In partnership with community members, Evergreen has created a number of community gardens across Toronto. The gardens weave together urban habitat restoration, food gardening, art and community development to help people to celebrate the special places where they live, work and play. Our program model has evolved to include gardens on the properties of social service agencies. With the help of our partners and supporters, these projects are helping to provide access to green space, educational opportunities (on nutrition and food security, for example) and job-skills training to those who need it most. Our current projects are:

Historic Fort York Community Garden
The community garden at Fort York grew from a mowed lawn in April 2008 to a thriving 38-plot garden in October, growing relationships with groups and individuals in the neighbourhood. Gardeners grew an average of 15-40 pounds of produce per plot, and have petitioned for a longer season to grow even more food in 2010. This site connects to actual soldiers' gardens from the early 1800s and puts this land back into agricultural production. More than 820 hours were spent building, planting, and celebrating in the garden in 2009.

Emmett Ave Community Garden:
Established in 2006, the Emmett Ave Community Gardeners grew from 18 members in 2007 to 32 in 2008, and is the only community space for food growing in Eglinton Flats park, in Weston-Mount Dennis. The garden celebrated its third growing season with 89 participants and continues to see an increased interest from neighbours on Emmett Avenue. Seven workshops in the garden and a Mount Dennis community kitchen brought gardeners and community members together to learn about local food and the food system, canning and preserving, and organic gardening.

Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Garden:
The Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Garden was established in 2003 as a partnership project between Evergreen and the Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment and Training centre. The garden addresses a number of timely issues, including food security, skills training for Toronto's Aboriginal people and community building. It is planted exclusively with wild plants native to Ontario and features some that have special cultural or medicinal significance, such as wild strawberries, Joe Pye Weed and monarda.

Eva’s Place Shelter
The Garden Project at Eva’s Place created a youth-run food garden on the Agency’s grounds, offering opportunities for youth to get involved in, and take responsibility for, all aspects of garden management, from planning and planting to maintenance, harvest and food-preparation. The garden project also offered opportunities for complementary programming around life-skills development, job preparedness, social networking, and countless other topics. The project aims to make city living more livable – by connecting interested youth with an opportunity to grow and harvest food, as well as inviting them to experience the reality of how others are growing food in the city. In 2008 150 people participated in community gardens, and we provided 18 gardening workshops.