Saskatoon community gardens get the green light for 2020 – with added COVID-19 rules

For those with green thumbs itching to get their hands in the dirt this year – there’s some good news. Saskatoon community gardens will be allowed, with special rules.

CHEP Good Food Inc. supports the community garden network by acting as a liason between gardeners, the City of Saskatoon (if the gardens are located on city property) and community associations. There are 55 of them in various parts of the city.

Zoe Arnold is CHEP’s urban agriculture coordinator. She says proposals to allow gardening to go ahead this year had to be approved first by public health officials and Saskatoon’s emergency operations centre.

Some of the basic rules will include maintaining a minimum physical distance from other gardeners and limited group sizes, but there are a few unique considerations that will also need to be figured out.

“Scheduling, so that there is a way to minimize the number of gardeners present on site,”explains Arnold. “Some of our largest gardens have up to 80 plots, so they’ve created schedules to ensure folks are having enough time to garden, but not interacting with each other.

“Other protocols are in relation to watering. Trying to come up with a way to irrigate that doesn’t involve a commonly touched surface, and just minimizing the risk there.”

Arnold says gardening is an extremely popular pastime in the city, and following some basic rules should keep people safer.

Each association, school or gardening community is required to submit a safety plan and most have done so. Some gardeners have been able to plant already, while others are getting their rototilling completed or compost delivered, and are waiting for their water to be turned on.

Anyone interested in joining the community garden can contact CHEP for rules, regulations and wait times for plot allocation.