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October 28, 2000
Garden helps community
to blossom
IN
THE Garden of Eden, cherry tomatoes and bitter melons are slowly edging out the prostitutes. The community garden has just
wound up its first year in the backyard of the May Robinson senior apartments in Parkdale. After the abundant harvest, the
gardeners were closing up for the season on the day I came to visit.
In
15 little plots separated by paving stones, the Vietnamese perennial herbs were nestled under a winter mulch of straw. The
tomatoes and pepper plants were all cut down and composted, bone meal was dug in, and the pungent smell of manure came in
gusts in the skipping autumn breeze.
But
what did the garden have to do with prostitutes, I asked. I was promptly introduced to Aurora Meliton, 82, the “Queen
of the Garden”. She is crowned with white hair; her throne is a wheelchair with faulty brakes. She laughs merrily when
the chair slides backward, secure that one of her fellow gardeners will catch her in time.
Meliton
had had the idea of the garden for years. Then one of the many local prostitutes murdered a customer right in the building.
Suddenly, local authorities responded positively to Meliton's idea that cultivating and fencing in a garden in the deserted
little backyard might help deter loiterers who plied their trade there.
Has
it worked?
“Not
entirely,” Meliton chortled. “But we can always try.”
It
was she who named the garden, and judging by her command of local politics (both she and her late husband were lawyers in
their native Philippines), she will yet triumph in her quest for raised garden beds and a greenhouse.
Like
most community gardens, the G. of E. is already rich in lore, new friendships and a sense of neighbourly cohesiveness. The
seniors who garden here are from Ecuador,
Vietnam,
Guatemala, the Philippines - and Prince Edward Island, like Ellie Dykens, who brought a platter of tuna fish sandwiches to
sustain us through the day's tasks, while the Nguyen family arrived with mountains of fried Imperial rolls and fresh spring
rolls. We learned from interpreter Aysha Marks to say “delicious” (ngon lam) and “thank you” (cam
on).
Taking
turns on the rented roto-tiller - the garden is so popular that 30 more plots are being prepared for next spring - were Shawn
Conway, of the Parkdale Community Banking Project, and George HooSue of the Royal Bank. They've been working full-time for
the past two years, together with the community, to create and run alternative, friendly, small-scale banking outlets nearby.
Laura
Berman, a full-time community garden co-ordinator who is funded by FoodShare Toronto, keeps it all rolling. She is earthily
dedicated to these gardens, especially for lonely and inactive seniors, who literally blossom when they tend and till. “Not
to mention the nutritional benefits. You should have seen the tons of produce from these tiny plots!” Berman told me.
There
are 93 community gardens across Toronto now - each of them working their little local magic of community building, environmental
greening, health promotion and friendship weaving. But gardens don't just happen. Much of Berman's time is taken with rustling
up tiny grants and donations for organic manure, tools, seeds and paving stones. There's a desperate need for more co-ordinators
to support and sustain the work in hard-luck corners of the city.
“I'd
love to have a sign on each garden, a shed for storing tools, triple compost bins and a proper message board to co-ordinate
schedules,” Berman sighed. “It turns out that each weather-proof board would cost $400.”
Obviously,
government funding is a chimera - but wouldn't these priceless little pocket gardens be a perfect candidate for major corporate
sponsorships? Attention all banks, pharmaceutical companies and major horticultural businesses: What could make you look more
benign and beneficent than your name on these little oases of beauty and human connection?
How
much good could be accomplished with modest backing. It's often the small, unassuming, co-operative endeavours that can make
the difference between community cohesion and a neighbourhood's downward spiral.
On a crisp fall afternoon in the Garden
of Eden, after volunteers from the city parks department and the University of Toronto had helped to break the ground, all
of us lined up together and walked forward across the fresh earth, strewing rye seed with great, rhythmic sweeps of our arms.
Next spring, the rye will be ploughed under to enrich the soil before planting. It was so much fun to be together, doing something
so elemental and good, that we laughed out loud as we sowed. Our laughter needed no translation.
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