Summerlea Plants a Pop-up Garden

If you’ve been at the Summerlea Park lately, you may have noticed a new feature. Summerlea is participating in the City of Edmonton’s Pop-Up Community Garden Program. The pilot program was set up by the City to ease the worry about food security.

To participate in the program, the Summerlea Community Garden Committee submitted an application form, which included a statement about how the garden would contribute to the food security of our community.

Our response was as follows :

  • The pop-up garden will raise awareness about the potential for growing our own food. Most residents live either in houses with small yards shaded by mature trees or in condos, which makes growing vegetables difficult. The pop-up garden will demonstrate the value of community gardening, especially during the harvest season.
  • The children of the neighborhood will be exposed to vegetable gardening.
  • The produce from the three extra garden boxes will go to the Food Bank or Mustard Seed or whoever is most in need. A portion of the September harvest will be reserved for our annual celebration in the park.

Since we made the application, two more families joined the garden, leaving one planter purely for the community. As of June 4, all planters have been sown.

We are still working on our application to the City for a permanent community garden, and we’re currently at the project charter stage. Help is always welcome. If you want to join the group, or just get on our mailing list, send an email to communitygarden@summerlea.ca.