Jenny Lyver is excited about the possibility of growing her own food.
The Western Environment Centre and the City of Corner Brook are partnering on a project to bring three new community gardens to the city — one at the site of a former playground on Caribou Road, the second in the area between the East Valley Road playground and Reid Street and the third in between Bartlett’s Avenue and Connors Road near the marina.
As part of the community consultation process the partners hosted a consultation session via Facebook Live, the first of its kind for both, on Wednesday night, April 29. Restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant an in-person session could not take place.
Lyver was one of the people who attended. She lives near the Caribou Road location and would like to get a plot or two there.
“It would just be so convenient to have one so close,” she said. “We’re in a nice area. It’s a pretty good, quiet little area.”
Lyver said getting to grow their own food would be a great learning experience and a fun activity for her and her 10-year-old son, Joel Lyver. Lyver has a bit of gardening experience but would like to grow on that.
Years ago, while a student in Nova Scotia she took out the flower bed outside her home and put in radishes, lettuce and carrots.
“Everything bloomed and grew really well. I was a little impatient, I kept hauling the carrots up seeing how they were growing.”
They didn’t grow past the size of baby carrots, but Lyver was OK with that.
“I really enjoyed it and as a student I thought my gosh I’m getting an abundance of food from just like a couple of packs of seeds. And I had to give a lot away. It was plentiful. When you grow your own there seems to be a lot.”
Lyver said the online meeting worked well for her as she wouldn’t have been able to make an in-person session. She’ll be watching now to get her name on the list for a plot.
“I suspect that the plots will go fast.”
That’s something Katie Temple, executive director of the Western Environment Centre, said could be the case based on the interest so far.
Temple led the consultation session with Andrew King, the city’s sustainable development technician.
The project is being partly funded by a $20,000 grant from the federal government’s local food infrastructure fund, with in-kind contributions from the Western Environment Centre and the city. The city is providing the land for the three gardens, which will bring the number of community gardens here to five.
Temple said this first year is really just a startup for the project and 10 to 15 raised bed plots will be constructed at each location.
COVID-19 has thrown a little wrench in how the project was to be rolled out, but Temple said thankfully its impacts haven’t been too bad.
“There seems to be a lot of support in the general public and amongst the authorities to support things like this. The types of projects, that for one contribute to food security, and that contribute to safe socializing and safe practices of being outside.
“Because I think they all recognize that we’re trying to stay healthy, which means we need to be eating good food and being outside and seeing people but doing that obviously in safe ways. I think that they recognize community gardens fit all those requirements.”
Once the gardens open there will be guidelines in place to ensure the health measures and restrictions of the day are being followed.
During the next couple of weeks, the partners will finish up the consultation process by contacting people who live near the sites. They’ll then start landscaping at the Bartlett’s Avenue and Caribou Road sites.
That will be followed by construction of the raised beds. There are also plans to put sheds and construct walkways at each location. Later, benches and picnic tables and fruit trees will be added.
The call for interested gardeners should go out by mid-May. The plots will be available for a rental fee of $35 — $15 membership in the Western Environment Centre and $20 garden feel.
And Temple said hopefully people can start planting in June.
“And June is really when everybody wants to plant in Newfoundland anyway.”
Twitter: WS_DianeCrocker
