Community garden initiative in Edmonton gives growing lessons, addresses food insecurity

Just along 118 Avenue lies the Alberta Avenue Community Garden.

Jacob Ulickij, a gardener with the community league, is sprouting opportunities for others with the program ‘growing together’.

“Ever since I was a kid, my parents have always taught it’s best to learn to grow things yourself, and it’s the skill that everybody should have,” Ulickij explained.

With his new initiative, he wanted to teach other members of the community how to garden and how to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, leafy greens, and even potatoes, as a way to address food insecurity in the city.

“Fresh food has sadly become a commodity to a lot of folks. So the ability to manage your own food, see it grow. Have an understanding of where it’s coming along. It’s just helping people realize and visualize their relationship with fresh produce and how simple it is to feed yourself if you have a small amount of land,” said Ulickij.

So far, 35 families have plots in this communal garden, with the centre plot dedicated to the initiative that started this summer.

“Very exciting to see our communal garden space is so productive and being used to help so many people, both healthy eating for providing some great healthy produce, but also just some healthy living and skills development,” said Karen Mykietka, the operations manager of the Alberta Avenue Community League.

Hoping that other community leagues would be inspired and follow suit.

“We have expanded as much as we can with our land, so other communities would have to take up the torch on that,” said Mykietka.

Ulickij is now picking up and cleaning all the harvested crop, ready to be delivered to charities, churches, and food pantries throughout the summer. 

“It feels amazing. It feels like all the kindness, all of the education that was given to me over the years. I’m finally able to give back freely,” said Ulickij.