Spruce Grove and District Agricultural Society Community Garden

The Cause

The Spruce Grove and District Agricultural Society is entering the second year (Phase II) of operating the City's only Community Garden. The project has transformed a bare, grassy knoll into a beautiful, productive garden space. 46 individuals/families, who are currently renting garden boxes benefit from growing there own produce. Phase III of the project will incorporate 14 additional boxes, 3 of which will be available free of charge to community groups who support the vulnerable in our community (FCSS, youth at risk). Our vision, once the garden is completed is to have herb patches and fruit trees which will be available to the public for harvesting. To this point the garden has been built with volunteer labour and donations from local businesses and is managed by a volunteer committee. All rental proceeds are used for garden maintenance.

Who Will it Benefit?

Direct benefit is to the families and individuals who rent the garden boxes. Not only are they growing their own food but gardening is a mentally and physically healthy activity. The COVID virus interrupted plans we had in place to involve the community this year but these will be reintroduced as soon as we again can gather. We were partnering with schools and had 3 classes who were going to use boxes free of charge-this included in class training to educate the students about growing food successfully, harvesting and preserving practices. Last year FCSS had 2 boxes which were used by families at risk. We had 2 community boxes planted by the volunteer committee which were available to any member of the public for picking. Any excess produce from either private or community boxes is donated to the Parkland Food Bank.