Growing better

Membertou project helps improve mental, physical health of seniors

Membertou garden helps improve mental, physical health of seniors.

MEMBERTOU — Grace Francis’ excitement about the three sisters garden at the Wally Bernard Memorial Seniors Centre is evident.

Part of the new community garden built at the centre this year, the garden is the traditional Indigenous North American way of companion gardening. Using squash, corn and beans in the same plot, each plant helps the others grow.

Francis explains the corn gives support to the beans as they grow up the stalk, the beans pull nitrogen from the air which gives a “boost” to all the plants and the squash spreads along the bottom which keeps weeds from growing.

“Look at how big this zucchini plant is. I’ve never seen one so big,” said Francis, who works at the band-run seniors centre.

“It’s all organic, our garden. There are no pesticides. I pick them all off by hand. It takes a long time but it’s worth it.”

Along with the triple sisters garden (which is in a raised eight by eight foot bed) are two other rectangular plots with produce like herbs, romaine lettuce and kale. These plots are built up higher, giving elders in the community who can’t bend or who have mobility issues, the opportunity to garden.

“All the produce goes back to seniors in our community,” said Francis who has been gardening for eight years.

“Most of our elders grew up eating stuff that came from family gardens. It’s nice to bring that back.”

Funding for the community garden project came from a grant obtained by the Membertou Community Gardening Society (Maupeltueway Ikataqn). One of the group’s co-ordinators, Pam Paul, applied for the grant through SHIFT — the provincial government’s strategy for seniors. The $5,000 grant was awarded under the intergenerational food literacy access program.

Paul said money was used to create the community garden at the seniors centre as well as to help others in the community start (or expand their) growing at home.

“There was one elder who had never grown anything before,” said Paul, who called the first year of the community garden program a “lifechanging” experience.

“I gave her a pot with a tomato plant and she was so excited to see it grow.”

Paul said one of the goals of the gardening project is to help improve mental and physical health of seniors by giving them free fresh produce and getting them digging.

“It’s real self-care when your gardening,” she said.

As the first year of the garden at the seniors centre starts to wrap up, Paul said she’s been receiving many calls from people already interested in the project next year.

Hopes are they’ll be able to expand as the years go by and Paul said one thing she’d like to see is a greenhouse for yearround growing.

“This was a learning process. We have never had a grant before (just help from chief and council),” she said. “It would be great if we could get a grant for a project manager (in the future).”

NIKKI SULLIVAN/CAPE BRETON POST Pam Paul, left, and Grace Francis helped create a community garden at the Wally Bernard Seniors Centre, where the Membertou 55 Plus Society meets, thanks to a grant from the provincial government. Produce from the three gardens is being given to elders in the community for free and some grant money was used to help seniors start or expand their home gardens.

NIKKI SULLIVAN/CAPE BRETON POST One of the beds at the Membertou community garden uses the three sisters garden layout — a traditional way of planting for North American Indigenous people. The three types of plants used are corn, beans and squash. Planted in this eight by eight foot box is corn, bush beans, pole beans, zucchini, spaghetti squash and butternut squash.

NIKKI SULLIVAN/CAPE BRETON POST A zucchini plant in one of the community garden beds in Membertou.