Lakeside Community Garden-Kingston,ON
670 Front Road K7M 6T5 Kingston, ON, Canada

Hey guys! My friend Sandra is having a pop-up plant sale to raise money for charity. She rescues plants that people don’t want in their garden and sells them to new owners. All the proceeds go to help feral cats in Kingston. I’ve bought a couple from her to add to my own garden and even some edible varieties I’ve added to my fruit tree guild at Lakeside! Check out the details in the poster. -Dan

Local open-pollinated seeds and tomato seedlings from the KASSI LIVING SEED COMMONS will be available on Saturday May 23 or Sunday May 24 from 2-5 pm in the par...king lot at St Luke’s Anglican Church located at 235 Nelson St in Kingston. Of course we will be doing this safely and socializing at a distance! The KASSI LIVING SEED COMMONS is a collection of locally adapted open-pollinated seeds. Open-pollinated plants grow like their parents. They produce seeds that can be legally grown, saved and shared. They are the foundation of our food system Did you know that you can save viable bean seeds from just one plant! The same is true for squash, tomatoes, lettuce and most of the flowers in the KASSI Living Seed Commons! Our seeds and seed collections are available on a sliding scale donation. We don’t sell our seeds because we acknowledge and respect that they are living beings. We believe that the price on a seed packet represents the work that goes into growing, harvesting, cleaning and packaging the seeds before they get to you. Local seed companies usually request a minimum of $3.50 per seed packet for their expertise and the labour that goes into producing high quality local seeds that grow well right here where we live. We encourage you to support them! We are a very, very small non-profit working with a shoestring budget especially since Seedy Saturday our major fundraiser- was cancelled. We rely on your donations and our amazing volunteers to help us grow, harvest, clean and package these Seeds of Hope. We put together a Seeds of Hope Collection that includes one package of multi-purpose bush bean seeds, one package of kale seeds, one package of lettuce seeds, one package of winter squash seeds and two tomato seedlings- one red cherry tomato and one with medium sized red fruit. Suggested donation for this collection is $20.00. The Seeds for Small Spaces Collection includes 5 multipurpose bush bean seeds, lots of lettuce seeds and one cherry tomato suitable for growing in a container. Suggested donation for this collection is $5.00 Seeds for other varieties of beets, beans, lettuce and kale will be available as individual packets. Individual tomato seedlings will also be available. Suggested donation for these items is $3.50 each. We will have a donation jar on site or you can use Pay Pal to make your donation! Instructions for how to use the Pay Pal site are available on our website (http://seedsgrowfood.org/donate/) WE APPRECIATE WHATEVER YOU CAN GIVE TO SUPPORT OUR CRITICAL WORK! WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU SAFELY AT A DISTANCE THIS WEEK-END! We hope that you can find the peace and joy that comes from planting seeds and connecting with the Earth at this time! #resources

Share your Spare Seeds and Seedlings! I've heard from many in our community that they have spare seeds and seedlings that need a home in some warm soil. I've also heard from many in our community that they have some warm soil in need of spare seeds or seedlings!... Until we figure out a better platform to sort out this predicament, make a post if you are looking for seeds or have seeds to give away! -Dan

KASSI Seed Saving Plot Management Volunteers Needed Hello Lakeside gardeners! I'm sure many of you are familiar with Kingston Area Seed System Initiative (KASSI) http://seedsgrowfood.org/. They manage a collection of local heirloom seeds. They have a partnership with Lakeside Community Garden to grow out and save their seeds. They are also looking for donations because their main fund raising event (Seedy Saturday) was cancelled this year!... KASSI is looking for volunteers who will manage one or two or more of their eight plots at Lakeside. Anyone interested please respond to this email! Cathy is holding two orientations and planting sessions this weekend: 10am on Saturday May 23rd and 4pm on Sunday May 24th. If these times don't work for you, we can arrange another time. This task has been added to the Membership Task List 2020 as item 15, and please add your name to the Task List Sign up Sheet too! Check out these details from Cathy: The Kingston Area Seed System (KASSI) has eight beds at Lakeside that we grow out for seeds. We plan to grow out one crop in each bed so that we have enough plants to ensure genetic preservation. One variety of tomatoes will take two beds. Attached please find the instruction sheet that Cathy made to help anyone who is growing seed in the KASSI beds at Community Gardens and the varieties that we hope volunteers will grow out this year. It might be easiest if people volunteered to take care of a bed or two or three or more :) With the exception of the tomatoes, we grow all of the other crops out for seeds so there wouldn't be any food to share. But we are always willing to share KASSI seeds with KASSI volunteers without asking for the usual sliding scale donation as long as they are willing to grow them out for seeds and food. And we can coach them about that too! Volunteers tending the tomatoes can harvest them for food and seed. I'm hoping that we can share the tomatoes with everyone in the garden as long as they are willing to collect seeds to give back to us! Or to keep and share with others! Of course KASSI is willing to provide support and coaching to anyone who needs it! And it would be good to get other gardeners at Lakeside growing open-pollinated seeds that they can save. I would be happy to do a workshop to help people learn how easy it is to save seeds. KASSI could provide seeds for those gardeners without requiring a donation for anyone who is helping out with the KASSI seed gardens. For anyone else- KASSI really needs donations this year because Seedy Saturday -our major fundraiser- was cancelled as you know!

Hey would anyone like to help out with mapping the Food Forest? We need a map of the tree guilds so we can keep track of all the trees. You can use the software of your choice you can even draw is by hand!

As you all probably already know, the community garden is now officially open & it's time to start tending our food forest!!! COVID-19 requirements Given the current state of emergency, we aren't allowed to operate as we normally do and must comply with restrictions and preventative measures developed in consultation with the Kingston Community Gardens Network, local garden representatives and KFL&A Public Health....Continue reading

Hey Guys! Here's this awesome group that was made recently to help the community with gardening! It stemmed from the increased demand for gardening this year because of the pandemic. Theres a great community here who will share knowledge, materials and even labour! Check it out! -Dan

Hi Gardeners, Yesterday the province of Ontario announced that all community gardens are closed due to COVOID-19. We are asking that Community Gardens be declared exempt as they are essential services for food production. Here is what you can do: Please DO NOT VISIT THE GARDEN, it is closed until further notice. Sign the Open Letter asking the government to identify Community Gardens as essential community food services which must be exempt from the recently announced closur...e of recreational spaces by the Province of Ontario. Email, call, write or tweet your MP, MPP, City Councillor & Mayor (contact information included below). Just Food in Ottawa has a suggested template. The Board met last night and we are still planning for the gardening season. In fact, we will be opening up 10 new permanent plots. We will be reaching out to people on the waiting list. Mark Gerretson, MP (613) 542-3243 [email protected] @MarkGerretsen Ian Arthur, MPP: Email: [email protected] Phone: 613-547-2385 Twitter: @IanArthurMPP Wayne Hill, City Councillor for Lakeside: (if you're in a different district, you can find your councillors contact information here) Email: [email protected] Phone: 613-328-5718 Twitter: @WayneHill_YGK Bryan Patterson, Mayor [email protected] Phone: 613-546-4291 @MayorPaterson LCG Board