Garden Profile

City of Edmonton Plant-a-Row Grow-a-Row
at the Edmonton/Waste Management Centre – Clover Bar Site

Located at: 13111 Meridian Street, NE Edmonton
Total garden area: 200 sq.ft. plus 800 sq.ft. expansion area
Gardening style: boxes and inground. Original garden has two raised beds on the west and north sides of the inground area. The new garden is all in-ground. Mostly vegetables with some flowers on the borders for decoration.
Number of participants: two staff and a team of up to ten volunteers
Fee: none

History of the Garden:

Plant-a-Row Grow-a-Row This City of Edmonton demonstration garden was started in 2000 with two purposes. One was to illustrate the beneficial effects of using compost in a garden. The other was to partner with the Composting Council of Canada's national initiative to encourage citizens to plant and grow an extra row of produce. These extra vegetables would be donated to Edmonton's Food Bank.

Gardening Style

The original garden has two raised beds bordering good loam beds. Flowers and zucchini/cucumber/tomatoes plants border the garden set out in planters or old rubber tires. Other vegetables are planted in rows.

MSW compost supplied by the EWMC plant as well as rooting fertilizer was added to the first garden at the beginning of the season. In the first year, 2 y³of compost were added. In the second year, 6 y³of topsoil was added along with 2 y³of compost. In the third year, 2 y³of topsoil and 1 y³of compost was added. In 2004, nothing was added. Some fertilizer was added to the plants, not the seeds. Nothing was added to the new expansion garden area but the initial delivery of topsoil.

The expansion garden is a large inground bed. The majority of the area was planted in potatoes, although there were some zucchini and tomatoes as well. Hardpan was found at 18 inches for the old garden (after 5 years), and six inches for the new one (1 year).

The Garden Now

Number of gardeners: A team of 10 – 12 volunteers; 2 staff (one permanent and a couple of summer students, part-time –1 day/week).
Kinds of people gardening: Mostly master composter/recycler volunteers and sometimes their family members which could be adults or children Some of the team members have stayed with the garden since its inception, others come out for one season, or one work bee either planting or harvesting.
Kinds of Plants: Through trial and error certain plants were eliminated primarily because of their immediate requirements for harvesting when ready (lettuce, radishes). These vegetables gave us the most reliable produce: swiss chard, carrots, beets, turnips, beans, peas, zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

Successes:

Were able to recruit a Garden Team of Volunteers each year with other volunteers coming out to help for the work bees only. Garden Team Leader stayed for 4 years.
Got donations of topsoil and compost for the gardens. Also, were not charged for water whether from a water truck, or the hose by the Administration Building.
Got a donation of one rain barrel to start the original garden.
Have gone from a harvest of 88 kg of vegetables the first year to 956 kg in 2004.
In the original garden, have increased the loamy composition and depth of the topsoil (to hardpan) since the beginning from 1 to 18 inches in 5 years.
Volunteers designed, scavenged the wood, and built two raised beds to act as windbreaks.
Got the cooperation of the Edmonton Waste Management Landscape Staff to assist with filling the water barrels, and occasionally watering the beds with the water truck, and doing a mass weeding if volunteer help was in short supply (newer garden especially).
Planting and harvesting work bees were successful each year.

Challenges, Needs, Barriers:

Water was a challenge since water barrels weren't always full; rapid evaporation by the wind caused problems for the plants. It is difficult to establish a schedule of volunteers for watering and weeding the garden on a regular basis. Having a water tap available for both the expansion garden and the new native plant garden made things much easier.
Establishing a relationship with the on-site workers at the EWMC was essential for success. Communication improved, since they could report on conditions of the garden.
It was easier to get one-time help from the volunteers at the beginning and the end of the growing season, than through the summer. Although on-going maintenance was sometimes an issue, with some help from the summer students, a more organized volunteer schedule, and emergency aid from the landscape crew things were much better.
Signage needs to be improved and plans are in development for an improvement in 2005.
Hope to get a demonstration perennial garden started this year and to continue with the demonstration native plant garden.
Biggest barrier to more volunteer involvement is the location of the Waste Management Centre and that there is no available public transportation.