The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) held an opening ceremony for its community garden Kitigànensagm on Sept. 3, after being relocated to a new spot behind Nesbitt Building.
Garden co-ordinator Jenna Smith said it has been a successful first season in the new location.
“We’re here to celebrate and get the word out about the garden for new students who may happen to want to sign up next year,” Smith said.
Smith added the garden plots are open to anyone in the Carleton community.
“I’ve been blown away by the sort of diversity of people who are here and people who are really committed,” she said.
Smith said they wanted to make the garden accessible to as many communities as possible.
“As tuition costs rise and youth unemployment rises sometimes it’s hard to access organic vegetables for a lot of students and other people alike, so this is just a free space and it’s wheelchair accessible,” she said.
Theo Hug, GSA’s vice-president (external) said he wanted the re-opening ceremony to be small and informal.
“It’s super easy. This year we were late because the garden didn’t start until the end of June, which wasn’t ideal but it was sort of just because we had to still build part of it,” Hug said.
“As soon as the garden was ready we just made an announcement on our website, on Facebook, through our graduate bulletin, saying that we had plots available.”
Hug added anyone interested in a plot can visit the GSA office and fill out the form. The plots are first come, first serve.
“Each person is just assigned a garden plot . . . You’re just assigned it as the applications come in. So once we have too many applicants you just don’t get a spot,” Hug said. “This season we actually managed to be entirely filled. It filled up really, really quickly.”
Hug added some organizations will have a dedicated plot from year to year.
“It’s open to everybody—we want the CUSA Food Centre to have a dedicated space, we would like the Odawa Native Friendship Centre to have a dedicated plot as well, and there might be other community organizations that might have dedicated plots,” he said.
Hug said it is important to acknowledge the garden is on unceded territory.
“To take these active steps to include Indigenous people in the ceremonies that we have so their traditional ways aren’t lost or forgotten and so that we as non-Indigenous people can see those ways and sort of have access to them as well,” he said.
GSA’s garden was moved from its original location in October 2013 when the university announced plans to build a new residence building in its place.
“In the old space there was in-ground gardens, which we weren’t able to do here just because we’re in a flood plane and the soil is sort of a poor quality and it’s just not the same set up as it was there,” Smith said.
“We compensated by building more raised beds to allow for the same, equivalent amount of garden space as there was in the old space but it just required some building,” she added.
Annie Smith St. George Kishkwanakwad, an Algonquin Elder, blessed the garden space during the opening ceremony.
“We thank the creator for the fruits and the vegetables he’s given us. We use tobacco too and we put it down to the earth, that’s an offering that we have,” she said.
Paul Dewar, NDP candidate for Ottawa Centre, Dr. Peter Ricketts, provost and vice-president (academic), and Councillor David Chernushenko presented speeches at the re-opening ceremony.
Prashant Ghulanawar, a first-year master’s student at Carleton, said he requested some space in the garden.
“We just came to know about the garden . . . So we could have some plots [to] could start gardening,” Ghulanawar said.
