Boyle McCauley News

Since 1979 • April-May 2024 • Circulation 5000

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McCauley Permaculture Starter Kit

The first steps in a new direction can be the hardest ones. When I moved to McCauley 16 summers ago my gardening experience consisted of working for landscapers and on my brother’s tree farm. I had been involved in starting community gardens. When I returned to Edmonton in 1994, Camp HeHoHa offered plots south of my workplace. When I moved downtown, Riverdalians offered a share of their plots.

In 1994 we organized a gardening workshop at Grant MacEwan Community College (now MacEwan University) and brought in speakers from Missoula Urban Demonstration project, and local gardeners and friends from Sombrilla (a Latin American social justice group) and the City of Edmonton lent a hand. Soon I was growing my own plot at the Boyle McCauley Community Garden.

Having an associate diploma in Horticulture from Guelph is a mixed bag. Colleagues will sometimes ask: what can I do with my lawn? Acquaintances will insist that my concrete patio needs to be covered in containers. Neighbours and passersby wonder at the number and variety of berries in my downtown east yard. I was not sure how I was going to cover the ground!

Before I broke ground in McCauley, I asked my neighbours what the people grew who lived on site before me. I was told of the plum tree which flowered on the north side of the garage. My alley-side neighbour brought blueberries and told me about the family who grew bok choy and how it dried on the south side of the garage before it was picked up for the local markets.

With these ghosts in mind I identified what was growing already: peony, hen and chicks, and elephant ears. A variety of mint was growing through my neighbour’s back yard fence and with Glenna’s permission I let it take over the narrow strip of land between her fence and my concrete patio. I was ready to let the gardeners I knew know I was getting ready to plant.

Before the first summer was finished I had planted an Evans cherry tree brought to my yard by my south side U of A friends. My neighbour to the north of me brought raspberries from her VIA rail friend a few blocks south. Blue iris came from my Glenora colleague. My mother sent me yellow tulip bulbs. My realtor brought a globe Cyprus and my neighbor two doors north nodded approval.

I called it the starter kit for my McCauley garden. I added two Saskatoon for the north east corner of the front yard. I was hopeful that gardening in McCauley would be fun, creative, and provide a welcome to the world beneath our feet! Over that first winter in McCauley I pored over a bedrock seeds catalogue for native plants from home, southern Alberta. As I planned next spring’s perennial planting I chose blue flax, artemsia, and yarrow. In my mind, the small yard was taking shape.

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