The garden club at Harmony Community Food Centre (CFC) is always up to something interesting. Whether making preserves in the kitchen, harvesting fruits and vegetables in the garden, saving seeds in the basement, visiting an urban farm or picking local fruit in the neighbourhood, they are cultivating community and learning new skills together.
This season, the garden club also focused on preserving the harvests and sweet tastes of summertime, and they made four batches of jam including apply jelly, purple jam, cherry bomb jam and sweet tart jam. When the group is busy in the kitchen, all of Harmony CFC starts to smell like sweet jam, and everyone enjoys the deliciousness of their collective efforts. The jam is also available at the Good Food Market, and this helps Harmony CFC keep market prices more affordable for community members who benefit from the services.
By learning new skills, about half the garden club’s current members have started growing food on their windowsills, balconies or in their own gardens. One member, Debby, grew okra on her balcony that grew almost 16 centimetres long. In the spring, another member brought baby seedlings for other community members to take home. These kind gestures are just some of the many ways in which members of the garden club work together to teach and support one another.
The garden club meets twice weekly at our 2 Gower St location and offers a wide variety of garden and garden-related activities that change with the seasons. Please contact Sarah at [email protected] for more information.
Debby and her 16 cm okra.