CSA Food Bank hopes to build garden

Workshop held to get student input on design, but project not a sure thing

The Central Student Association (CSA) is hoping to construct a food garden on the land surrounding the CSA Food Bank office, which is located on the north-eastern corner of Gordon Street and South Ring Road. A workshop was held on Saturday, Nov. 2 to give students the opportunity to provide ideas about what they would like to see in the garden, as well as get a sense of what future, instructional gardening workshops might look like, if indeed the garden is approved by the university’s administration.

Plans to build a CSA Food Bank garden are nothing new, according to Brittany Skelton, the CSA’s Food Bank Coordinator.

“It’s [an idea] that’s been kicking around the Food Bank for a couple of years. A new movement among food banks is to do more than just emergency food, so [we’re] looking at having healthy, nutritious food coming into the space,” said Skelton. “We do a lot of surveys with our visitors and a lot of them say they want more fresh food. So why not? Why don’t we grow it ourselves?”

The Food Bank building currently occupies only a small portion of its leased land, but the property itself extends all the way to the sidewalk on both sides and is mostly open green space. The CSA is planning to meet with Don O’Leary, the Vice President of Finance and Administration, to ask for permission to use the land for the garden.

While the proposed garden would be in a highly visible spot, the Food Bank is confident that the plan will be approved.

“We’ve been including [the administration] from the beginning,” said Paul Wartman, who was Saturday’s workshop instructor and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in “edible forest gardening” at the University of Guelph. “If we just went out and did some guerrilla gardening, that might not get approved. But because we’ve been talking with them and they understand why we’re doing this, I think it’s a good chance.”

Approximately twenty students turned up to the workshop to learn about the first steps of garden design. While the instruction confined itself to the most rudimentary steps of observing and mapping a build-site, attendees were largely hopeful for the CSAs project.

“I really hope that we can produce a really significant volume of food for the Food Bank, that it can be a really successful thing, not just a model project but can actually have a real impact,” said Kelly Hodgins, a master’s student in food security and food systems.

Produce generated from the garden would still be reserved for existing Food Bank users, of which there are approximately 450 on campus, but all students would be welcome to enjoy the garden and participate in its instructional workshops. The garden would likely be built on raised beds, to accommodate the poor soil quality and make the garden itself transportable in the event that the Food Bank is relocated. The garden would also be organic.

If all goes well, the CSA Food Bank hopes to start planting by the spring of 2014.