New community garden for Captain Cornelius Park

It wasn’t exactly gardening weather.

Still, dozens of students from Annunciation of Our Lord elementary school and Bishop Tonnos high school got bundled up to help move dirt, assemble plots and build a shed earlier this month at the new 6,000-square-foot accessible community garden at Captain Cornelius Park on the west Mountain.

The garden is being run by Hamilton Community Food Centre on a piece of land provided by the city.

“It’s a weird time to launch a garden,” said Clare Wagner, director of community food at the food centre, which is part of Neighbour to Neighbour Centre.

She said the garden will be run by volunteers and used to grow food for residents in the Rolston neighbourhood, where the park is located. It will serve as a teaching tool to educate Hamilton elementary and high school students about all aspects of food growing from planting to weeding and pollination to harvesting.

“To make sure students get hands-on experience,” Wagner said.

Work on the garden began several months ago and the facility was made possible by a $65,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

In addition to purchasing materials for the garden, the money covered the cost of installing accessible pathways to the site and some of the money also went to upgrades to the community food centre’s patio, said Wagner.

Wagner said planting will begin in the spring and the produce grown will reflect the diversity of the community.