The Citizen, 2017-05-11, Page 20PAGE 20. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017.
Community garden provides to food bank annually
Ready to help out
In 2012, a group of community -minded individuals set out to make a garden and orchard that
would help the North Huron Food Share. The garden donates hundreds of pounds of food
annually to the food share. (File photo)
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
The Wingham Community Garden
and Orchard has come a long way
from its humble roots in 2012 to now
annually providing hundreds of
pounds of food for the North Huron
Food Share.
In recent years the project has
grown to include a number of
community partners, including the
Maitland River Community Church,
Libro Credit Union, the Wawanosh
4-H Life Skills Club, Trillium
Mutual Insurance Company and the
Huron County 4-H Leaders
Association, not to mention the
handful of volunteers who keep the
garden well-maintained and growing
season after season.
The garden started simply,
however, when in 2012 Emily
Beard, daughter of the Maitland
Valley Conservation Authority's Phil
Beard, was seeking a project for her
sustainable agriculture class at Sir
Sandford Fleming College. She
focused on creating a community
garden in Wingham as part of the co-
op project, using land adjacent to the
Libro Credit Union, but owned by
the Maitland River Community
Church.
In an interview with The Citizen,
Phil Beard says that the expansive
patch of land wasn't being used at
the time. While the church had been
considering turning it into a parking
lot, the town's former ball diamond
was at the time sitting unused.
The problem with that land was
that it was laced with stones due to
its time as a ball diamond. So, after
one year of work producing modest
crops of eggplant, patty pan squash
and blue tomatoes, Bill and Kathy
Gibson were brought on to help with
the project in 2013 and 2014.
Because the garden proved to be a
learning process, the group
continued experimenting during
those years, growing different types
of vegetables, including lettuce.
However, much of the lettuce went
to waste, as it had to be picked every
day and the Food Share was only
open one day per week.
In 2014, a number of trees
were planted and the orchard
portion of the garden began
to take shape. Trees planted
then included Asian pear,
apricots, peaches, plums,
a cherry -plum cross and apples.
German student Hauke
Reisenbichler, who is now back in
Germany but plans to return, was the
catalyst for the planting of the
orchard. Many of the tree varieties
were selected by Reisenbichler and
now, after being planted several
years ago, some of the trees are
beginning to slowly but surely bear
fruit.
The project continued to evolve
and improve, because in 2015 Beard
and those working on the garden
made the shift to vegetables that kept
well and didn't need to be picked
every day — moving closer to the
needs of the Food Share. This meant
the garden was growing vegetables
like beets, potatoes, peas, beans and
pole beans.
Problems persisted with the rocky
nature of the garden and those
working the soil had major problems
with moisture retention, so in 2016
the Libro Credit Union, through the
Wawanosh 4-H Life Skills Club
partnered to fund the installation of
raised beds at the garden that would
make all the difference.
As a result of the 20 raised beds
and a good year for weather, the
garden yielded over 1,800 pounds of
vegetables, in addition to two crops
of watermelon, planted by the 4-H
club.
Aside from the clear impact made
by the garden yielding hundreds of
pounds of fresh vegetables and fruit
for the local Food Share, rare items
for food banks that usually deal in
canned and dried foods, Beard
thinks the garden has done even
more for the community and those
who have spent time with their
hands in the dirt.
With the introduction of the 4-H
club members into the program,
skills are being handed down from
seasoned gardeners to the young
people of the community. In
addition, agriculture students from
F.E. Madill Secondary School in
Continued on page 21
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