Canada: Ottawa Community gardens ready to adapt and grow in 2021
“We all hoped we were going to be able to open the garden, to give people a place to be outside, get their hands in the dirt and provide a growing space for food they or their loved ones may need.”
Preslea Normand
Capital Current
Jan 4, 2021
Excerpt:
More than 90 community gardens saw increased engagement in 2020 and adopted new measures to ensure safety that may also be used in future, coronavirus or not.
“It was a source of pride and joy and a reason to get out of the house every second day to check on the garden. Good for mental health and physical well-being,” gardener Monika Ferenczy wrote in a recent email.
Many families rely on produce from these gardens, and some of the gardens help out local food cupboards. According to Just Foods, tens of thousands of people across Ontario rely on community gardens.
But in the spring of 2020, as the pandemic arrived, “we got instructions from the city to hold off anything to do with the gardens,” said John Scholman, one of two co-ordinators at the West Barrhaven Community Garden.
Ferenczy had a plot at the West Barrhaven location. “I was really concerned because gardening is a form of occupational therapy for me and not being able to do so was going to restrict yet another activity.”
