With its “inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow” refrain, John Denver’s Garden Song can be a cheerful encouragement to start gardening. In fact, he makes it sound easy by just having to take a “rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground”.
And he’s right. It’s not hard to get started, especially in Guelph where we have lots of community gardens and access to free seeds and gardening knowledge.
Growing food at home is more than a fun hobby. With elevated food prices and the creep of shrinkflation, growing a garden puts some of the control around food back into our own hands and green thumbs. The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association gets it right when they say, “A country or a region has food security when its population has reliable access to enough nutritious, affordable food.“
Growing your own is one way to protect yourself from some of the volatility in the food market and the shifts in our food supply.
The nutrition in home-grown food is high. We know the time between harvest and the moment you are eating your sun-ripened tomato can be a lot shorter when you’re eating from your own garden. Some of the nutrition, like antioxidants, begins to wane as soon as it’s picked, and so your garden beets provide you with more nutrients than beets that had to travel by truck to get to your plate.
Even better, your own produce can be picked at peak ripeness meaning it is perfectly delicious and nutritious when you enjoy it.
Ready to give gardening a go? Check out Guelph’s wealth of community garden plots at the community garden map. You can locate the garden in your neighbourhood or reach out to [email protected].
Guelph Seed Library is a great way to get your garden started. They offer seeds and seed knowledge to new and seasoned gardeners. A project of the Guelph Tool Library, Guelph Seed Library has been around since before the pandemic. Through partnerships and creativity they have found ways to share free seeds in this community and last year they distributed 7,370 packages of seeds.
The Guelph Seed Library takes a thoughtful, community-focused approach to sharing its universally accessible seeds. Susan Carey, the Guelph Seed Library coordinator and co-founder of the Guelph Tool Library distributes many of the seeds at our Guelph Public Library.
She explains that, “Libraries are approachable, low cost and often offer additional programming for newcomers.” The seeds are distributed in three library branches at present (main library, Scottsdale and east side branches). The Guelph Seed Library carefully distributes its seeds at the perfect time to plant them. It’s just one of the ways that the Guelph Seed Library shares knowledge along with their seeds.
People can also pick up seeds for free or by donation at Seedy Saturday on March 22 at Old Quebec Street Mall. The Guelph Seed Library, the tool library and Guelph Yorklands are partnering for this event and they will have workshops available that day as well. Use this chance to gather some seeds, check out the gardening tools available from the tool library and find out about ways you can contribute to our community through Guelph Seed Library.
