Community gardens drying up

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This article was published 13/08/2021 (1540 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Barbara Ediger and Rod Kueneman have been praying for rain.

Ediger, the president of Sustainable South Osborne Community Co-op, has a plot at Riverview’s community gardens.

“Back when I first started we would plant, water until they were established and then leave it up to mother nature,” Ediger said. “There were dry times, but nothing like this.”

Kueneman is the past president of Sustainable South Osborne Community Co-op. He said that even if gardeners water rigorously, the plots are not as vibrant as they were in previous years.

This is the most sustained dry spell he has ever seen.

“The problem is we’ve got soil that’s dry for over a foot,” Kueneman said. “You can put water on top but it doesn’t stay there, it just gets pulled into the ground.”

Winnipeg recorded its driest July in nearly 150 years. The Winnipeg airport noted only 8.5 millimetres of rain while the 30-year average has been 75.8 millimetres.

Rural Manitoba municipalities declared local states of emergencies; groundwater has been depleted; cattle farmers have been forced to sell part or all of their herds; crops are withering; there are local water shortages; and the smoke from northern wildfires has forced many to stay indoors.

The gardens, organized by the Riverview Garden Society, have been able to keep their tanks full with river water, but it only goes so far. Gardeners have been forced to “marshall the resource” and water the plots that need it most. They are also harvesting fewer vegetables than they did in previous years.

“This drought is not a new thing, so it was bare last year but this year it’s just abysmal,” Ediger said.

The Riverview gardens have 110 plots. Seniors and young families grow their own produce at the site throughout the summer months, and over 60 per cent of the gardeners are from Riverview and Lord Roberts.

Ediger and her husband donate the produce they don’t need to community organizations, like Bear Clan Patrol and Agape Table.

“Last year we were going to Bear Clan once a week and I’ve probably gone once this summer,” she said.

Kueneman believes our recent dry weather and the difficulties Riverview gardeners have been facing speaks to a larger issue: climate change.

“We can’t even begin to factor in what the consequences are going to be of all the carbon release and all the loss of forests,” he said.

If this is the new normal, Kueneman believes, our water quality from the river will be poor or the river won’t have any water left, at all.

“That has nothing to do with gardening, it has to do with the major food crisis,” Kueneman said. “We’re trying to teach people how to grow food so they have these kinds of skills but you need sunlight, soil and water. This year we had only two of those.”

More information about Sustainable South Osborne Community Co-op can be found at www.sustainablesouthosborne.ca

To learn about the Riverview community gardens, visit www.riverviewgardensociety.ca