Open Garden Day
Open Garden Day happens at the end of each summer and it is a great opportunity to explore some of the wonderful edible gardens of St. John’s. There are always a wonderful range of gardens, including allotment-style community gardens, shared-harvest neighbourhood projects, backyard container gardens and front-yard potato bins.
Meet (some of) the Gardeners
Memorial University Community Garden
Q: How long have you been gardening? How long have you been keeping this particular garden?
A: The MUN Community Garden was built by Memorial University staff, students and faculty during the Fall of 2010. It opened in the Spring of 2011 for its first growing season.
Q: Are you the only person using your garden, or is it shared?
A: This community garden currently consists of 30 plots and has almost 100 members!
Q: What motivated you to begin growing food in the city?
A: We wanted to provide a space for students and others who might not have access to a garden and be a place where people can learn in a fun and supportive atmosphere. This project will increase awareness of food security and health and wellness issues, increase opportunities for students with disabilities, and engage youth in the process. Also, a community garden brings together many factors that involve sustainability such as composting, water conservation, and growing food locally, which are part of Memorial’s sustainability declaration.
Q: What has been your greatest gardening triumph this year?
A: Seeing first-time gardeners grow wonderful veggies, such as spinach, lettuce, onions, and broccoli.
Q: Have you had any colossal gardening failures so far this summer?
A: The tomatoes in the garden have been slow to grow due to the cold temperatures, but we still have our fingers crossed!
Q: Have you found any resources particularly helpful in developing your garden (books, television or radio programs, websites, organizations, etc)?
A: Cold Climate Gardening, Canadian Gardening for Dummies.
Rabbittown Community Garden
Q: How long have you been gardening? How long have you been keeping this particular garden?
A:I personally have been gardening all my life. This garden is in its fourth growing season.
Q: Are you the only person using your garden, or is it shared?
A: We are a demonstration garden of the Community Garden Alliance who’s moto is ‘All for One Harvest, One Harvest for All’. This garden is planted and maintained by everyone. When it’s harvested, everyone then gets an equal portion.
Q: What motivated you to begin growing food in the city?
A: The city is where I live. I have long since been aware of the economical and physical benefits of growing your own food. The past few years, living in the city, I’ve been focused on the social and mental benefits.
Q: What has been your greatest gardening triumph this year?
A: We were fortunate to host the Go Project, through the United Church, where 30 young adults donated their time to help develop the garden. It was a great effort by all involved.
Q: Have you had any colossal gardening failures so far this summer? What is your greatest gardening foe?
A: This year has been hard because of the weather so a lot of our crops either didn’t come or didn’t come well. Our greatest foe has been the cabbage butterfly.
Q: What is your favourite piece of gardening advice?
A: Just try growing something. It takes very little effort or money to plant some seeds.
Q: Have you found any resources particularly helpful in developing your garden (books, television or radio programs, websites, organizations, etc)?
A: I would advise people to look to those growing in your area or in a similar climate. Our fellow organizations such as FEASt, FSN, MUN Botanical Gardens are great ways to get informed.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add for our readers?
A: Rabbittown Community Garden has openings right now for others to join us. You can contact us at cga.stjohns@gmail.com or join Community Garden Alliance on Facebook.
Renee B.
Q: How long have you been gardening? How long have you been keeping this particular garden?
A: I did a little container gardening years ago. I’ve been only 2 years here in this garden.
Q: Are you the only person using your garden, or is it shared?
A: Solo.
Q: What motivated you to begin growing food in the city?
A: I learned about raised beds and Get Growing Neighbourhoods from enthusiastic gardeners on Open Garden Day 2009.
Q: What has been your greatest gardening triumph this year?
A: I’m enjoying a major reduction in ground elder and mile-a-minute from work done last fall. I have a tomato in spite of the weather.
Q: Have you had any colossal gardening failures so far this summer? What is your greatest gardening foe?
A: My new apple tree never made it in the ground – I think it got apple scab or some other fungus. My main foe is slugs/snails.
Q: What is your favourite piece of gardening advice?
A: Keep it simple – start with one crop.
Q: Have you found any resources particularly helpful in developing your garden (books, television or radio programs, websites, organizations, etc)?
A: Lori Heath/Safer Soil on lead mitigation and for using my garden as part of her experiment.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add for our readers?
A: My garden grows thanks to my friend Otto’s advice and my dad’s untiring labour.
Angela H.
Q: How long have you been gardening? How long have you been keeping this particular garden?
A: 3 years
Q: Are you the only person using your garden, or is it shared?
A: Just me.
Q: What motivated you to begin growing food in the city?
A: Recognition of how important food security is to NL and the dire need to increase our food production; also wanting fresh organic produce for myself.
