Skip to content

Community garden delayed

Vanderhoof's new community garden will not be planting much this year, if anything, but work will continue to get it going for 2014.
32972vanderhoof1communitygardenforweb
The community garden off View Street just had a water line put in and will soon be getting garden boxes courtesy of New Gold.

Community Garden Delayed

Sam Redding

Omineca Express

Vanderhoof's new community garden will most likely not be planting anything this year due to complications involved in organizing the site.

The site is mostly being put together by the community garden group who originally started all the organizing and coordinating with all the groups involved. That has enabled the school district to piggyback on their success.

Michelle Roberge, organizer for the school district, said that they might still try to plant something that would grow quickly but that the community part of the garden would have to wait until next year.

"I still have to organize the soil and the manure, just get it mixed up and we got a donation from New Gold for some raised boxes," said Roberge. "They actually just gave us some core sample boxes, 12 or 14 of them I think."

Roberge wants to plant some lettuce or spinach in the boxes once they're ready, anything that will grow fast and be usable for when school starts in September.

"It's still in the plan. If I can get it organized by the end of next week then I think we can grow something. We're not going to put any squashes in," she said laughing. But some lettuce that can be ready for September would be perfect."

The Nechako Valley Community Service will be putting up the greenhouses for the garden but whether they'll be shared with everyone has yet to be determined.

"I think we'll be able to share the greenhouse but none of that is concrete," said Roberge. "The intent is to have a couple really big gardens where people can come and have a plot within that. But for the boxes, that's something we'll have to discuss next spring."

"Things got delayed," said Paul Carver, Superintendent of Public Works for Vanderhoof. "It's just the nature of the project, there's so many different players involved. It's like a three party arrangement between the school district, ourselves and of course now the Nechako Valley Community Services."

Carver said that this year is going to be more of a billing year, time to get everything ready for next year. Vanderhoof's budget sets out $2,500 for the garden.

"It's just too late and it was a little complicated between all the different players. It's unfortunate but it's also important to make sure everything is done properly."