Forward momentum continues for community garden

A sunny day on Feb. 2 left weather forecasters Wiarton Willie and Punxsutawney Phil to view their shadowy reflections and call for six more weeks of winter. That hasn't stopped the group behind the local community garden looking forward to planting season.

A meeting regarding the proposed community garden was held at the Estevan Public Library on Jan. 20 to update interested people on the progress of the garden, while also getting a sense of involvement from the public.

"Right now, we think we might have a location, but the biggest thing we're looking for is people to sit on the committee to help bring this forward. We're still in the infancy stage," said Barb Wright, one of the organizers behind the initiative.

After they have a more defined organizational structure in place, she added they can begin looking at grant requests and investigating how much money they would need to get everything up and running.

"We have an idea, kind of like a dream team picture, of what we'd like the plots to look like, but it depends on the space we get. As much as I'd like to say we're ready to shovel as soon as the snow is gone, it's a very slow process."

The group will be holding another meeting on Feb. 24, and Wright is hopeful they will be in a position to have land somewhere in the city and a better idea of how they will be moving ahead with the project.

"Each time we meet it seems we take another step forward," Wright said.

At the moment there are about four people spearheading the initiative and pushing to implement a community garden in Estevan. Others have shown interest, and Wright noted many who are interested are retired and spend much of the winter in warmer climes, which can take away from their organizational efforts this time of year.

"That's the other thing that has slowed a few things down a little bit," she said.

She said they had a teacher at the Estevan Comprehensive School plot a mockup of what the garden may look like. The plots would be four feet by 12 feet long, and paths separate each plot so each individual garden may be reached without trudging through anyone's section.

"How many we would have depends on how much usable space we would get and how many people in the end, want one plot. We're always wanting to look for growth, so we would try to get a space that we would be able to grow. If we have five plots this year, we could go to 10.

"I think the City has a plot that they're willing to offer us," noted Wright, who said they haven't gone to council yet and are waiting to see the perspective of the incoming city manager. "We've got a couple of spots that we really think would work, we just haven't gotten everything nailed down yet."

What the group's biggest costs will be include a water tank, all the necessary lumber, an irrigation system of some fashion and a port-a-potty.

"If we can't get grants to offset those costs then we would have to look at fundraising and that sort of a thing."