SUNDRE – With all of the snow that remained blanketing much of the area as of late last month, the gardening season still felt fairly distant despite the days becoming much longer.
But a number of local greenthumbs who are part of the Sundre Community Garden nevertheless met for the group’s annual general meeting to not only reaffirm commitments to rent plots but also to start considering potential plans for the coming season.
“We had a few returning gardeners show up for the meeting and a lot of returning gardeners already confirmed their plots for this year,” said Renate de Bruijn, community outreach coordinator at the Greenwood Neighbourhood Place Society, which originally spearheaded the effort to develop the garden that in 2015 opened immediately adjacent to the Myron Thompson Health Centre.
About 10 people attended the March 22 meeting at the Sundre Community Centre. As the committee is not a society, there is no official board executive that requires an election. The membership essentially meets ever year to discuss an informal division of labour to ensure the community garden is maintained and stocked, she said.
“We have a few members that are taking the lead on the compost care and ordering the water,” she said.
Asked what kinds of plans might be on the committee’s radar this season, she said, “We were discussing (installing a) solar panel possibly to charge the batteries of the trimmer instead of people taking it home and charging it there.”
Additionally, as there are numerous senior members, she added plans are coming together to take a slightly different approach that is intended to make life a little easier for the group’s elder green thumbs.
“For the compost care, we’re going to install hinges on the lid so we don’t have to take the lid off anymore, we can just flip it over,” she said, adding those might be fairly minor projects on the grand scheme of things, but that they will substantially improve the members’ ability to garden and maintain the site.
“Small changes, big improvements,” she said.
As of March 28, she said 21 out of an available 28 garden plots had already been spoken for with a wait list for the remaining raised beds. The committee is also looking to accommodate requests from some members who sought to switch their plots.
“For some seniors, it’s easier to be closer to the water source so they don’t have to carry the water over as far,” she said.
The committee is also considering the possibility of lining up some speakers to do presentations possibly at the garden to offer some pointers, she said, adding topics might include subjects such as maintaining healthy soil conditions as well as organic fertilizer.
But when de Bruijn spoke with the Albertan, the amount of snow still blanketing the area made scheduling a date for the annual spring work bee and cleanup an exercise in uncertainty, so a date has not yet been set.
“There’s a lot of snow in front of one of the gates, and a lot of snow overall on the site anyway,” she said, adding the work bee will hopefully be held later this month.
