Perth Dupont Community Garden
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The Perth Dupont Community Garden is nestled in the heart of the Dupont West neighbourhood.
This year the Garden Group is very multicultural . We have gardeners from: 2 different places in India, South America, Italy, The Chez Republic, Armenia, Trinidad and Jamaica. And of course those of us that were born here in North America. Some of our gardeners have a gardening heritage from their parent's country of origin, like Estonia.
The garden itself was a perfect reflection of this international mix, and also our love of heirloom flowers and vegetables. Please visit the picture page to see the things we have been growing.
The Sharing Plot was no exception. We have Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage, Early Wakefeild Jersey Cabbage and Multi-coloured Carrots. Along with that, we had companion plants of celery, onions and leeks, and parsley. We also have Chiogga Beets, and Bulls Blood Beets.
The first community garden meeting
The first community garden meeting of the year was held in the Perth Dupont Library''' It was very well attended Alison, Kevin,Edward, Michelle, Roy, Marcel, Millie, Yvette, Jamie, Susan, Sarah and Sandra .
Meeting Agenda April 7, 2007
MISSION STATEMENT
We are a multi-cultural group of gardeners, with ethnic and life-style diversity. The Community Garden is a place to grow, not only good organic food and flora, but a place for people and families to grow, and have a chance to learn and strengthen their leadership skills.
April 7, 2007
Community Garden Meeting
Agenda
- 2:00 Welcome and Introduction to Community Gardening
- 2:10 Open Discussion About Our Need For Clear Guidelines
Regarding Rights and Obligations
- 2:30 The Social Eco-System and Food Web:
The Steering Committee - The Core Group Membership Committee - Keeping Track Of Everybody Finance & Fund-raising Committee - How Can We Get This…? Social Committee - Planning Events
- 2:50 Marcel Fortin will discuss:
Compost System and Compost Bins For Our Garden Read More >>
Garden Guidelines
All gardeners and their guests are expected to observe the ’Community Gardens Program Regulations’ and the following gardening guidelines. This is to protect the rights of all the gardeners.
Sign up list for garden duties
- I understand that the produce from plot #19 “The Sharing Garden” will be given to a charitable organization such as the Food Stop. It is Not intended for personal use.
- I will keep my plants and gardening activity limited to my own plot. I will prevent my plants from sprawling onto walkways and adjacent gardens. I will stay out of other people’s gardens, I will not plant, harvest nor pull weeds unless specifically invited by that gardener.
- I will take on at least one Garden Duty for the season and will participate in the ‘Spring Garden Prep’ and the ‘Fall Clean Up’ events.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND NON-COMPLIANCE
Please report to the Core Group if issues arise with another gardener. We will try and help resolve the situation. The manager of Parks, Forestry, & Recreation may also be called in. Read More >>
Start Of Spring 2007
In the beginning of May, we had our Spring Start Up. It was a time to get together after the cold winter, and plan our gardens. We rented a rotor-tiller, and several gardeners used it to freshen up their plots. We also bought some manure to go along with the compost that Parks and Rec. delivered to us. And we received the new compost bin.
Around the time of the May 24th weekend, we had our first Fundraiser. Michelle and Wes organized a seedling sale, it was a bit of a nail-biter, with last minute details, but it was very successful. We made over $100 that morning. Read More >>
posted February 22, 2008
Summer in the Garden
Bright sunny days got the garden off to a good start. There are a lot of little events that happened, to make the community garden better. One of these occasions was when Shirley, one of our new gardeners, went to visit her Mom in Mississauga. The local Garden centre owner was generous enough to give us 2 car loads of plants. The big hearted donor, Louie Micheli, is the man who has run the seasonal garden centre at Dufferin Mall (or some years, at the Galleria Mall) for over twenty years—a local! Mr. Micheli had wanted to donate his surplus seedlings to a community garden and thankfully, by lucky coincidence, we connected. These plants went into our garden, and to eight other community gardens across the city. You can see the list of gardens by looking at the copy of the letter of thanks that we sent to the owner of the Garden Centre.
July: sunny and hot
By July we had the Garden under way. It was exciting to see such variety. The multicultural gardeners and their vegetable from back home. I was also impressed at how this variety opened up wonderful conversations, not only between the Gardeners, but with all the visitors that came through the garden.
From China we have the Bitter melon. The picture of Phung with the dark orange melon...this is what the Bitter Melon looks like when it is over-ripe. But to us, it is not spoiled, just an opportunity to save seeds. Phung Came to Canada in the late '70's. She often talks about her grand father's garden, and little techniques here and there that he showed her as a child. An other plant that she grew is this green plant that is cooked like spinach . Her grand father had told her that cuttings from this plant-even if it is bought at the grocery store, will grow roots quite easily...and sure enough they did.
