Growing Community: The Fernie Eco Garden Aims to Cultivate More Than Just Vegetables
By: Angie Abdou
June 23, 2003
Two Fernie women, Dawn Dey Dey and Chelsea Robins, are in the process of establishing the town’s first community garden. While growing fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, and shrubbery is definitely on the pair’s list of things to do, they’ve set their ultimate goals much higher than that. In fact, the project is as much sociological as it is environmental. “What we’re trying to do,” explains Robins, “is create a focal point where people of all ages can get together and grow things and thereby bridge the generational gap between seniors and students.”
 The 90 X 270 foot space is perfect for achieving just this goal. The Fernie Community Eco Garden is located in Prentice Park between the Tom Uphill home and the baseball diamonds, right beside two schools—elementary and secondary. “It’s a good spot to bring people together, to show them a way of building a community that is sustainable not only through communicating, working together, holding workshops, and making a garden, but also by having more of an independence with your food and getting in touch with where your food comes from,” says Robins.
The garden will consist of two parts. One part is fenced off and contains fourteen raised beds (4 X 16 log beds). Each bed is filled with topsoil and compost and available to rent for a nominal fee of thirty dollars, which includes soil, water, tools, and a full summer of workshops. Almost half of these beds are spoken for, and people are already planting, even while the garden is still under construction. So far, the demographic of those who rent plots covers a wide range: varying from a young couple to a seventy year old man to a group of Fernie Academy students aged 6-9.
The other half of the space will be a demonstration garden. Here, Dawn and Chelsea, who are both certified permaculturists, will show their stuff. As permaculturists, the two women study the way in which all living organisms work together in a symbiotic relationship and then they find ways to replicate those intermingled relationship in man-made gardens. By learning how to mix and rotate crops so all have a beneficial effect on each other, gardeners can grow up to ten times more produce out of the same square footage. The techniques Dawn and Chelsea demonstrate will range from very old to very new. Chelsea explains, “Some techniques have been used since the turn of the century. Small independent gardens were particularly encouraged during the early wars of this century. Think of the victory gardens in World War II. The government’s slogans were ‘Produce your own! Can your own!’ Now, in wartime, the politicians tell us ‘Consume! Consume! Buy! Buy!’ Before, it was ‘Sustain your community! Stay local!’ That makes more sense to us: if you use more of your resources locally, you can be more independent and stronger. That’s the philosophy our garden is built on.”
Because of the emphasis on educating youth, the Garden is applying for a youth-initiatives grant through Columbia Basin Trust. “Bridging that intergenerational gap is so important to a community,” says Robins. “If kids grow up feeling their town is a warm sheltered place and they know everybody, they will build confidence.” And how do gardens fulfill this role? Robins’ answer is quick and sure: “Studies show that self-confidence and patience and maturity of kids who are involved in green spaces far exceeds those who don’t have any green area in their lives. So many kids today are growing up with supermarket food. We’re giving them an opportunity to get their fingers dirty, to get more in touch with nature, to play in the earth a bit.”
Even though the garden is still in the construction phase, there has already been success in involving Fernie’s youth. The Fernie Academy art class painted two garden boards for the project, and each of the Fernie Girl Guides have donated and planted a pack of seeds. The Girl Guides have also volunteered to help with autumn clean up and green manure planting (that is, planting an autumn crop that will be used as mulch to enrich soil).
There has also been success involving the opposite end of the spectrum, the seniors. People have wandered over from the Tom Uphill Centre and said that they are looking forward to visiting because they can’t garden anymore and miss it.
Robins makes it clear that she and Dey Dey intend to make the garden as welcoming as possible for these visitors. “We plan on having a lot of benches placed around the garden. We’ll have shady nooks, sunny nooks, some for large groups, some for more intimate groups. The raised beds and the demonstration beds will all be at a good height so no one has to bend over if they’re in a wheel chair. The paths will all be as smooth as possible, with wood chips down so they are level for anyone pushing a wheelchair or using a walker. The paths closer to the Tom Uphill Home will be more geared to ease of accessibility for walkers and canes. We really want the citizens at Tom Uphill to feel they can walk over at any time.”
The Garden’s workers are clearly busy with a long list of things to accomplish this season. However, they don’t see their growth ending there. Every year, they plan to expand and add more to this space. “Gardening is a continual process as things get established,” says Robins. “I really want to plant shrubs and grow fruit trees. We plan to include a wide variety of things—to add to the educational value. For example, we plan on having an area that shows what happens after a forest fire: there will be a burnt out stump filled with fireweed and other species that grow really fast. Our demonstrations will give people an idea of how beautiful and attractive these plants can be as well as how useful they can be.”
 The forest fire demonstration is only one of many planned throughout the summer. There will be demonstrations every weekend on topics ranging from stepping stones to rhubarb leaves to bird baths to soil rotation to inter-cropping.
The land has been donated by The City on a lease of three to five years. In three years, if things are going well, the opportunity will be there to extend the lease. “They are fully behind the project,” enthuses Robins.
In fact, Robins can’t say enough about all of the people who have helped get this garden going. “The volunteers have been fantastic, helping out for up to eight hours at a time. We’ve had restaurants donate lunches and snacks to keep volunteers fed. Everyone in town has been great!”
Robins and Dey Dey extend an invitation to everyone in the community to come out and get involved. Work parties are there every weekday after about 4:30pm and on the weekends after 10am. “There are a multitude of ways to contribute,” says Robins. “We accept donations of tools, of food, of time. Everyone has something to give. All are welcome.” She extends a special invitation to the youth of the community: “Some kids have come by not sure if they can help because they’re too small, but there’s always raking to do or rock picking. No matter how small you are, you can help. Bring old clothes and gloves. Be ready to get dirty!”
Clearly, this is a big project with lofty goals, but these two energetic women are just the ones to bring those dreams into being. “Our hearts are fully into it,” says Robins with a confident smile. “We eat, sleep, and dream garden.”
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