It’s packed with vegetables and flowers, but a community garden in the south side of the city is much more than salad ingredients.
It’s about growing a neighbourhood.
“If you think about it, here’s this garden park on Simpson Street. And look at it. People come through here and there’s no vandalism. If we had the occasional bit of vandalism, then OK, but it’s beautiful and people appreciate it,” said Margaret Stadey, co-ordinator of the Ogden-East Simpson Community Garden Project.
“People come through here and participate. Everyone says hello here in this back lane. Do you see garbage in our back lane? We’re pretty tidy and cleaned up, and this is Simpson Street.”
Rightly or wrongly, the area has developed a nasty reputation over the years as a place where prostitutes and drunks hang out, where needle-filled alleyways are the norm and where safety after dark is wishful thinking.
Stadey acknowledged the problems, but said they don’t have to be the definition of the Simpson Street area.
“There are good people who live here, beautiful people who live here. We have neighbours who have lived here for 30 and 40 years, people who came from Europe, maybe after the war or whatever, are still here,” she said.
“People from before that even. And people come back to the neighbourhood. But though we have a bad reputation, we’re good people. This proves it, because if we weren’t good people, this garden park wouldn’t even be here.”
Though not a part of the city’s seven-member community garden collective, the Ogden-East Simpson Community Garden does similar work, providing vegetables to anyone in the neighbourhood who asks, everything from potatoes, carrots, turnips, strawberries and beets to peas, beans, corn, squash and pumpkins.
“The garden park is for anybody who would like something to eat. The idea of the garden park is that if somebody came through and was hungry, they would feel that it is OK for them to pick something and eat it,” Stadey said, adding they plan to plant apple and other fruit trees in years to come.
“We’re just in the middle of building. So if people come by and need food, we’ll just share. They can help with the weeding, they can dig in with us and do whatever needs to be done.”
Food banks and meal programs around Thunder Bay are also included on their distribution list.
“That’s our version of plant a row, grow a row,” Stadey said.
Lakehead University student Elisha Ottaway is spending the summer working in the garden, and while her passion is plants, knowing it’s helping others is the true payoff.
“It’s knowing the food is going to decent people who need it, that there is reasoning behind what we’re doing here. The fact that it’s an ongoing project really makes you love the work,” she said.
For those who prefer to work the land in their own backyards, Stadey said they have the ability to help there too, through a seed and tool-share
“We have seed and we have donations of plants from Mike’s and from the correctional centre and the university. And we share all of that in the neighbourhood. So the garden park is (just) one piece of it,” Stadey said.
