Vanier community garden still awaiting test results
Posted Feb 26, 2010 By Desmond Devoy
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Tweet ThisEMC News - The proponents of the proposed community garden in Vanier's Richelieu Park fear that late soil test results may push back the planned kick-off for the garden.
"We still do not have the test results for the soil. We were supposed to get them two weeks ago," said Marguerite Beaulieu, during the Together for Vanier Working Group on Beautification meeting at the offices of the Vanier Business Improvement Area (BIA) at 287 Montréal Road, on the evening of Tuesday, February 16. The samples were sent to the University of Guelph this past October. "We should have these results in by now."
The committee agreed that it would contact Ward 12 (Rideau-Vanier) City Councillor Georges Bedard about the issue. Beaulieu's community garden group has also been in contact with Moe Garahan's Just Food Ottawa group, as they are the main contact for soil testing for gardens in the city.
The garden, to be located near the current ice skating rink, at the south end of the soccer field, near the stone wall, is already mapped out thanks to Beaulieu's hard work in compiling a gardening plan.
"We'll start off with 60 plots, hoping to build to 80," she said of the 4 x 10 metre plots. "But everything is dependant on soil results...We're sort of worried. No news is bad news."
Already, they have had to adapt their plans from earlier expectations.
"We know we have to do raised beds. We can't go in the ground, we know," admitted Beaulieu. "(But) we need to know how deep the contamination is," in the soil.
Beaulieu told the committee that she and her fellow gardeners had hoped to start work this spring.
"I'm good to go. I know what I need. We could go tomorrow," said Beaulieu, if she just had the results. "We can be nixed. If our soil sample is that bad, it won't go ahead. That means we'll have to find another place," she said, just like the plan for a community garden in New Edinburgh's Stanley Park, which was killed because the soil, on National Capital Commission land, was found to be far too contaminated, and has since been roped off.
"We're set on Richelieu Park," said Beaulieu adamantly, but pointed to the Stanley Park dilemma, and admitted that "we're afraid that this is what will happen to us." She noted that the community garden proponents in New Edinburgh also "had an awful time getting their results as well."
Resident Andrew Leuty also noted that "March is coming up. That's when seedlings start."
Beaulieu noted that she wants the whole community to be involved, and for it to be a meeting place for the young and old, from students learning about ecology to giving elderly people a regular plot to tend to.
"I'm a former high school teacher and we were always looking for things to do in the community," said Beaulieu. "We'll have a row of beds that will be wheelchair accessible, that will be higher than the other ones."
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