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Community gardens looking for more involvement

More interest means more expansion and funding
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Sylvan Lake Community Garden plots cleaned up for winter. Photo by Myra Nicks/Sylvan Lake News

With community gardens sprouting up all over Alberta, Sylvan Lake is looking at how the town compares. At the moment there isn’t enough community interest to warrant asking for funding. However, a group met last night to address the lack of interest, take a look at how the garden is currently doing, discuss possible new locations and started organizing a community garden committee.

“We are always trying to encourage and promote public involvement in our community gardens. The more interest we have, the easier it is to justify garden expansion and relate costs.”” said Cheryl DeBoer, town horticulturist and landscape gardener.

There are currently 11 usable plots on 47 Ave. down towards Westview Drive that are completely volunteer-run. During the 2016 growing season less than half of the plots were planted and the ones that were became overgrown and were not tended to on a regular basis. This year the plots were full but not taken care of.

Plots only require a $20 deposit for the year and are completely volunteer run.

DeBoer pointed out that Sylvan Lake has many open green spaces that could potentially be used as garden space. She shared Rocky Mountain House’s concept for community gardens and the wide spread prevalence of community garden spaces she saw in a recent trip to Seattle as inspiration for what Sylvan Lake could potentially do with their community gardens.

To get involved with the community garden committee, email Lara Bechtel: chair.communitygardens@gmail.com



myra.nicks@sylvanlakenews.com

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