COCHRANE— If you want to try gardening, but do not know where to start, the Glenbow Community Gardens might be a great place to wet your green thumb.
“Although it’s challenging here, we have veteran gardeners, a resident horticulturist, Linda Fee, who is a wealth of information, for anyone wanting to learn how to garden in general or how to garden in Cochrane,” said Andrea Blonsky, chair of the Cochrane Community Gardens Society.
The opportunities for mentorship with the Cochrane Community Gardens Society will certainly come in handy, as Cochrane can be a very tricky environment to garden in.
“If they are beginner gardeners, or if they are gardeners that are new to Cochrane, the challenges of growing here are completely different than if they come from, even the Edmonton area. Our climate here is so, so different because of our proximity to the mountains,” Blonsky said. “We just have the potential for frost any time of year here.”
There are also group lessons, or Gardener Gatherings, which occur every Monday when COVID-19 restrictions allow.
Not only will you get the opportunity to garden alongside a group of green-thumbs that can help improve your gardening, you can also get involved with some of the social responsibility initiatives offered by the Cochrane Community Gardens Society.
The group has donated its produce to the Helping Hands Society of Cochrane and Area and the Cochrane Activettes Food Bank, has used the vegetables to cook meals for families in crisis, promotes healthy eating habits through education and supports many local sustainability initiatives.
The Cochrane Community Gardens Society has also provided various educational programs on behalf of Glenbow School, the Cochrane Public Library, the Cochrane & District Horticultural Society, local service organizations, and Rocky View County.
Right now, the Cochrane Community Gardens Society is offering anyone who makes a donation to the Cochrane Food Bank a free heirloom tomato plant.
The group planted roots in 2010 and has been growing ever since. The creation of the Glenbow Community Garden was initially funded through a community sustainability grant and has been living up to that mandate ever since.
“We’ve got the composters, until recently when the Town had their compost gathering program, prior to that, the school waste, their lunch waste, went into out compost system, so we were diverting food out of the waste stream. Our courtyard was made with a recycled concrete product, the benches were from the Devonian Gardens in Calgary when they refurbished everything in the TD Centre downtown,” Blonsky said. “What we try to do is use either used materials or sustainably acquired materials.”
The various projects are open to anyone who wants to participate, regardless of whether or not they rent a plot at the Glenbow Community Gardens, Blonsky said, but renting a plot has many other benefits besides just having a place to garden.
It is a place to gather, learn and grow together.
“It’s community enhancement, it’s community engagement,” she said. “It allows for local access to food sources, it environmentally reduces the impact of shipping food over long distances, you enhance local food security so families can access fresh, safe, nutritional, affordable vegetables, fruits and herbs, you have social opportunities … We build welcoming, safe spaces for community members to gather.”
If you would like to get involved with any of the social initiatives of the Cochrane Community Gardens Association, or if you would like to rent a plot at the Glenbow Community Garden, visit the Cochrane Community Gardens Society on Facebook.
