Celebrating Garden Day

BARRHEAD – On Aug. 13, the not-for-profit society that runs the Barrhead Community Garden held a public open house to celebrate the season and its nine-year history.

The question is will the garden society get a chance to celebrate its 10th anniversary?

Marilyn Flock, Community Garden treasurer, said that if and when they do, it will be at a new location.

The garden is on what is commonly known as the Schneider Lands. Several years ago, the town purchased the property and an adjacent parcel (about nine acres) to build a new aquatics centre. However, when the municipality decided to build the new swimming pool on the old site, the town switched its focus to developing the property commercially. In October 2020, the municipality sold a three-acre parcel of the Schnieder Lands, specifically the portion the garden occupies.

Their new landlord told the society that they must vacate the property by Oct. 31.

"We hope that we can find a new location for the garden because right from the start, we wanted it to be more than just a place where people could garden," Flock said. "We wanted it to be a place to educate and just be a place where people could come just to enjoy the garden."

And on that front, they have been successful.

Flock noted that every year, Barrhead Elementary School (BES) Grade 4 students come to the garden to learn about composting and pest management using beneficial insects.

She also added that except for the last two years due to COVID, BES Grade 1 students would come in the spring to help plant.

"We also hold courses on canning and cooking with fresh herbs," Flock said. "Once you cook with fresh, natural herbs, you will never go back to using store-bought."

Flock said, in addition to gardeners and school children, many photographers, painters and other artists regularly visit the garden along with residents from the two nearby assisted-living senior residences and those from the Blue Heron Support Services Association (BHSSA).

Initially, she said the idea for a community garden on the site came from Sheila Wooten in late 2012 to early 2013.

Wooten, is the daughter of Wes Schneider, the original owner of the land. Wooten and Flock worked together at the County of Barrhead, with Flock acting as the county's fieldman and Wooten being involved with the municipality's conservation program.

They then brought in other people and organizations. Flock specifically mentioned Ros Rudd (then the volunteer coordinator of Barrhead and District Family Support Services) and Mark Myrehaug as being instrumental in the early going.

About six years earlier, Flock noted another group attempted to create a community garden, first looking at a property on the west end of town and eventually settling on property near MacGill Estates.

But that only lasted a year or two, she said.

With their first grant of $3,000 from Fortis Alberta, the society put up much of the fencing needed along with a portion of the gravel work. Neerlandia and Pembina West Co-op then teamed up to donate the materials for the garden shed, which was built by volunteers. Other sponsorships and grants would follow, and by spring 2013, community gardeners had planted their first crops.

"We have received help from a lot of people along the way, with cooperation from both Barrhead municipalities," Flock said, using the example that both municipalities have taken turns donating the garden's water supply.

"It's not one group. It really has been a community effort to build the garden into what it is today."

Currently, the garden has 64 official plots, of which several are reserved for producing fresh produce for the food bank.

Flock estimated that annually the community garden donates roughly 1,200 pounds of vegetables, mostly potatoes and carrots, to the Barrhead food bank, not including what individual members donate.

Unfortunately, she said in recent years, they have had to decommission several lots on the lower end of the property, which is understandable considering the land used to be a duck pond.

"For the first couple of years, we used to keep finding shotgun shells," she said.

One of the reasons why she believes they were successful, in addition to the countless efforts of volunteers, is the garden's location, which is near several apartment buildings, the elementary and high schools and the previously mentioned senior assisted-living complexes.

That is why Flock hopes their next garden is also within easy walking distance of the schools and the senior facilities.

Last week, she said they had a tentative meeting with town administration staff.

"Ideally, we would like to have enough land to expand a bit, put in a small orchard along with a few plots where we could put in native herbs and historical plants through consulting with our Indengious peoples," Flock said. "The potential is so great. There are so many things we could do."

In a perfect world, Flock said they hope to have something in place in time for the spring but noted they realize that things take time.

"Even though when we got the land, it was (an agricultural field), it still took a lot of time and effort to get it to where the land could really produce," she said, adding that according to the society's bylaws, they have five years to find a new location.

After that, the society would be forced to dissolve with its assets going to the Barrhead FCSS Food Bank.

Recent history of a garden in flux

Flock said they could have potentially done some work to help alleviate some if not the majority of the flooding problems, as well as repair or improve other areas of the garden, but in recent years, because of this uncertainty, they were operating year-to-year.

"When you don't know if you will be returning, it doesn't make a lot of sense to do a lot of upgrades," she said. "It also makes it difficult to secure any grants."

In the summer of 2018, the town gave the Community Garden until the spring to relocate. After extending it by an additional year, the agreement ended in November 2020.

The municipality deemed the move necessary after it decided to intensify its efforts to develop the property, engaging the Edmonton-based real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield to market it.

In December 2018, councillors voted 6-1 that the Town of Barrhead enter into a 10-year agreement for the use of an undeveloped two-acre parcel of land at the intersection of 50th Avenue and West Boundary Road in the southwest corner of Beaver Brook Estates. The offer was later rescinded. 

The municipality also suggested a location in Millennium Park, but it never went past the preliminary stages. Part of the issue was that nearby residents started an informal petition against the garden being moved there, partly over concerns it would attract crime.

Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com