Demonstration Urban Farm to head up the hill to École Roosevelt School

The Demonstration Urban Farm that once was found on
Second Avenue West is making a move up the hill
set to be in place in 2023 near Ecole Roosevelt Park School

We have an update on our notes of the departure of the Urban Farm of downtown last week. With some news  from Ecotrust Canada as to where the popular garden located on Second Avenue West will be calling home in 2023.

Shanon Lough, the Manager of Communications and Engagement at the Prince Rupert Ecotrust office at the Ocean Centre provided a thumbnail sketch of the success of the 2022 season for us. 

As well as to note that through their engagement with SD52 programs this year, the 2023 Demonstration Urban Farm and its programs will be based on land adjacent to École Roosevelt School.

For the past two years, the demonstration urban farm based on Coast Ts’msyen Territory in downtown Prince Rupert has been growing fresh vegetables, fruits, and herbs to share with community members. During the 2022 season, we grew a total of 340kg of produce at both the downtown urban farm location and at the Charles Hays Secondary School (CHSS) greenhouse. 

This food was harvested and offered as a donation to the community, the CHSS food class, and it was sold at the Kaien Island Seaside Pop-Up Market on August 27. Some of the proceeds from the market were put back into the garden program to expand infrastructure and programming. 

Working with the high school’s greenhouse showed us the potential for fostering food spaces programs within School District 52 in 2023. 

We also hosted a seed saving workshop with Roosevelt Elementary School at the urban farm, a seed saving workshop at Charles Hays Secondary School with Jolene Swain from Short Season Seeds, and a garlic planting and fall garden bed preparation workshop at Conrad Elementary School. 

Produce grown at the farm was donated to a diverse array of organizations in Prince Rupert. Seedlings started in CHSS greenhouse supplied urban farm, CHSS, other school gardens, Lax Kw'alaams, Metlakatla. 

Seeing the success of this Food Systems project has encouraged us to continue expanding, gathering, and sharing knowledge throughout Kaien Island. This fall, we relocated the main downtown urban farm to a new, already cleared location at Roosevelt School, where we will be erecting a shelter that will provide a space for more community-led workshops and food literacy knowledge sharing.

Land Adjacent to Roosevelt Park School is to be put to use
as the new home for the Demonstration Urban Garden

The move of the Demonstration Garden to the Roosevelt School area, makes for a return of sorts to the roots of early urban gardening in Prince Rupert. 

An area across the street from the School on the rise on the right side of the hill towards the school was once the home for some previous gardening, an initiative that eventually faded from the local scene.

Ms. Lough also observed on some other elements towards the popularity of the program in 2022 and how they expanded visibility for the project.

Throughout the summer months we had many visitors to the urban farm who stopped by to learn more about the project, growing practices, and wanting to share their own gardening knowledge. 

We’d see regional community members pop by daily, and when cruise ships were in town many passengers visited the urban farm. 

One of our most frequent visitors came from staff and clients from Hecate Strait Employment Development Society’s settlement centre. 

They stopped by to learn from our expert growers at the urban farm, who in turn visited the new Community Garden in Cow Bay to offer advice on how to maintain and harvest from the garden.

While the shift from downtown to the school area works well towards their knowledge program and ambitions towards information sharing; the departure of the Urban Garden from the Second Avenue site does take away what was a form of urban oasis for the downtown core.

You can learn more about the Urban Farm program through the Ecotrust website.

Updates on their plans as the they move into 2023 can be found through their Social Media feed.

More items of interest on community themes can be explored through our archive page.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.