Gardeners looking for a little space to grow some produce, or even pretty flowers, will have a new option this summer.
Volunteer have been installing the first raised gardening beds in a new community garden across from Parkway Elementary.
Dylan Neilson-Schenk, one of the organizers, said volunteers — including support from JCI Penticton and Food Foresters of Canada — have been working to turn the out of the way city park into a community garden since 2013, when they received permission from the city.
“We just decided to do something in there and just try to get members of the community out to participate and turn that little plot of under-utilized city park into something that could bring people together and it could grow food,” said Neilson-Schenk.
Penticton already has a well-established community garden on Vancouver Hill, but Neilson-Schenk points out there is a waiting list to get a gardening plot there. Besides, the new Parkway community garden will have a different approach.
They raised the gardening beds available, starting with the six 10x4 beds last weekend, but the garden will also incorporate food forestry practices.
“That (the beds) will only take up about a third of the space that is in the garden. We are going to be planting … some of your typical fruit trees and nut trees but also a lot of other unique foods in there,” said Neilson-Schenk. “On the northern side of the garden, that is where we are going to have all the communal plants and trees and shrubs that people will all be able to harvest when they are ready.
”We do want to expose people to the idea of food forestry, but we also understand that a lot of people are happy with the raised bed concept.”
Grant & Son’s Mobile Milling donated the wood for the garden beds.
“It is all reclaimed wood from trees that were cut down in people’s backyards and whatnot throughout the valley,” said Neilson-Schenk, noting that the reuse of natural materials is another aspect of food forestry.
“You don’t take things off your property and throw them away,” Neilson-Schenk said. “The energy that the soil, the land, is returned once you have made use of the plant pulled the weed or cut the tree that you didn’t want down.”
Neilson-Schenk said it has taken a fair amount of work to get to this stage.
“It is about a quarter-acre so it doesn’t sound like a huge amount of property,” he said. “It has been a slow, steady process but we finally got irrigation in this spring.
“It should be operational this summer, you should be able to get a modest harvest off this year.”