North Bay Community Garden Working Group

Hi Everyone,

Are you interested in participating in a working group to start a community vegetable garden in North Bay?

Community gardens provide an opportunity for people from the community to come together to grow food, while sharing skills, knowledge and providing a means for social interaction.

Currently, there are a few small scale community gardens happening in North Bay coordinated by various groups and agencies. However, there isn't a central location available for anyone from the public to access growing space. A few ideas I have that could fall within the scope of this working group include:

  • working with city council to secure growing space on municipal land
  • examining models of community gardens and identifying which could work in North Bay
  • identifying and applying for applicable grants to support the development of a community garden
  • acting as a network for other community gardens in North Bay

Please contact me if you are interested in participating in this project:

Erin Reyce, RD, Public Health Dietitian, North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit

705-474-1400 ext 2532

Additional information on community gardens:

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Comments 

 
# bkeevil 2011-02-25 14:55
I know from my experience with another project I'm working on it will difficult to get funding or municipal land unless we are a legal entity. i.e. we incorporate as a non-profit. We would have to sign a contract to do either of these things.

I'll write a letter summarizing what is required to become a non-profit.
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# erinreyce 2011-02-28 09:52
During the municipal election, I posed the question "if elected to council, would you support the development of a community garden on municipal land?" The panel was in support of the idea, if a dedicated group were in place with a detailed plan. Also, if a community garden were on municipal land, we would be covered under their liability insurance coverage which can be a significant barrier cost wise to getting a garden up and running.

Thanks for your comments Bond, and certainly becoming an incorporated non-profit is pretty much a must for many grant opportunities. Erin.
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# bkeevil 2011-02-28 11:28
Yeah, that sounds about the same as I got...they "don't want anything hypothetical".

The one I was involved with out west had a formal contract with the municipality...basically they could give us 1 year notice and we had to remove any structures and fencing and vacate the area. There were also some issues with insurance but can't remember what they were.

Great project though. When I lived in an apartment in the city, my community garden plot was a really nice 'retreat'...for a lot of people it was more about a place to go after work and unwind for an hour. Managed to grow a few things too.

There was something about 'meeting green space requirements' being one of the reasons the city (out west) supported the project. A certain amount of municipal land had to be green space...not sure if we have something similar in NB.
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# Tom G 2011-03-06 11:23
I'm just starting to look at the possibilities of gardening on the Trans-Canada Pipeline. We're in final stages of acquiring a 60-acre bush-lot crossed by the pipeline. If the idea were feasible, there could be a lot of land available for gardening-to the property owners, and through them, possibly to community gardeners in some way or another. The pipeline right-of-way is about 5-acres straight across a standard 100-acre lot, and there's lots of lots.

I'll look closer at the pipeline easement agreement we signed and issues like soil contamination. Stuff like that. Of course, we'd anticipate sharing with wildlife.
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# bkeevil 2011-03-06 14:53
You might want to use the yardshare listings for that.

http://www.ttnorthbay.org/index.php?option=com_yardshare&view=yardshare&Itemid=158

Seems to be a lot of interest in donating land but most of it is outside of the city. If this program is to get urban residents gardening then something needs to be found within the city itself and that might prove difficult.
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# J.G.Kinnear 2011-06-12 12:34
Doing some research on 'aquaponics', I came across this interesting talk given at a TED event in the UK.

It filled me with excitement and optimism regarding future food-systems and community based de-centralized intensive gardening... and now I think I am going to get deeper into researching the potentials of this brilliant symbiotic approach.

combine these greenhouse aquaponics systems with Permaculture food-forests, and we have ourselves some highly productive solutions to our current industrialized and GMO-polluted factory-farm supply lines.

The speaker is Charlie Price from the social enterprise Aquaponics UK, you can view the talk he gave here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nIL9hWW3-Q&feature=player_embedded

regards,
James
@500Wetlands
http://pprrg.tumblr.com
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