My friend Cor (pictured here) recently moved back to the city after living on a small farm for fifteen years.  Her new yard isn’t big enough for a proper vegetable garden, but she didn’t want to be without fresh produce and a place to exercise her green thumb.

Enter the Lethbridge Community Garden.  

Established in 2005 on the land surrounding the local animal shelter, the community garden rents out 94 plots at rates between $20 and $50 (4¢/square foot). Water is provided by the city’s parks and recreation department and a composting box is available to all the gardeners.  Pesticides and herbicides are discouraged – instead, gardeners share tips and tricks to keep away the bugs and weeds.

Gardeners begin planting around the end of May, after the risk of frost has passed.  Some people use seeds, others use bedding-out plants.  Either way leads to a wide variety of crops: potatoes, beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, radishes, strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb, herbs.  Some gardeners grow flowers around the edges of their plots, both to keep away pests and to brighten up the rows of green.

At the end of the growing season, the gardeners harvest their vegetables.  Whatever excess they have is usually donated to the local food bank, improving access to fresh produce for the city’s less fortunate.

Many cities across Canada have developed community gardening programmes.  They vary in scope and style, but can be easily tracked down through a simple web search.  Growing your own vegetables is a great way to guarantee organic quality and super-fresh taste.  Most of all, it gives you a chance to become more involved in your community, and brings with it a very high sense of accomplishment.

Paige McGeorge is a librarian-in-training who divides her time between Lethbridge, Alberta and Halifax, Nova Scotia. She blogs at chef-girl.net.