Meet the neighbours growing food in their front and backyards

Many Woodside residents now have a shorter commute to reach their nearest grocery store thanks to the recent opening of the No Frills establishment on Pleasant Street. The freshest vegetables in town, however, might be growing in your neighbour’s garden this spring and summer.

Neighbourhood residents Bill Kidney and his wife grow a variety of vegetables and fruits on their small urban lot, last season producing enough carrots and green beans to still be enjoying their harvest today.

For Bill and his wife, vegetable gardening is not about saving money. Bill chooses not to add up all of the costs associated with necessary purchases like soil and instead to focus on the satisfaction he gets from knowing that he has the skills to bring some food from seed to his table.

On top of the costs of gardening, there’s a lot of trial and error that goes into a successful harvest. For Bill, this means that the fruits of his labour — his tomatoes — are worth far more to him than the price you might expect to pay at a grocery store. “It really goes to show you that we are probably not paying farmers enough for growing our food,” Bill told the Post.

Down the hill from Bill, gardeners Anna and Kevin Ramsay run a fruit and nut tree nursery, Haoma Selections, out of their front- and backyard gardens. When they started growing trees on their urban Dartmouth lot 15 years ago, Anna and Kevin began by selecting varieties that grew well in areas with similar climate and environmental conditions to Nova Scotia. Today, their curiosity continues to motivate them to explore growing new perennial varieties, both to sell to clients and feed their family at home.

If you’re looking to start your own vegetable garden this year, it’s not too late. Vegetables that are native to warm regions, like tomatoes and peppers, shouldn’t be planted outside until mid-May to early June, depending on frost forecasts. And many other vegetables, like peas, carrots, and beans, can be seeded directly into the ground during the springtime for a summer harvest and during summer months for a fall harvest.

You can purchase many of the supplies you’ll need — including soil, fertilizer, seeds, and seedlings — at any of several locations in Dartmouth: Kent, Walker’s Feed & Supplies, and Lakeland Plant World.

As the spring temperatures continue to warm, you can expect to see more of the neighbourhood gardeners out in their yards. If they’re anything like me or the gardeners that I know, they’ll happily give you a tour and answer any of your garden-related questions.