Community Garden
In 2019 members of the Fitzgerald neighbourhood in St. Catharines, Ontario started gathering to discuss the creation of a community garden. While we planned through the early stages of the pandemic in 2020, the promise of a garden became a wellspring of hope during uncertain times. Twenty beds were built in the spring of 2021 and today the garden is a social pocket of the neighbourhood offering a place to connect with land and neighbours, receive the balm of nature, and admire displays of modest beauty.
From its inception in 2019 I have provided leadership for garden operations. My contributions included membership management, establishing the garden layout, working with City staff to connect to a water source and negotiate insurance, applying for grants, and getting hands dirty building boxes, moving soil, planting and weeding
The Fitzgerald Garden is located on traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, the Netural and Wendat peoples, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is covered by the Upper Canada Treaties and within land protected by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum agreement.
The Garden seeks to work in solidarity with Indigenous growers and makers, while respectfully acknowledging them as traditional custodians of these lands