seen growing before.”
Newcomers tending to their plots in June 2019 (Image submitted)
The Growing Place has become its own community for Saint John newcomers eager to garden and grow their own produce, “We had sixteen newcomer individuals and families participating in the plots of our twenty-five plots,” said Clancy. “We had great interest and they were some of the first to apply as soon as applications were open last year.”
Clancy said many of the newcomers were farmers before they came to Canada, and being provided with space to grow was something they’ve been looking for and they didn’t have access to.
“We’re happy to be able to provide that.”
