Spring is in the air in Sackville.
This week, the Little Plant Nursery and Open Sky Greenhouses opened for the season at their shared School Lane location, formerly Anderson’s Greenhouse. On Saturday, the Sackville Farmers Market will return to its summer location at Bill Johnstone Memorial Park. And on Sunday, the Sackville Community Garden will host its second annual plant swap and sale at its location on Charles Street.
CHMA spoke to garden organizing committee member Sarah Evans, who says that the garden is benefiting from recent changes in the neighbourhood.
“The new water retention pond trail is all behind the garden,” says Evans, “so now when you’re working there, it’s sort of like you’re surrounded by people walking their dogs and their kids… It’s amazing
Evans says garden members are working on improving the accessibility and flow of the site. Work on the retention pond also created a new cleared area where the gardeners are going to try something new. “We’re going to use [it] as sort of a communal garden,” says Evans. “Instead of getting a plot where one person will take care of it, or a family will take care of it, we’re all going to take care of this, whoever wants to can show up, pitch in, and then take some of the harvest.”
The Sackville Community Garden has been at the Charles Street site since about 2008, says Evans, and features about 25 plots where members grow vegetables individually or in groups. The site also has some perennial gardens and food forests, taken care of collectively. An organizing committee of 6 to 8 people keeps everything going, and this year, there will be extra help. The garden is partnering with EOS Eco-Energy to hire a Community Garden & Green Spaces Coordinator to help improve garden and green spaces throughout Tantramar.
This Sunday’s plant swap and sale is repeat of last year’s successful event, which Evans says brought lots of new people to the garden space. Vendors from Broadfork Farm, Understory Farm and Wysmykal Farm will be on hand to sell seedlings, and the plant swap will feature contributions from the wider gardening public. “We are encouraging people to bring perennials from their garden, dig things up, and then trade them,” says Evans. She says that last year’s event featured “probably hundreds of different kinds of plants” and people talking about where they came from and how they performed. “It was really fun conversation,” says Evans.
The plant swap is happening this Sunday from 10am to 1pm, and there are even plans to fire up the brick oven, for those interested in some communal cooking.