Q: What has been your greatest gardening triumph this year?
A: Kale, chard, parsley.
Q: Have you had any colossal gardening failures so far this summer? What is your greatest gardening foe?
A: Zukes & cukes pathetic, no peas or beans, leaf miners eating my leaves.
Q: What is your favourite piece of gardening advice?
A: Things just want to grow – it’s easy to start, expertise comes with time.
Q: Have you found any resources particularly helpful in developing your garden (books, television or radio programs, websites, organizations, etc)?
A: Square Foot Gardening, The Avalon Vegetable Garden, You Grow Girl.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add for our readers?
A: Grow it or support those who do – LOCAL & FRESH is the way to go.
Leisha S.
Q: How long have you been gardening? How long have you been keeping this particular garden?
A: I have been gardening for about three years now with a combination of raised bed gardens and sidewalk container gardens. This is the first year for this particular location of garden, although several plants have been transplanted from past locations.
Q: Are you the only person using your garden, or is it shared?
A: I’m the only person using the garden, though I’ve been grateful for the assistance of a few lovely folks in helping to build it.
Q: What motivated you to begin growing food in the city?
A: I’m interested in food that is local and sustainable, and work on a regular basis to ensure that the food I consume throughout the year comes from local sources – whether it is foraged local food such as fruits and herbs, or supporting local farmers and growers in the area as much as possible. Growing my own food is just another way to add to this – and as much as possible I try to preserve the season’s harvest through canning and freezing so that I might be able to use it throughout the year.
Q: What has been your greatest gardening triumph this year?
A: July was a surprisingly good month and gave things a chance to really grow before the rest of the hard weather hit! Three years of strawberry transplants gave me strawberries for breakfast every morning the past few weeks, and an experiment with a jeruselum artichoke seems to be working so far… But after two years of failed zucchini plants and one round of failed plants this year, the latest container crop is finally flowering and may actually work!
Q: Have you had any colossal gardening failures so far this summer? What is your greatest gardening foe?
A: The weather is hands down the biggest difficulty this year. Starting seeds indoors and purchasing seedlings from local farmers can only take you so far. While the tomato plants are growing pretty giant thanks to all the rain, you can only do so much without the sun.
Q: What is your favourite piece of gardening advice?
A: Don’t worry about whether you do or don’t know how to garden, or whether you need to expand your knowledge. Just do it! Grow what you like and what makes you happy, and in the process you’ll learn and discover new things every year. The best way to learn how to do something is often to just jump in, and you’ll have a lot of enjoyment in the process – and hopefully something to eat when its done.
Q: Have you found any resources particularly helpful in developing your garden (books, television or radio programs, websites, organizations, etc)?
A: Toronto’s Gayla Trail’s book Grow Great Grub and her accompanying website You Grow Girl are fantastic and easy to use resources for the gardener just starting out. But mostly, talking and sharing knowledge with other gardeners and with local farmers is absolutely the best resource we have! Their knowledge of the local soil, climate, weather issues, plant diseases and insects is the best!
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add for our readers?
A: Don’t be afraid to try to grow something – just plant a seed and give it a go! And one of the best things about growing – the absolute happiness it brings both from seeing something alive and lush in this sometimes difficult, and gorgeous, climate, and hopefully being able to actually eat it at some point.
Johanna R.
Q: How long have you been gardening?
A: I’ve always gardened.
Q: How long have you been keeping this particular garden?
A: This garden is in its third year.
Q: Are you the only person using your garden, or is it shared?
A: The garden is shared with friends and neighbours.
Q: What motivated you to begin growing food in the city?
A: A food-scaper friend saw the potential of my little piece of land. Its south westerly aspect and neighbouring houses create a micro climate of sunshine when there is sunshine and warmth. The challenge was to replace soil because of lead content.
Q: What has been your greatest gardening triumph this year?
A: A May herb harvest and a bumper crop of strawberries.
Q: Have you had any colossal gardening failures so far this summer? What is your greatest gardening foe?
A: Slugs love scarlet runners (beans) they got them all. My apple trees are too far apart and fruitless.
Q: What is your favourite piece of gardening advice?
A: Feed the soil.
Q: Have you found any resources particularly helpful in developing your garden (books, television or radio programs, websites, organizations, etc)?
A: I seek out information from the internet, and from other gardeners.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add for our readers?
A: Best to park your car on Signal Hill and come in through 21 Walsh’s Square, my house. The ‘secret’ path from Battery Road is also a possible way of getting to the garden but it’s overgrown and hard to find.
Rob V.
Q: How long have you been gardening? How long have you been keeping this particular garden?
A: I have been veggie gardening for about 20 years, 12 years in our current location
Q: Are you the only person using your garden, or is it shared?
