Canada: Urban-grown produce fills baskets at West Island food bank
The hope is that bit by bit, urban gardens will nurture generosity for neighbours in need.
By Christine Long
CTV News Montreal
Oct 10, 2023
Excerpt:
This is the first year West Island Mission, located on Labrosse Avenue in Pointe-Claire, is farming in Senneville. At 2,000 square feet, it’s the biggest of their 120 plots and planters across the West Island.
Jack Jones, operations manager for Wet Island Mission, said all those gardens add up.
“It works out to be a lot of really nice greens,” he told CTV News.
Each green space is maximized, and the growing season season is extended to collect three to four harvests before the frost settles in.
“We grew a whole bunch of lettuce, it timed out perfectly for the fall harvest. Lettuce, radishes, zucchinis, bok-choy, arugula — things that do well in colder weather,” said Jones.
The produce gets picked at its peak twice a week and is brought straight to the food bank.
“We have stuff that’s coming in from Fritz Farm, from the city farms, so we put all that together, and it’s weighed and measured at the West Island Mission. So by the end, it should be close to eight to 10 thousand kilos, and next year, we hope it will be even more than that,” explained West Island Mission executive director Suzanne Scarrow.
