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FeedThe perfect Earth Day gift
Willowdale gets new neighbourhood garden
John Filion - Ward 23 Councillor
LIKELY, YOU’VE HEARD about buying food grown locally, and community gardens — local residents growing their own food in allotted areas — are popping up around the city. But this year, on Parkview Avenue, we’re adding a new concept: a neighbourhood garden.
It’s an old idea with a new twist, befitting a patch of recently acquired parkland next to the historic John McKenzie House.
The plan, with some details still to be finalized, is to grow food locally and sell it to neighbouring residents from a stand out front. Forget about the 100-kilometre diet, we’re hoping the produce will sell to those within walking distance of where it was grown.
The garden will be tended by local residents. Proceeds from the sale of vegetables will go back into the project, but we’re also expecting to have a charitable component. Already, several dozen volunteers have signed up to help plan the project and, more mportantly, be around when it’s time to plant, water, maintain and harvest.
There will be opportunities for local schools to get involved, as well as for any residents — both those with a green thumb and those who want to acquire one — who wish to sign up.
In addition to the vegetables, the property will have other gardens that will expand on the open space around the historic house, which also serves as home to the very community-minded Ontario Historical Society.
We want the surrounding property to look much as it might have in its prime in the 1920s.
The community involvement from residents and the historical society allows the project to receive funding for much of the capital work through the city’s Clean and Beautiful initiative.
Expect to see a shovel digging up the ground as soon as the frost melts and residents getting their hands dirty not long after that.
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