A: My wife Donna and son Liam help me tend our garden.
Q: What motivated you to begin growing food in the city?
A: I began gardening in the city simply because what you grow yourself tastes soo much better than any supermarket variety of food. My father always grew vegetables in the backyard as I was growing up and I seen at an early age the taste difference in fresh local grown vs. grocery store varieties. Also, because I wanted to know what went into the production of what I eat.
Q: What has been your greatest gardening triumph this year? Have you had any colossal gardening failures so far this summer? What is your greatest gardening foe?
A: There have not really been any colossal success or failure this year–things seem to be growing fine, just a little behind from previous years. My biggest gardening foes would be wind and trying to keep the weeds at bay (I’m a little bit too much type A in trying to stay ahead of weeds). If I can say that anything is a failure is that I have kind of let the greenhouse get away from me a bit in that it is more overgrown than usual–I think the weather has deterred me a little this year in staying on top of things.
Q: What is your favourite piece of gardening advice?
A: Best piece of gardening advice is to just dive into it and do it. Also to learn from year to year so you can improve upon the previous year.
Q: Have you found any resources particularly helpful in developing your garden (books, television or radio programs, websites, organizations, etc)?
A: The best resources that I have found over the years are Rodale publications (Organic Gardening), Canadian Gardening magazine, GardenWeb forums web site, and trial and error.
St. John’s Safer Soil
A: The project, and the garden, is operated by a non-profit organization called Common Ground, which promotes sustainable agrigulture and community development. Food at the garden is grown for the Gathering Place meal program.
Q: What motivated you to begin growing food in the city?
A: The impetus behind the Safer Soil project comes from recent studies which have found elevated soil lead levels in St. John’s, particularly in the older parts of the city. In partnership with the Centre for Long-term Environmental Action in Newfoundland, (CLEANf/Ld), MUN Geography – St. John’s Environmental Lead Project and MUN Botanical Garden, the project was created to promote safe and sustainable city gardening and recreation in urban green spaces.
Q: What has been your greatest gardening triumph this year?
Eastern Edge Gallery
Q: How long have you been gardening? How long have you been keeping this particular garden?
A: Everyone at the gallery has been gardening on and off for years. Obviously the gallery does not have gardening as its main occupation BUT has been trying to integrate gardening, and environmentally sound and innovative practices into the re-development of the building it inhabits. No big changes have come out of this YET. That won’t stop us from dreaming and scheming. This particular garden is a new art project. On St. John’s Days we invited the public to come plant flowers and seeds in pots they painted and to then give them as gifts to their favourite places in St John’s. It was a lot of fun and we liked it so much we wanted to make a bigger and better movable garden. So, the plan is to set up a variety of beds and pots and planters to be artfully designed and painted by the public; participants in workshops, and then plant edible and beautiful plants. When we can not keep the garden out front of the gallery any longer, it will be MOVED to a variety of other spaces to be looked after.
Q: Are you the only person using your garden, or is it shared?
A: It is shared with the public as a temporary site that then will be dispersed to several to look after in their own spaces. Artist Jesse Walker just recently with his exhibition inside the gallery with Liz Solo, presented a Night Gardening performance where he redesigned the front of the gallery by creating beds in which he planted cucumbers, onions, lettuce, spinach and more. In the midst of parked cars, some of these plants are sprouting and growing and we are trying to maintain what we can. This will be a part of the movable art garden too.
Q: What motivated you to begin growing food in the city?
A: Expensive produce and the desire to see things grow. This garden is exciting because though it may be small and a first step it adds green and life to a parking area in front of the gallery and on the harbour.
Q: What has been your greatest gardening triumph this year?
A: Jesse growing spinach and lettuce in a small mound of earth ion front of parked cars.
Q: Have you had any colossal gardening failures so far this summer? What is your greatest gardening foe?
A: Urban everything is the greatest gardening foe in the parking lot. Oh, and the wind I suppose. 
Lack of sun… and the fact that the beds that are there from Jesse’s project are all on gravel basically. None of it is a failure because it is a great project and the Movable Art Garden will enhance all of his efforts and maybe become a permanent feature in front of the gallery. Imagine an art residency in a parking lot garden!
Q: What is your favourite piece of gardening advice?
A: Get dirt under your nails.
Q: Have you found any resources particularly helpful in developing your garden (books, television or radio programs, websites, organizations, etc)?
A: Friends’ experiences.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add for our readers?
A: Hope you enjoy Eastern Edge Gallery’s Art Marathon Festival Movable Art Garden!
You can learn more about Eastern Edge Gallery at their website, and you can keep up with the 24-Hour Art Marathon at their blog, artmarathon.wordpress.com.