The weather outside may be cold and wet, but that hasn't stopped the McMillan Arts Centre Community Garden from providing free produce this winter.
Thanks to a greenhouse completed last year and the use of hydroponics, the garden is growing vegetables such as lettuce, kale and Swiss chard through the cold and cloudy months, according to Dan LaRocque, who established the project with MAC executive director Jennifer Bate in 2023.
“We’ve been giving away food through the winter and it’s starting to pick up," LaRocque said, and added there are also plant seedlings growing in the greenhouse right now.
A series of workshops is planned, starting this February, which will cover topics that include fruit tree pruning, food forest planning, perennial vegetables, composting and pollinating. Later in the season the workshops will cover food preserves and pickling.
Laroque started the PQB Fruit Tree Project about a decade ago, inspired by the amount of food that ends up on the ground and wasted.
The organization reduces food waste by making use of local food sources such fruit trees and gardens and distributing the produce to the community
Information on the workshops, including cost, is available online through Eventbrite, at pqbfruit.org/ and the Facebook page facebook.com/PQBFruitTreeProject.
The community garden is fundraising through its "Whole Hog Raffle" and the grand prize is a freezer full of beef, valued at $2,300. Second prize is literally a whole hog, worth $1,000.
