The locavore lifestyle promotes living off and supporting your own community, and it doesn't get any more local than growing your vegetables in a community garden.
Chantelle Dubreuil, a local landscaper who is spearheading the proposed garden with Barb Wright, a public health nutritionist at the Sun Country Health Region, recently met with Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig, and Dubreuil said he has been a supportive mind at City Hall since they first approached him in May. They will be making a presentation to city council at the next meeting as the group looks to acquire some unused land in the city to set up garden plots.
Council still has to decide if it is willing to give up city property, and Dubreuil said they are hoping council can find some land for them.
"There's a few different areas around town that are city property, so we don't really get to decide where it goes. All we can do is best present where we want to start," said Dubreuil.
She said there are four locations in the city that aren't in a park, sitting vacant and deemed relatively unusable by the city in terms of development.
There are about 20 people who have come forward so far in support of the community garden, either because they want to grow some vegetables or because they support the concept of people growing their own food locally.
"I think this has been coming for a long time. There's a big need," said Dubreuil.
She gardens within her flowerbeds and is looking for something with more space to grow. An aspect of the community garden she is most looking forward to is the sense of community and of like-minded people getting their hands dirty together because they like gardening.
"These people have something in common, so this is where they want to hang out. The people who like to garden can hang out with other gardeners," said Dubreuil. "Then you have young and old, people learning from people with years of experience. With the diversification we have in town there's a lot of interesting vegetables I've never even heard of, because I have Filipino neighbours, and I'm like 'What is that? It smells so good.'"
She said many want to garden but are living in condos. Seniors who have moved into seniors' living homes don't have a lot of space, and she is hoping a community garden would give everyone the space and resources they need to enjoy their hobby.
Dubreuil said the community garden group is motivated to move forward, and they are hoping to be able to get set up and start gardening next spring. She said if they do get their land, they may host some work bees in April and May to prepare for the growing season.
The garden would need a tool shed, complete with tools for those who don't have their own.
"Depending on where it goes, access to water is the other thing. We might need a couple of big water tanks," she said, adding that she wasn't sure what access to water was like at any of the potential land plots in the city.
There are also legal issues they need to figure out in terms of liability insurance and the rules for the garden club. The group has spoken with people from the community garden in Moose Jaw and that has provided a good place to start. The plots will be handed out as first-come, first-served.
Those who were involved in previous years would have first dibs on their plot for the following year.
"We don't think a lottery is fair, because if somebody puts all that work into their little plot and then next year they get bumped, that just doesn't seem fair," added Dubreuil. "There are a lot of perennial vegetables out there too, and if you start planting asparagus out there, well, you'd be able to harvest that in three years, so you don't want to lose that plot the next year."
