As many of you know, the property that we have called home for the past 10 seasons has been for sale for some time. Recently it has become clear that with so much uncertainty surrounding the sale of the property, we cannot continue moving forward as usual. For that reason, we have come to the incredibly difficult decision to close the garden for the season ahead.
The road to the Working Centre Market Garden is not through country fields of corn or soy, barley or hay, rather it runs though city streets and neighbourhoods. You can arrive on the Number 6 bus, or by bike or foot, if not by car. And when you arrive, you are met with sun shining through the fruit trees, or raindrops on puddled paths, and the call of a robin or a wren as the osprey circle overhead. You are met by gardeners, eager to tell you stories if you’d like to listen. Eager to have your help with some weeding, or eager to get in a harvest and share it with you.
Hacienda Market Garden is a place where the work of growing food enables relationship building. Relationships are formed between gardeners; between gardeners and the work and ecology of growing food; between our garden and a broad network of farms and farmers, retailers and customers, supporters and colleagues.
The sun has been shining this September and the growers at Hacienda Market Garden have been making full use of it! In a challenging year, the garden has been incredibly productive and heading into fall we are very pleased with the growing season so far and are feeling confident and hopeful for the seasons to come!
For those of us whose livelihoods are tied to the seasons, winter, while far from idle, is a time for reflection, planning, learning, and rest. Our last season bore many hallmarks of success: 150 share members receiving weekly allotments of the harvest; 6 engaged and hardworking interns labouring alongside multitudes of engaged and hardworking volunteer gardeners; a 7% increase in crop yields; reduced weed and watering pressures as the result of years of diligent work and honing our craft; a season characterized by abundance and delight though not without trials and misfortunes.
This past season, a remarkable community of gardeners brought to the garden the skills, knowledge and curiosity to make 2018 our most productive year to date. With a 25% increase in yields compared to the previous year, we were able to feed 115 families weekly through our CSA program, as well as many more purchasing our vegetables through local stores and restaurants. Over 17,000 pounds on less than one acre of land! How did this happen?
Striving to understand how these natural systems function and adopting practices that work with them, as opposed to against them, is important work for all growers. Even “expert” gardeners will tell you there is always more to learn!
Over the winter months there is time to pause for reflection on the progress made in our first season at the Hacienda Sarria Market Garden. An ever expanding community of volunteers and contributors made this impressive garden possible. We look forward to continued growth of the garden and community in the years to come.
The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.
This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.
In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.
