Garden plots a growing trend, prof says

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/08/2011 (5486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you grow your own fresh produce and dutifully shop at farmers’ markets, Brandon University associate Prof. Doug Ramsey says you’re part of an exploding trend that shows no signs of withering away any time soon.

"I don’t think you could have enough garden plots in Brandon. It’s incredibly popular, so I think this will keep growing — pardon the pun," Ramsey said. "We’ve found this is consistent throughout Manitoba."

As a faculty member with the BU rural development department, Ramsey is in the midst of a summer-long research project that has taken him and students, Kali Meadows and Michelle Lemoine to every farmers market and community garden plot throughout Westman. The research project, is part of a larger five-year undertaking by the University of Manitoba. Ramsey’s research is financed by the Community University Research Alliance (CURA), which awards funding to projects with networks in communities that have pre-determined research needs.

"We’re not doing research on communities, we’re doing research with communities," Ramsey explained.

To gather data, Ramsey, Meadows and Lemoine developed three surveys to present to gardeners and people buying and selling produce at regional farmers markets.

"We’re surveying people who garden to find out why it’s important to them, what they grow and about the social interaction within gardening," Ramsey said. "At the farmers’ markets we’re interviewing people who shop and sell … asking them why it’s important to them to buy locally. We’re trying to showcase on one hand what’s happening throughout Westman, and also in doing that, identify what are the issues that hold people back from being involved."

The larger umbrella project has 51 partner organizations including the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation, which Ramsey says became involved thanks to their past experience developing local community gardens. The partner organizations will use the research — which is focused on urban, rural and northern communities — to address local issues and find better food options for people within these regions.

"(In northern communities) people are really trying to combat that $15 head of lettuce and so it really is an exploding movement in Manitoba right now; part of it is the frustration with grocery stores and what they bring in," he said. "And then there’s the pride in being able to make a salad and have your own tomato and cucumber in the salad."

As harvest winds down and farmers’ markets pack up for the winter, the data will be reviewed — and ideally put to work, addressing what can be done to help make community gardens more accessible.

Ramsey hopes to figure out what city-owned vacant land in Brandon could be used for development of not only raised community garden beds, but community plots as well.

"We’ve seen it work already in Brandon," he said. "At the neighbourhood level, if you had a relatively unused park and you put in garden boxes and now there’s people in that park all day … it’s amazing to see. Before the city just cut the dandelions each week. It makes a huge difference to go into these neighbourhoods and see what was an unused park, now full of people."