About the Garden
Our Garden
Windy Meadow Community Garden is located in the bottom corner of Markland St Park in the Cowan Heights area of St. John's. We currently have nine 4X8ft garden beds, a pea trellis, rhubarb patch and a pollinator garden. We have a composter for garden trimmings, rain barrel, storage bench and Little Free Library Bench.
How it started
For years a small group of us have dreamed of there being a community garden in the field behind our houses. We love gardening and we believe that anyone is capable of growing their own vegetables if given the space and a little instruction. It's an ideal location as it gets a lot of sun and there is plenty of space to have a garden.
In 2022, with the rising costs of food and us being in the right time of our lives to be able to take this on, we decided it was the year to start the garden! In Spring 2023, after approval from City of St. John's Healthy Community department we started with six 4X8ft garden beds, a pea trellis, a pollinator garden, a composter for garden trimmings, rain barrel, storage bench and Little Free Library Bench. In Fall 2023 we added three more 4X8ft garden beds and a rhubarb patch.
How it's going
For the 2023 growing season we rented out three garden beds and had three communal beds. Three families were able to grow food for themselves. One family chose to grow the produce they wanted to have for their fall Family Jiggs Dinners. In the communal part of the garden we grew potatoes, onions and carrots to donate. We gave 25lbs of potatoes, 10lbs of onions and 77lbs of carrots to Cowan Heights Elementary School and they distributed it to families in need for us.
For the upcoming 2024 growing season we now have nine beds! We hope we will be able to grow more and help more families have fresh produce to enjoy.
Check out our Photos page to see how things are Growing!
Our Plans for the Future
We are starting small and plan to grow big!
We have so many ideas about how Windy Meadow Garden can become a great neighbourhood hub providing fresh fruits and vegetables to the community. On our plan for this year is to add allotment beds so more people can garden and then keep adding beds each year as funding, space and interest allow.
Our dream list for the coming years includes making the garden more accessible by building wheelchair height and standing height beds and our dream is to plant fruit trees/bushes (apples, pears, plum, cherries, raspberries etc) to make a small food forest. Let us know if you have something you would like to see added to the garden!