The Carlington Summit

(Carlington Community and Health Services Adopt-a-Program)

Spring lifts all hearts, but especially a gardener's. At the Carlington Community Garden (Merivale and Coldrey) 120 gardeners, veterans and novices alike, are planning for a sixth season of satisfying work, good food, and friendship.

The gardeners and their families enjoy affordable, pesticide-free food, including special vegetables not available in the supermarket. They get plenty of exercise and they can socialize with enthusiastic growers from a variety of countries - Canada, Cambodia, Russia, the Caribbean, China, and Latin America. The garden plots are especially gratifying for people who were farmers before coming to Canada but who will never be able to own a house and have a backyard garden.

Each 10' x 12' plot is free, though those who can afford it contribute $5 towards the tool and repair fund. Carlington Community and Health Services provides tools and watering cans. Each gardener volunteers 10 hours over the summer: weeding paths, cleaning tools, making repairs, maintaining the compost, and phoning. The Garden Steering Committee has worked hard all winter - catering lunches and selling baked goods - to raise over $500 for improving the water system and buying major new tools.

But the garden and the gardeners can still use your help: Canadian Tire money; leaves for compost; seeds and flats of bedding plants ($3); spades, shovels, hoes, and small hand tools to replace the ones that wear out ($10-$25); hoses and nozzles ($10-$25); watering cans ($10-$12); and gardening advice (free, from you, at our orientation workshops).

Can you help us encourage healthy eating, exercise, and environment by adopting a garden plot? Call Wendy O'Connell-Smith, the community garden coordinator, at 722-4000.

(Carlington Community and Health Services is a non-profit community-based health centre which provides health and social services, is committed to the well-being of our community, promotes social, economic, physical, mental and environmental health, and is responsible to the community through an elected Board of Directors. Our staff and volunteers work together to achieve these goals. For information on becoming a volunteer or a member, please call us at 722-4000.)