INNISFAIL – The arrival of autumn signals harvest season for many Alberta farmers. It also marks the end of the growing season for local gardeners.
The Innisfail Garden Club held its annual fall work bee at the Innisfail Community Garden on Oct. 5.
Several members with the community garden helped clean up garden plots and raised garden beds and prepared them for winter.
“(The community garden) is open until after Thanksgiving so there’s a couple of plots that are still here with beets and carrots and some potatoes too,” said Marion Davidson with the community garden committee. “We were (full) this summer and we are over half booked for next year so we have a good start.”
Despite the cool, damp growing season for much of Central Alberta this year, the Innisfail Community Garden was successful, noted Davidson.
“It was average. Some of the (fruits and vegetables) were late, some didn’t quite make it because of the cooler temperatures, (but) because it was more damp we didn’t have to water a lot,” said Davidson.
“We take what we can get every year and we just have to work with Mother Nature,” she added, noting another challenge for gardeners this season.
“The deer really helped themselves to a lot (this year). I think they found us as almost a buffet,” she said. “We are looking at what we can do about it for next year, such as netting or covering (garden beds and plots). You can cover things at key times like we did with our honeyberries on the west side.
“We don’t really want to fence it because we want it to be an open, community garden,” she added. “That’s probably a last resort so hopefully we’ll come up with some other things for deer next year.”
Davidson said they always welcome new members to the community garden and to the Innisfail Garden Club as well.
Amanda McCord of Innisfail was one of the new gardeners at the community garden this year.
“I grew lettuce, carrots and onions,” said McCord, noting she rented a raised garden bed this season. “The deer ate my lettuce but I enjoyed the onions and the carrots.
“This is my first year. The garden plots and raised beds are great. We certainly could have used some more heat this summer,” McCord concluded.
