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The open space behind Gape Epstein and Rob Wickson at Gorge Road Park will become Saanich's next community allotment garden, the first new municipal garden built in decades. Epstien, co-ordinator of the garden committee with the Gorge Tillicum Community Association and Wickson, president of the GTCA, spearheaded the drive to convert 1,600 square meters of field to about 60 garden boxes. Edward Hill/News staff
Garden to grow in Saanich’s Gorge Park Field to become allotment garden run by Gorge Tillicum Community Association Edward Hill News staff
With water views and bounded by a row of maple trees, a grassy field in Gorge Park in Saanich will become a community allotment garden in the wake of a 15 month effort driven by community volunteers. A park for more than a 110 years and once a major recreation spot for swimming in the
Gorge, Saanich council on Monday approved giving over 1,600 square metres of Gorge Park for a garden. It will give $20,000 in funding to prepare the 60-bed site, likely next spring. Volunteers Gabe Epstein, with the transitional garden committee and Rob Wickson, president of the Gorge Tillicum Community Association, led the effort to establish the garden, based on Saanich planning documents
that call for community gardens in each of the 12 neighbourhood zones. “When we first started the vision was about beds to grow food. As we had more meetings, it became a more diverse vision,” Epstein said. “We are trying to establish the garden with strong links to the park and with the wider community.” The Gorge Park Community Garden is the first new allotment garden established in Saanich in more than 30 years, although the Agnes Street garden was expanded a decade ago. The
Gorge Park garden is designed without fences and as wheelchair accessible, and will have allotment for rent and community spaces for all. “There will be community space where anyone can harvest. There will be a range from personal use to community use,” Epstein said. “There will be no locked gates. The idea is a porous garden, not only for members but for everybody else. We envision a place where people can come in and sit and talk.” “I hope to bring my guitar
down,” Wickson said. Over the past year, the community groups found neighbourhood support for the garden through workshops, information sessions and a survey, but they had their share of opposition too. Some in the area feared a garden would dominate the park’s open space and didn’t want to lose the field for walking their dogs. Some criticized Saanich and the community groups for a lack of public consultation. Please see: Garden, Page A5
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