Residents, volunteers and local dignitaries attended the grand opening celebration of the Woodman Park community garden and greenhouse on Saturday, July 12, 2025.
The community garden, which is intertwined amongst the park’s new and improved amenities like the pool and accessible playground, includes 56 garden beds (four of which are specifically designed to be used with mobility aids such as wheelchairs), a 24′ x 30’ greenhouse, shed and gravel walkways.
Amongst all of the leafy greens, tomatoes, zucchinis and all the other nutritious plants growing throughout the space, the garden also features 12 fruit trees and 27 fruit shrubs, supplied by Creek View Acres Nursery and Orchard and funded by a grant from Tree Canada.
Taylor Edwards, the greenhouse and learning centre coordinator for Equal Ground Community Gardens (EGCG), said that while it’s been a long time coming, getting to see the community and the garden come together has been deeply rewarding.
“It’s been open to the public for a bit now, and I tell people all the time that it just feels like there’s magic in the space. Every day that I’m there, there’s families and kids and neighbours just running throughout the garden and having fun,” she said. “This is exactly the space that the organization [EGCG] has been working towards and it’s very nice to see. We’ve constantly said, ‘it’s not just a greenhouse or a garden… it’s a community hub and it’s meant for everybody.’ It’s very quickly become one of my favorite places in the entire city; I spend both work time and personal time in that space, because it’s just refreshing, it’s beautiful, and it’s peaceful.”
Edwards said that, like all of the other organizations’ 30-plus community gardens sprinkled throughout Brantford-Brant, the Woodman Park garden is taken care of solely by local volunteers.
“It’s very common for parents to be kind of poking around in the garden and weeding or watering the beds while their kids are playing in the park because they have full view of them; it’s safe, and it allows them to kind of do two things at once,” she said. “Somebody asked me recently how many volunteers we have down there, and I genuinely can’t put a number to it because there’s such a large amount of people that are in the space every single day whether I’m there or not. It really is awesome.”
“We’re also really grateful that we haven’t experienced vandalism or any negativity towards the space,” she continued. “It’s actually very sweet because there’s this group of children that have also taken ownership over the space and they protect it, and they cherish it, and they love being there. They constantly want to help out and I love that.”
The greenhouse coordinator added that as far as the impact it’s made on the nearby residents, many of them have already shared how grateful they are.
“We have one community member in particular who visits the garden every single day with her daughter and she’s actually the reason why the garden is weed-free,” said Edwards with a laugh. “She told us that she’s been living across the road for ten-plus years, and there was kind of a dingy park there previously, so they got to see the pool be revamped and the playground put in, and then these gardens popped up; she said to us, ‘I don’t know how to express to you how grateful I am that this is here, I’ve been praying for this.’ So there’s been so many accounts of people and the neighbours walking through and saying things like, ‘this is making such a difference in my life, I’ve been able to add this into my weekly routine and we love being here.’”
Edwards also said that finally having a greenhouse in place has also made seasonal jobs much easier to accomplish.
“My job has been hard, but this year, having the equipment we actually needed to distribute 10,000 seedlings to the community was life changing,” said Edwards. “Actually having the equipment and the space that we need to be able to do our job has made such a magnificent difference and this year went off without a hitch. It is very hot in the summer, so we don’t use it in July and August, but come February and March, it will be the first time we’ll be able to grow our own seedlings on a large scale and that’s going to be huge for us. We’re also hoping that next year we’ll be able to teach people food sustainability, and we’ve been in talks with different groups about utilizing the greenhouse for workshops too.”
For those wondering how the community garden works, the greenhouse coordinator said it’s truly open to everyone and no bed on site belongs to any one person.
‘This information applies to every single one of our public sites, including Woodman; Equal Ground does not do plot rentals and so every garden is there for everyone. Anyone can come through at any time, and water, weed or harvest what’s there,” she said. “If there happens to be excess veg that the residents haven’t already grabbed, we work to get it into the hands of people because we don’t like things rotting in the garden. So sometimes that looks like giving it to people at the park or taking it over to the community centre, to a local pantry, or to the food bank. I always tell our local volunteers, if you’ve got your eyes set on something, make sure you get it while you can because you just never know if it will be gone the next day.”
Overall, Edwards said that seeing the garden thrive and watching the weekly community activities take place like yoga and drum circles, has been a dream come true… not just for her, but for the entire EGCG team.
“It’s very difficult to put into words how much this space has meant to our organization and of course, Cheryl Antoski, who was a previous Ward 4 Councillor and our founder. She’s in Nova Scotia now so she’s been watching from afar but she’s also incredibly excited for us and happy to see this space,” said Edwards. “You know, I’ve been waiting, along with other people, for this space for three years now and to actually have it up and running, and to feel safe, and to feel comfortable and to feel welcomed… it just fills my cup up, it really is a dream come true.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
