Location
7427 Wellington County Road 30 (Grace Community Church). The garden is located across the parking lot from Grace Community Church in Marden, a 10-minute drive from The Guelph Tool Library in downtown Guelph. Find us on Google maps here.
About The Garden
The GROW Community Garden was founded in 2016 and became a part of The Guelph Tool Library in 2021. The garden is run by a group of volunteer members, who grow fresh, organic produce for themselves in private plots, and donate extra food grown in dedicated community plots. GROW is a learning garden that aims to promote skill-building around organic gardening, food security, and sustainability. We would like to give folks the opportunity to access and understand the importance of a fresh food diet, and teach organic growing practices, while also helping to relieve some of the strain on their monthly food budget.
Membership to the garden is completely free! All members share tasks to help run and maintain the space; such as filling rain barrels and transporting food to donation locations.
Criteria for joining the garden as a member include; having little or no full-sun garden space for growing vegetables or contaminated soil at home. Members should have the desire to work communally and learn about organic growing methods with a commitment to help with group tasks, chores, and growing food for donation.
The GROW Garden is a stepping stone for self-sustainability with an emphasis on community building. Our hope is to bring people together through gardening and to better our community through sharing and teamwork. During the growing season, we host educational workshops at the garden, featuring hands-on growing skills, art made in the garden, harvesting and food preservation methods, as well as public volunteer activity days called “Worker-bees”.
News & Updates
In 2021 The GROW Garden donated approximately 607 lbs of produce grown in the garden.
The GROW garden is now an official Monarch Waystation site. Canadian Wildlife Federation – Certified Wildlife-friendly habitat, member of the Pollinator Pathway network and a part of the Million pollinator garden challenge. The GROW Garden can also be found on the Community garden network map by Sustain Ontario.
GROW is home to The Guelph Seed library’s seed-production plots. A dedicated garden space where the seed library can grow varieties of herbs, flowers and vegetables for seed saving. To learn more about The Guelph Seed Library click here.
Reserve a Plot or Get Involved
For more information about the garden, volunteer opportunities, and donations, visit the GROW Project Guelph on Facebook
Contact Coordinator – info@guelphtoollibrary.org