1,000 lbs of community food harvested each week: WGF

“How’s your growing going?” was a familiar greeting at The South Patch Community Garden in Oshawa’s Cordova Valley Park where Tuesdays were particularly busy these past few months.

One of five volunteer-led community gardens dotting the city, The South Patch is a welcoming space where community members come together and cultivate a shared loved of growing fresh food, says a city statement.

We Grow Food (WGF) Director Carol Vandersanden says that this season they worked to schedule volunteers to keep the gardens maintained while also ensuring that volunteers were following proper Covid-19 health authority guidelines.

She says that approximately 1,000 pounds of fresh food was harvested each week from the gardens and distributed to community members who were invited to come to The South Patch every Tuesday, as well as to community organizations such as Carea Community Health Centre, Sunrise Seniors Place and St. Vincent Pallotti’s Kitchen.

We Grow Food also distributed kitchen garden kits to 250 families this summer.

Oshawa Mayor Dan Carter was on hand for the recent wrap-up of the 2020 growing season to present Carol Vandersanden and fellow We Grow Food Director Michelle Perry with a letter of thanks.

“One of the things we’ve learned during Covid-19 is that community matters,” said Mayor Carter. “We Grow Food has demonstrated that for many years by sharing their gardening knowledge and skills with others and by bringing fresh food to residents in the neighbourhoods and to community organizations in need.”

We Grow Food was founded in 2013 and has community gardens at the following locations:

• The South Patch (863 Glen St.),
• Alexandra’s Bounty (364 Simcoe St. N.),
• The Carea Gardens (115 Grassmere Ave.) and,
• The Pepper Patch and The Berry Patch (both on Albert St.).

Three of the gardens, The South Patch, The Pepper Patch and the Berry Patch, are operated on City-owned lands.

We Grow Food – by the numbers:

• 500+ households served each month during the growing season
• 425 volunteer hours worked each week during the growing season
• 21,000+ pounds of produce harvested each season
• 2.5 acres of land farmed in Oshawa
• 100+ registered volunteers