An other melon that she grew was called Sweet Melon, it needs to be cooked, but it has medicinal properties. If we look at this first picture of the sweet melon that was taken near the end of July, it is about 8” long and 4" in diameter . This next picture taken at the end of August, it is about 20” long and 8" in diameter. And by the time it was harvested in September, it was about 27” long and 12" in diameter. And it must have weighed 15-18 pounds. We can see how it dwarfs the bitter Melon in this picture from Laura Berman. .
See the pictures of the Bitter Melon and Sweet Melon in Plants we grow
Summer Garden Meeting Saturday July 21 2007
Progress Report
As a way of introduction I would like to circle around for every ones name. I am Susan Berman I am the coordinator of this garden. - - - Thank you.
First I would like to review what happened at the April community garden meeting. Quite a few of you came to this first meeting of the season. We talked about the need for clear guidelines in the garden to protect the rights of the gardeners and the obligation of participation. Those of you that haven’t signed the ‘Community Garden Guidelines’ yet are urged to do so at the end of the meeting. We also discussed the need for committees to handle things like the direction of the community garden: called the Steering Committee.-That’s the core group
The Finance and fundraising Committee. –Michelle Vanlooey
The Membership Committee.- Gregory Kim
The Social Committee – Alison Uquhart Read More
NOTES FROM THE MEETING
This meeting was well attended. As well, several members of the Rankin community Garden, and the Erwin Krickhahn Garden came. After the progress report, Ravenna started her discussion about composting. She engaged the group by asking questions about the reason for composting and why do it. This helped every one see the need to support our composting project.
No serious issues were brought up. We talked a little bit about fundraising and a plan for the fall clean up event.
YOUTH GREEN SQUAD
One of the community gardens that we helped with the donated plants was the H.O.P.E. Garden. It stands for Health Organic Parkdale Edibles. One of thier objectives is to employ the local youth. Teach them about gardening and health eating. We made arrangements for Abbey to bring the young people to the Perth Garden to help out with our Sharing Garden Plot. It was quite the sight to watch them peddal their bikes up the street. Aperantly they came from Queen St. And Landsdowne Ave. All the way to Dupont Rd. and Symington Ave. They spent the morning helping in the garden, and then at noon, with bags of veggies hanging on the bicycle handles, and a wagon full with harvest boxes, we all went up to the Stop for lunch.
Please have a look at the Youth Green Squad Video.
Urban Heirloom Harvest Fest
Kevin worked with me to create
a display board to reflect the people
and projects of our garden.
URBAN HEIRLOOM HARVEST FESTIVAL SEPTEMBER 22, 2007
PRESENED BY THE WITHROW PARK FARMERS MARKET AND THE TORONTO COMMUNITY GARDEN NETWORK
In the beginning of September when the Perth Dupont Community Garden first learned of the Urban Heirloom Harvest Festival, we decided that we should participate. After all we had so much to offer. There was such a multicultural group of gardeners and such a wonderful variety of vegetables grown this year.
This would be the first event that our garden will have participated in. We made two display boards with pictures of our garden, and the people that grow these great things. For our display of unusual and heirloom veggies we had decided to bring a Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage, Early Jersey Wakefeild Cabbage, and two Bitter Melons, also known as Karila, one was from China, and the other one from India. Also from China we had Sweet Melon, and a 25lb. Sicilian Squash, from Italy. And we had pop corn, that we grew.
Alison is a potter and teacher.
She is always ready to share her knowledge
and produce from her garden.
We also wanted to donate food for the fund raising lunch.On September 20th, Andrew Flaman came by to pick up our contribution of other veggies that the members of our garden had to share tomato's, carrots leeks and cabbage for the fundraising meal. Alison was in the garden at the same time, and she also added her tomatoes to the donation. We also had corn stalks from the corn that we grew, and let them have the stalks as harvest decoration.
Andrew Flaman came to the garden to
pick up the donation of producefrom
our garden.And even though we had never
met before, he brought such a smile,
I knew that our veggies were in good hands.
On the day of the festival, one of my gardeners, Jamie, drove our produce and displays down to the park. Alison traveled with me, and we met Edward at the park. We met a lot of people, other community garden gardeners, and people that support the community gardens in Toronto, like Laura Berman (no relation). She took wonderful pictures of our produce.
We enjoyed the wonderful lunch and saw the excitement in the peoples eyes that had peeled and chopped, and cooked all those veggies! I could tell they had worked hard, and were happy that people were enjoying the food.
I know that I have only a small perspective of the whole story. So I asked around for help in remembering names, and other "behind the scene" activity that had happened. I got such a response, I wanted to add their part of the story here.
So please enjoy the story Urban Heirloom Harvest Fest: Stone Soup to Feed 200 People
posted May 29, 2008
Faces Of The Garden
This is the second poster that we made for the Harvest Festival --But it is also a picture of our how multicultural our gardeners are.
Content last modified on January 04, 2010, at 10:05 AM EST