Midwest Food Resources executive director Vesna Fa shows some fresh grapes at the community garden this week. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Organically grown

Midwest Food Resources wraps up community gardens harvest

Oct 6, 2022 | 3:58 PM

Midwest Food Resources community gardens in North Battleford are winding down for the season after wrapping up their harvest.

The project includes three gardens: the first is used by participating local residents who each pay a fee to rent space to grow vegetables each year. The second garden is used for the Midwest Food Resources’ Fresh Food Box program. The third is dedicated primarily for produce donations to local charities.

Midwest Food Resources executive director Vesna Fa said it was a good year for growing fresh fruits and vegetables.

“The gardens are all done for the year now,” she added.

It was a strong year for developing fresh produce. The only challenges the gardens experienced were at times too much heat.

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“We had nice rains but most of the time it was plus 30 [degrees],” Fa said.

There is also a need to bring more water to the gardens in the future, to help with irrigation.

All the fruits and vegetables in the three cultivated gardens are organically grown.

For the first garden, which is used by residents who rent their own plot of land, the harvest this year went well. In total, the average plot saw about 150 to 200 pounds of produce harvested.

Fa said it’s a great way for families to access fresh nutritious foods.

The first garden project also includes plots for two refugee families from Ukraine living in the Battlefords. Fa said Midwest Food Resources wanted to try to do what it could to help support these newcomers to make their settlement experience easier.

“At the beginning when you move to a new country, the community garden is like a new family,” she said. There are lots of people, and each of our gardeners help them a little bit. It’s a good way to get to know people and connect. Plus, you are growing some fresh produce.”

For the second garden, the Fresh Food Box project saw a wide variety of produce harvested, including lots of fresh dill plants, fresh kale, and beets. Fa estimates at least 15,000 pounds of various vegetables were harvested from the garden this year in total.

She pointed out that when considering pounds, each type of vegetable is weighted differently, so it’s not easy to sum everything up with a number.

“We were planning to have a Pumpkin Festival so we planted lots of squash, pumpkins, and zucchini. They weigh more than kale or lettuce [for example]. So you can’t always measure success by pounds,” Fa said.

Looking at the quality of the produce, cucumbers performed well this year, as potatoes, squashes, and of course the pumpkins, “which we are really proud of,” Fa said.

The third garden project is shared by the local Food Bank and Midwest Food Resources, to be used exclusively for community donations.

“We just want to give back to the community because the community supports us a lot,” Fa said.

The third garden started last year and is still progressing, but because of the success of the squashes and pumpkins, as well as the potatoes it was able to generate about 8,000 pounds of produce this year.

“The potatoes were planted on purpose to improve our soil,” Fa said. “They will grow in a poor and hard soil, and that’s what we need to soften and rebuild the soil. This is our second year of planting there.”

All the potatoes produced from the third garden were donated to Battlefords District Food and Resource Centre (Food Bank) programs and the Battlefords emergency shelter for the homeless, known as Miwasin Kikinaw.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow