Community garden in Markham to end after two decades

YorkRegion.com
Aug. 27, 2015
Laura Finney  

It’s the end of an era.

The Markham Community Gardens are being sold.

“They are getting too much for me,” said former councillor and town crier John Webster, who owns the land. “If you happen to go past now you’ll see some weeds as tall as I am, and there are some trees that have fallen down.”

The garden, near Parkway Avenue in Markham Village, is managed by the York Region Food Network.

All together there are about three acres of land and 85 plots open to residents.

“I think the main loss is for the community, the access to the land to grow their own food,” said Joan Stonehocker, executive director of YRFN, who also said she is grateful they have been able to use the land for so long.

Webster and his family have provided the land free to local gardeners for more than 20 years. It was YRFN’s first community garden when it opened in 1994.

“It’s the last piece of the family farm,” said Webster.

There is a long tradition of community farming here. His uncle used to open the land up to neighbours who wanted to use it to grow vegetables and other produce.

“These community gardens are fantastic,” he said. “They are not something you can put on the bottom line. It doesn’t show up on a balance sheet somewhere, but it does show up.”  

‘OLDER EVERY YEAR”

Webster still maintains the property and cuts the grass. Over the years he has also paid about $35,000 in investments to the gardens, and he pays the property taxes.

But he said it was time for him to sell.

“It was last year when we began to realize that something was going to have to be done, because I seem to be getting older every year,” he joked.

Wanting to keep the land as a community garden, he decided to offer it to the city. But, he said, they turned it down.

“I was disappointed,” he said, adding there were ways the land could be paid for without costing the taxpayers. “I wanted them (the gardens) to continue on in perpetuity.”

The city was unable to comment before time press time, but Webster said he does not want to badmouth the city, noting it has helped over the years with water, rototilling and waste collection.

The land has instead been sold to a developer, which was a difficult decision for Webster.

“It still is,” he said.

One of the most interesting things about having the gardens, he said, was the variety of people that used it.

It brought together people from other sides of the community and it brought together new Canadians and long-time residents.

“It’s fascinating because they don’t speak the same language, but they do, and the language is gardening,” he said.

And the garden has encouraged community.

“It’s happening here at a grassroots level, it’s happening in the gardening where people are having a common interest and are learning about each other’s cultures and food,” he said.  

“I think a lot of gardeners have gotten a lot out of the gardens, but I think myself and my family, my uncle and grandfather, got more out of it than they did,” he added.  

There are other community gardens in Markham, including the Markham Fair Community Garden, the Cornell Community Garden and the city-run Kirkham Allotment Garden in Ward 7.  

The gardens on Webster’s property remained open this year despite the impending sale, but he is not sure if they will remain open next season.

Stonehocker, who is currently working with Markham’s Sustainability Office to explore opportunities for new gardens, hopes the current location can stay open next year, too.

“We’re kind of hoping for another season while the new owners are working on their procedures,” she said. “Hopefully we can, because that would give us more time to investigate options, because it does take a while to get a garden going.”