July 2022

My name is Kevin, I am here with Don Lawson from Community Living Access.

How long have you been working with Community Living Access? I have been with Community Living Access for about 5 years.

What does your job at the agency entail? I work in community relations, I do a lot of community outreach, keeping up with social media, event planning and working with the community.

What events does Community Living have going on right now? We have been working on our garden and we just celebrated Community Living Month in May. We decided to do things a little bit differently, we invited people from around the community to add to

T H I S , T H A T A N D T H E O T H E R

S P O N S O R E D B Y :

SIMCOE LIONS CLUB

the mural we have behind the building and celebrate 30 years of Community Living.

I noticed the straw bales, what inspired you to start this kind of garden? Long story short, my garden a few years ago got blight (a plant disease). I was looking into alternatives, but raised beds can be quite expensive. So I studied the process of converting straw bales into a raised garden.

What are you growing in this garden? We are growing all sorts of vegetables, lettuce, tomato plants, and turnip. Anything you can grow in a conventional garden you can grow in a straw bale.

Is there anything you specifically need to grow your garden in a straw bale? You need to condition the bails using a nitrogen-based product. This process takes about 8-10 days. It creates heat which basically cooks the straw bale from the inside out. This creates the perfect environment to start your garden.

Is it easy to grow a garden this way? It is very easy to grow this way, there are thousands of straw bale gardens across the USA. It is just starting to really pick up here in Canada.

What do you see happening in the future with the plants, do you expect a good outcome? Every garden you plant, you hope that Mother Nature will treat it well and have a bountiful outcome.

Thank you for doing this interview and I hope anyone that is interested stops by to check out the straw bale garden here at Community Living Access.