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Hi, my name is Sarosh Anwar and I'm a Community Food Animator for Toronto, and today, I'll
show you how to start a community garden in your neighbourhood within the City of Toronto.
A community garden is a plot of land that a group of people garden together. Basically
it provides access to land to people who do not own a piece land of their own and what
makes the community garden unique is the whole process of establishing it and maintaining
it is done through good community process. You want to start off with one or two people
and they are going to act as catalysts as magnets to draw other people into the group.
You will need a Garden Coordinator that will be the person who has the most energy and
dedication to oversee the project and also to liaise with the City to gather support
for it. And then you want to get together a minimum of 5 to 7 people. Talk to the people
in you neighbourhood, maybe even collect signatures of support and you want to involve as many
people in your community as you can. So that means talking to the residents, you want to
reach out to community organizations in your area and of course the more people that are
involved in the planning stages the easier it is to have a garden that really reflects
the membership Once you've got your core group in place, you really should do your research
to find an appropriate piece of land. Just walk around the neighbourhood with your group
members. You'll be really surprised when your walking around slowly and being attuned
to the surroundings around you, you can really find some very good sites. Then visit some
other garden coordinators to get ideas for you own group. The first thing you want to
consider when your looking for a spot for your garden is sunlight. If you're going
to grow food you need a minimum exposure of 6 hours each day. And also remember to take
note of things like trees and buildings around the site. Take note of the size you want your
garden to be. Just as a general rule of thumb you want to have enough space to be able to
fit in around 10 plots that are 4 feet by 10 feet and of course you also want to allow
for room for expansion if you can because you might have more people around the community
who want to join your garden once its actually put in. When you're checking the land look
out for incline, if you have a very steep incline you will have soil erosion. Look out
for drainage issues, if you see sunken areas or soggy areas or dark patches of land that's
probably indicative of poor drainage, which is not good for a garden. Having a reliable
source of water for your garden is really important. You can always collect water in
rainwater barrels but having a running stream of water is going to be critical. Think about
the accessibility of your garden as well. It should have good access to vehicles that
may be delivering soil, compost or fencing. You also want to make sure that people of
different abilities can have access to the garden easily. Your garden should be in distance
of your garden club members as well the target community. The first step to securing a site
is figuring out who owns that piece of land. If you're not sure, you can visit the Assessment
Roll Office at Toronto City Hall. They have computers there and you can do a search on
them using the street number of the property your interested in. Once you've selected
a number of locations, you should contact the Cities Community Gardens Program Coordinator,
he's going to investigate title history of the property. After that the site plan is
going to be reviewed by Parks and Recreation Staff. Think about a plan for you site. Where
is everything going to go? What's the layout going to look like? What kinds of structures
might you need in your garden? Think about the budget your going to need to make all
of this come true. There is a lot that you can get for free, a lot that you can get as
in kind donations or at a discount. Making the garden of your dreams is not impossible,
but it might take a few years for you to attain all your goals. Just like a garden grows stronger
and more mature over the years, your going to find the same thing is going to happen
with your group. So remember to keep your goals exciting but also doable, and most importantly
remember to celebrate all of your achievements together as a group.