Status: COMPLETED March 2010 - Fall 2012
The Edible Campus Garden, a collaborative project of the McGill School of Architecture's Minimum Cost Housing Group, Alternatives, and Santropol Roulant, seeks to involve citizens in the creation of green, edible community spaces by demonstrating how productive planting can be woven into urban spaces without diminishing their utility or functionality.
The Burnside Terrace serves as the motor of this ambitious project demonstrating strategies for increasing urban food production and forming a part of the sustainable food cycle that includes food production, preparation, food delivery, and composting. Over 200 self-watering containers and a 100m2 rock basin converted into raised beds are tended by volunteers and provide half of the vegetables used by a meals-on-wheels kitchen serving daily 80 to 100 clients who are mobility impaired. In summer, some harvest is distributed to residents of a low-income neighborhood, where fresh produce is hard to come by. With the help of Sustainability Fund we have enhanced, expanded and consolidated the garden to reach out to the community with the help of educational initiatives: posters, publications and interactive panels, workshops and public events and making the Edible Campus into a “showcase,” of effective urban agriculture for all.
See also: Edible Campus 2 (SP0036).
For further information conerning this project, or to get in touch with its members, please contact the krista.houser [at] mcgill.ca (SPF Administration Team).
